Do we take our time to play around?

What is creativity and can we cultivate it?

We as designers, sometimes get lost in our tasks. We get this feeling of “we need to work”, however what we do most of the time is not as simple as “Getting to work”. We cannot just elbow grease ourselves out of the job we need to do. And no one asks this of us, we are designers! However if we do not realise that we cannot push ourselves all the time, we will never find balance in our work. Design work is creative work, this is a very different field of play than most paying jobs in our society. For us playing around with ideas and elements is what makes us create great design. However if we do not have the time and the mindset to toss around ideas and not think about execution, we will never find satisfaction in our work, we will constantly think that something is missing and our clients will see it immediately.

So how do we combat our compulsive desire to go and get at it? We need to realise as creators that we cannot simply get to work the minute we get an assignment. There are three very important stages of the creative process.

Planning

This stage is crucial in our process. And not in the sense of how we all know, but in a more creative and fun way. Of course we all plan our time frames, milestones and deadlines, however what I want to get to here is, planning as in setting the boundaries of our project. Laying our the elements and getting ready for our next step, playing!

Playing

This is the phase we get creative in. If we have not prepared our “toys” to play with, we cannot proceed. If we are not strategic in the first phase, we cannot continue to be creative. When we have decided the direction, style and target of our project we can start playing around with ideas and not thinking of the execution, this will only hinder us from our creativity. Be light minded, childlike and you will yield great results.

Executing

Once we have passed the first two points we are ready to start working. In this phase we have built a strategy, bounced and played with the ideas that come to mind and it is time to execute our project. In this phase we are not being creative, we do not add new ideas as it will ruin our concentration, once we get into the mindset of getting the job done.

These three steps are a guide to a better and more obvious work process. When working with clients it is good for them to be very much involved in the first step and towards the end of the second. Once you are passed into the executing step, there is no space for the client anymore as they need to realise that there is where you are manufacturing, and no one must bother you, no matter if you are a freelancer or a company with many employees.

Another big point I have to make is that all people involved in your creative process have to be in the same mindset of the respective phase. You cannot have people in an planning mindset in your second phase, they will want to structure everything and their mind won’t be free to play around with ideas. Also you cannot rush to start working while in the first and second step. The same goes for the execution phase as you cannot have bouncing ideas around when it comes down to working hard on your project.

The ability to jump in and out of the creative mindset is one that takes much training to accomplish. The different mindsets we go into must never be mixed together as they are incompatible, however get well perfectly if they are used one after the other. It is important to learn that for ourselves and then pass it onto our colleagues and employees.

Drop by again to explore more of my thoughts regarding design.

/Mike