A Creative Perspective on Travelling Light

One of the dangers we face as creative professionals is a tendency to assume that we already know how to solve a particular problem because we've worked with similar clients, projects or products before. It's an easy trap to fall into, particularly in an environment where efficiency and streamlined production are the darlings of every business blog. 

One of the mostly invisible components of creative work—and more challenging than you might imagine—is to jettison the past and wrestle with our own preconceived notions (and sometimes those of our clients) in order to create an open and fertile environment for the new possibilities that will best fulfill the mandate we have been given. Creative problem-solving requires a new and thorough consideration from all angles, inside and out, starting from ground zero. 

Travelling light includes getting rid of our emotional baggage. Good solutions are designed to elicit both intellectual and emotional responses from their end-users in order to achieve the goals set forth by our clients. This doesn't meant that we ourselves should get too emotionally attached to our concepts... in fact, although our passion for creativity may fuel our daily calling, emotional attachment to our own ideas can be an obstacle to truly creative solutions, while intellectual clarity about the true purpose of our work allows us to serve our clients best... and to explain how and why a concept will work in all the ways that matter to our clients.

Of course, as we work through each of the possible angles to solving the current issue at hand, we don't throw away everything we know. Our past experience provides valuable insight and guidance, but an open-minded examination of each decision will keep us from falling into the trap of taking particular choices for granted or letting the wagon wheels roll us down the ruts most travelled.

After all, didn't you become a creative professional in order to be an explorer and adventurer, discovering a new world every day?

 

Lucky by Choice

Have you ever had a moment where everything in the universe seems to align in your favour? It may be the shortest or rarest of moments, but I believe it does happen when we let it, even in the midst of very difficult and trying circumstances beyond our control.

This photo was taken early one morning at our annual Rover reunion camping weekend many years ago. The dew and the sunrise were both fleeting, but following the spontaneous instinct to get up for an early morning walk meant being in the right place at the right time and receiving this unexpected visual gift, as well as an inner sense that all was right with the world. 

We can paralyze ourselves with the conviction that we are unlucky—that we are not receiving the rewards we deserve—while others are blessed with better luck and seem to get everything that they want out of life. While it's true that life often doesn't go the way we expect, our sense of being unlucky can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we are entirely focused on what we deserve and how we are working tirelessly to get it, we are likely to miss the surprises and treasures that lie on the unexplored side roads of our lives.

Creativity grows from the juxtaposition of unexpected elements; if we control and plan and decide every aspect of our lives based on what we already know and expect, creativity has no place to blossom. Sometimes the greatest blessings spring unexpectedly from the most challenging ground, and creativity thrives with some adversity, some "bad luck" that might make us step back, change direction and look for the good on another path.

Have you ever had a moment where everything in the universe seems to align in your favour? Just open your eyes and look around; you might be standing in front of one right now.

Dreaming in Technicolour

Do you ever wake up with an image imprinted on your brain? 

Do you feel an urgency about capturing those thoughts and images? And as your waking mind takes hold, do the images and thoughts start to fade and slip away, lose their bright and shiny lustre, sliding into muddy puddles of doubt? Do you question why they seemed so charming and insightful in the first place? 

Which is more real: the spark of the dream, or the dimming of the spark that comes with the dawn? I'd rather believe in the dream, but I often find myself limiting my actions and living within the duller and more mundane boundaries of "reality", losing some of my faith and excitement for the initial vision along the way.

Creative work does require a balance of graceful dreaming and gritty realism to come to fruition; we need to push and pull the boundaries of our perceptions, to capture those sparks (like the lightning harvesters in the movie "Stardust")... but we also to analyze and utilize the tools at hand (or invent new ones) to maintain or enhance the freshest and brightest aspects of the dream. We grind and polish the diamonds, refine the silver with fire and hammer the metal into shape. It's not magic, it's hard work... but when we do that work right, the work itself is invisible, and the focus remains entirely on the magic of the dream.

Hi ho, hi ho....