Be More… Logical

Or, how to be properly creative.

Ok, you’ve maybe read the headline to this piece and thought:

‘What?! We’re creatives! We’re meant to be the crazy ones! We’re meant to kick logic in the face and poke out his eyes! Then burn him! Then have a wee on his ashes!”

Feel free to take the approach, but if you do, your ideas may forever remain on your Moleskin. All great ideas start with a simple logic. Or truth, if you prefer.

Execution comes later. That’s when you dress your logic/truth in fancy clothes and spray on some perfume but if you’re putting those clothes on a horrible body, you’re wasting your time.

Don’t believe me? Deconstruct some ideas and you’ll see how they’ve come from a logical thought. Lynx (or Axe for some of you): smelling nice gets you the girl. Guinness: a pint so good it is worth waiting for. These are hardly groundbreaking insights, but they produce groundbreaking work.

Perhaps you’re now thinking:

“Hey I could come up with that!”

Well, do. Learn not be scared of simplicity as a starting point. Learn to recognise it. Learn there is power and confidence in it.

Beyond ads, even great works of art have a simple logic that inform the rest of the work. Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘There Will Be Blood’ is about God vs Money. Money wins. Each decision in the film-making is based on the simple logic that is the spine of the piece. Orwell’s 1984 uses perfect sentence after perfect sentence to jackboot home the message that information is power — an idea we can all understand and relate to.

Try this exercise.

Spend some time thinking of a short sentence that describes the thought behind your idea. If you can’t do it (and it’s often harder than you think) then there’s a good chance your idea isn’t strong enough yet.

Short doesn’t mean you’ve cracked it though.

For instance, you might write:

“People buy this car because speed reminds them of when they were children.”

Speed doesn’t remind people of when they were children.

Fact.

(Unless they were a four year old Formula 1 driver — actually this is another sign your idea probably isn’t right: you’re smart ass starts throwing pathetic exceptions at your brain Spok.)

What you’re seeing here is ad bullshit. Recognise it. Flush it. Wipe. Then move on. A lot of people don’t and that’s why a lot of ads, design, books, films, anythings, stink.

To be fair to the person who thought childhood was about speed, at least they had an idea. Ask some folk what the thought behind their work is and you’ll get a blank stare and dribble coming out the side of the mouth before they start hitting their forehead with a spoon.

But I digress. To get back to the point…

Before you do anything, keep searching for that nugget you cannot argue with. Don’t worry if it seems overly simple. Embrace it.

Why? Because people are simple creatures. They understand love, desire, joy, sadness, boredom, simple emotions. They understand that a biscuit tastes nice. Or that a car makes them feel safe.

If you can think of new truths, logics, insights you are destined for the Chateaux and Aston Martin my friend. Just don’t let the excitement of the new blind you to the poo.

Put your effort into building a solid foundation.

It’s not a guarantee you’ll do something great, a lot of hard work is still to come, but it gives you a better chance.

So, before you get out your crayons, Be More… Logical.

It’s common sense, the stuff your mum taught you.

In creativity, it’s a high value commodity.