How to be a better creative?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what separates the best creatives from the rest and I’ve discovered something very interesting…

The best creatives are strategic. They know their processes. But they don't just know their processes. They deeply understand WHY they do things a certain way. 

 In other words, the best creatives don't just do, they think things through methodically. They always have an explanation of why they have decided to do something in a certain way. 

 But they don't just stop here, they have considered other options and angles and approached it from multiple different perspectives first. 

 They have an open, curious mind, and an eagerness to discover the very best solution possible, rather than just going for option A without much thought and leaving it there. 

 Don’t get me wrong, there's a fine balance. You don't want to end up procrastinating because you've considered too many possible options and are in decision paralysis. 

But as a strategist, you always want to back up and test your assumptions and biases. 

You don't just need to understand what you are doing, you need to fully understand why you are doing it. 

Example…

To illustrate my point, let's say you have been asked by your team lead to create a tone of voice for a client's brand because they have just been through a rebrand. 

But there's one problem…

You've never really created a tone of voice before. Where to start?

You see a brand personality slider on Google and decide to give it a go, and after an hour or so you end up with a few different tone of voice words you think could work. You then immediately go and create some examples of copy to illustrate the tone. Voila! 

Your mind starts to race with thoughts like,

“I think the client is going to love it!” 

“I'm so excited to see this brand voice come to life!”

As you start to present your shiny new tone of voice guide to your team lead, you get questions like…

• “Why did you choose these 3 tones of voice verbs?”

• “This doesn't align with their rebrand?” 

• “Why did you decide that?”

• “Where did you get that from?” 

You are stumped. You fumble over the questions. You thought your team lead would love your work! You loved the copy, it was fun to write, and it's really creative. Ughhh..

This is a classic case of poor strategic skills. 

Even though you may have created some beautiful lines of copy, if you don't understand why you made those decisions and the process that led you to the solution, let alone understand the business and the brand, then your solution will be superficial, and you'll stumble at any questions. 

This is the area we creatives should focus on if we want to take our business to the next level and start landing high-paying clients and bigger projects. 

I’m talking about becoming a solid strategist and lateral thinker. 

This leads us to our next question…

What are some ways to improve these skills?

First stop, take a look at these posts for some lateral thinking exercises: 

👉This one 

👉 And this 

👉 aaand this 

👉 k one more

The Bottom Line 

Keep exploring new angles and routes, and noting down your processes until you fully understand why you are doing something, not just what you are doing. 

P.s If you found this helpful, feel free to recommend the newsletter to a friend, it really helps me out! 

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