Why read this? : Combining things which don’t normally go together helps you come up with new creative ideas. We give that a go this week. Learn what happens when we mash up a brainstorming lesson, Stephen King and T-shirts. Not as weird as it sounds. Read this to see how these link creative thinking, writing and graphic design together.
Let’s start with a random question to get you thinking more creatively this week.
Can you guess what brainstorming, Stephen King and T-shirts have in common?
That’s probably not a question anyone’s ever asked before (or likely to again). But because we like the idea of being polymaths, all 3 topics have been rattling around our heads this week.
And believe it or not, we did find one thing they all have in common.
And it’s this. Whatever their creative goal – an innovation idea, a bestseller, a fashion statement – all 3 use the same underlying creative refinement process.
They all recognise creativity is a process. That process starts when you generate ideas, Then, you refine those raw material ideas into fewer but better quality ideas. Eventually, you have finished creative ideas.
This creative refinement process links those 3 initial ideas :-
- Brainstorming made us think of how you move from idea generation in marketing innovation to build your business case.
- Stephen King made us think of how you edit what you write to make your writing have more impact.
- T-shirts made us think of how we start with a loose graphic design idea which we refine before it goes on a T-shirt in our online shop.
Brainstorming lesson
We’ve just updated our marketing innovation guide, and also recently added a whole new guide to creative thinking.
In both those guides we talk about the importance of creative problem solving.
One of the most common approaches used by both creative companies and uncreative companies is brainstorming. Most people don’t know the idea of ‘brainstorming’ actually dates back to 1939. Yep, brainstorming is older than World War 2.
An advertising executive called Alex F. Osborn came up with it as a way for groups of advertising people to create new ideas.
For most people, that fact it’s been around so long is a brainstorming lesson in itself. Because weirdly, the basic principles of what Osborn put forward – throw out as many ideas as you can as a group and don’t question any of them – are still true for most brainstorming sessions today.
They’re what fits into that ‘first draft’ creation process. Those principles of brainstorming have survived to the modern day. The problem is there’s no evidence the brainstorming approach is actually any good at doing what it’s supposed to do.
Brainstorming in the marketing innovation process
As part of your creative thinking or innovation process, brainstorming is one of the more fun elements of what you do at work.
You get to write on coloured post its for a start. You get to stick the post-its on the wall and move them around. There’s no criticism or judgement allowed.
You get to say ANYTHING you want. And no-one can laugh at your crazy ideas. It’s not allowed.
Like focus groups, for some reason there are always huge amounts of snacks. And as a group, when you do these sessions, it does always feel like you have done something.
Created ideas.
Feels good, right?
That feels more constructive than the forecasting and budget meetings which take up most of your time.
However, here’s the really key brainstorming lesson to bear in mind.
The more important part of the process is not the brainstorming itself. It’s what comes next.
Not the ideas but what you do with them
It’s not unusual to generate 50, 100 or more ideas in a brainstorming session. But what comes next?
As per our ways to generate ideas article, you need someone to facilitate the session. The poor facilitator has to collate those ideas into some sort of story that makes sense. Knowing that a bit like The Hunger Games, there’s usually only going to be one winner.
That’s a key brainstorming lesson right there. It’s good to start with a big pile of ideas, but how you nurture and refine them afterwards is even more important. (for example, see our creative approval article about how companies like Pixar and Amazon manage ideas).
Not all ideas will make it. And often many of the ideas which come from brainstorming shouldn’t make it. Read the excellent Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, and you’ll see there’s lots of evidence brainstorming generates no more or no better ideas than letting everyone come up with ideas on their own.
It doesn’t really matter how you come up with these raw ideas. Just that you do come up with them. Because it’s the process of refining and editing those ideas which moves you towards finding winning ideas.
Stephen King
Which brings us on to Stephen King.
A bit of a leap we know. But stick with us.
In his memoir On Writing, which we refer to in our writing skills guides, he talks about the method he goes through to get his books out the door.
It’s clearly worked for him, given he’s one of the most well known and successful writers in the world.
When starting to write a new book, he locks himself away and bangs out 1,000 words a day minimum.
He writes without worrying too much at this early stage about how good it is. The words in his first draft are his creative raw materials. He knows he’ll then come back and polish it later in further drafts before readers actually get to see it.
(see more on drafts in our article on 5 habits to enhance your writing expertise).
In his book, he recommends leaving a gap of at least 6 weeks between the first and second drafts. He locks his first draft in a drawer.
This is a bit harder to do with business writing. But the principle of going to do something else between drafts is a good one. If you do something else after the first draft, you read the second draft with much fresher eyes.
Suddenly, that part which made no sense or was hard, you see how to fix it. Or even how to leave it out.
Second draft = First draft - 10%
He also has a great rule for writing that first drafts are always too long. People naturally write long.
In your second draft, delete words so its word count is 90% of the first draft. His advice is this will make your writing easier to read.
We love this. We now do this on everything we write.
All those unnecessary passive sentences and adverbs. Go for the kill. Root them out. They add no value.
The simpler, the better.
T-shirts
Which brings us on to our T-shirt designs. As per our learnings on our T-shirt designs article, our first sets of T-shirt designs were too complicated.
Like the brainstorming idea reject list and the 10% of Stephen King’s first draft.
So we revisited our old T-shirt ideas and forced ourself to make them simpler. Our refinement of these designs made them sharper and clearer.
We added 3 new designs to our store this week. This mum loves, Keep calm and have a beer and Gincredible now have less design elements than the original idea which inspired them.
Simplified T-shirt design
Complicated T-shirt design
We’ll be running some advertising for them shortly. We’ll let you know how these simpler designs go.
But even aesthetically, we know they’re an improvement.
Clearer. Sharper.
Let us know if you think so too.
Conclusion - Don’t undervalue creative refinement
Though our examples come from 3 different creative areas – creative thinking, writing and graphic design – you can see creative refinement makes the initial ideas better.
You start with the raw materials of an idea. But then you polish and refine it into something better. Often the most creative ideas come when you combine different thoughts to create lots of initial ideas. Accept these don’t have to be good right away. Allow time for ideas to develop, and experiment with putting different ideas together to see what works.
That’s whether you’re working on a marketing innovation, writing or selling T-shirts. It’s the same underlying principle, no matter which area of creativity you’re working on.
Check out our creative thinking guide for more brainstorming lessons and thoughts on how to manage creativity. Or get in touch, if you need help with your creative development process.
Photo credit
Bulb on Post it : Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash
Person writing near mug : Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
