We’re all creatives and judges

How creative decisions force us to rewire our brains

It can be daunting to stare at a list of options when you only need one.

For most of us, the natural approach is to find the answer. Thanks to years of multiple choice, standardized testing, and everyday problem-solving, we’re programmed to gradually eliminate incorrect answers from a list until we arrive at the correct one. The trouble is, with naming and other creative pursuits, there often isn’t a correct answer. It’s about what each option can do, versus what they don’t do.

I recently heard our Creative Director, Eli Altman frame this to a client as “expansive vs. reductive reasoning”. “Expansive”, similar to the concept of brainstorming, is about imagining all the possibilities and potential of an idea — i.e. How many different ways can you use a brick? What are all of the positioning opportunities that come with this name? What might the logo look like? “Reductive” is about immediately eliminating options and trying to arrive at an answer that, in this case, doesn’t exist.

I’ve also seen this referred to as divergent thinking vs. convergent thinking. In the book Applied Imagination by Alex Osborn (the O in BBDO), the author refers to it as creative vs. judicial thinking. For a lot of us, it takes some conscientious rewiring to think creatively when there’s a decision looming in the background.

“When it comes to thinking, we should try to act as if we were two people — at one time, a thinker-upper; at another time a judge.” — Alex Osborn, Applied Imagination

As Osborn points out, both types of thinking are required for creative problem-solving (where the problem, in our case, is the task of selecting a short list of names, and eventually one name). It’s not as if the creative thinking ends with the “creatives” and judicial thinking starts with the clients.

In fact, we’re judicial about which names we present to a client, using a set of naming objectives to select 12 names from hundreds. We then encourage the client to think creatively (or expansively, if you like) when assessing names, before any judgements are made.

There’s comfort in having a right and wrong answer. It’s how we navigate the world, probably rooted in our survival instinct (can I eat this plant, y/n?). It’s also how we get most of our work done (broken formula in Excel? #REF!!!!!). For these reasons, it might also be a welcome reprieve when there are momentarily no right or wrong answers — just a chance to ponder the untapped potential of a brick.

Thanks to Eli Altman.