Illustration by Al Murphy from ‘Creative Demons & How to Slay Them’
I write regularly about the hunt for great ideas, here on my blog, as well as for publications like Creative Review. You can join my mailing list to receive the articles just as soon as they’re posted. Or for a deeper dive into the most important things I’ve learned through a lifetime of being curious about creativity, why not order ‘Creative Demons & How to Slay Them’?
When it comes to the creative process it can be helpful to differentiate between idea and execution. The idea is the core concept underpinning your movie, short story, music video, commercial or whatever it is that you’re making. The execution is the way you choose to realise the idea, to make it real …
Read MoreIn the early stages of my creative career I’d find myself, now and again, sitting in the audience at a workshop. I remember looking at the men running the workshops – back then it was mostly men – and thinking, quite clearly, I never want to be one of those guys ….
Read MoreBafflement and fear. These are often the emotions I see on the face of a creative or designer when they’re asked to put a pitch together. And it’s a strange thing, they approach the process of hunting down ideas with enthusiasm and gusto …
Read MoreI love convention. As a statement from someone who sets out to promote creativity and original thinking this may seem a little counterintuitive, but allow me to explain. Every creative category has a series of established conventions …
Read MoreWhat makes one piece of creative work stand out above the rest? What makes something catch our eye, quicken our hearts, fix in our memories? It’s easy to make a judgment call on whether an idea is just OK or whether it feels like something really special, but it‘s much harder to say why that is …
Read MoreIf you’re a professional creative then you’ll know that having a great idea is, unfortunately, only part of the process. If you want to see your idea made real then then you have to be able to sell it …
Read MoreWe tend to think of the creative process as cumulative. Once inspiration has struck and an idea has been born then we work to bring that idea into being, step by step, line by line, brush stroke by brush stroke …
Read MoreIf your daily bread depends upon your creativity then there’s a good chance that times are tough. Budgets are travelling in the wrong direction and you can be fairly sure that sooner or later someone will tell you there’s an algorithm that can do your job just as well as you …
Read MoreIn 1967 Aretha Franklin was 25 years old. She was already something of a music industry veteran, having recorded no fewer than nine albums. Yet not one of these records had troubled the top of the charts …
Read MoreDo you remember the day you got your first professional job? When the envelope flopped through the letterbox, or the long awaited call finally came, and you knew that this was it, your first step on the ladder …
Read MorePerhaps it’s no coincidence that the word we use to describe receiving notes from a client about a piece of creative work can also be used to describe the ear shattering sound of a howling guitar …
Read MoreThis haunting painting of a lone figure amid an eerie landscape is the work of Chinese artist Mu Xin …
Read MoreGood artists copy. Great artists steal. These six simple words are often quoted. Most people ascribe them to …
Read MoreIt was fifty years ago last May that The Beatles released one of the most influential records of all time ...
Read MoreKnowing which illegal drugs to take to enhance your creativity can be something of a minefield ...
Read MoreHere’s something I’ve noticed during my time in design and advertising ...
Read MoreTowards the end of the 1980’s and into the 90’s the German tennis player Boris Becker was unassailable ...
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