🔥 Creative Whack Pack Card Review
Looking for more ways to be creative? This deck might be for you.
🤔 What’s in the deck?
What do you get when you open up the Creative Whack Pack?
→ This deck has a total of 64 cards, which all represent creativity strategies to provoke and inspire your thinking.
→ There are four sections, each with a color in this deck, but honestly, I can’t tell what each color stands for or why it’s a separate section (this doesn’t really matter to me, though, with how I use this deck)
→ Each card has a small paragraph about the method and a larger illustration. The paragraphs act more like narratives about the approach, telling little stories.
💡What I think.
My overall thoughts about the quality, content, themes, and more.
→ Again, another flimsy box. I wish this box were heavier. It’s not the thinnest box I’ve experienced, but It’s not super sturdy.
→ The cards are a sturdier but not the highest quality I’ve seen in my card deck travels.
→ I really adore the approaches in this deck — They are designed to get you out of your regular patterns of thinking, which might be holding you back creatively.
→ Many of the cards use super short stories to explain the creative approach. They sometimes take a little bit of thinking to understand the core concept, but that’s ok; it helps me think through how I could use it!
😍 My fav cards.
So many amazing approaches to creativity in this deck!
’Give Yourself a Whack on the Side of the Head’ — This card is all about breaking out of the prison of familiarity. Some of the ideas mentioned on the card are just examples of how you can bring jolts to your routine to lead to new ideas.
’Ask What If?’ — I love asking this question so much. This card reminds you to seek out those ‘what if’ questions when tackling a challenge.
‘Reverse’ — This concept is something I use a lot. The card touches on how you might reverse looking at a situation to open up new possibilities.
‘Think Like a Kid’ — Embracing a childlike mindset is essential to creativity. “Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist after you grow up.” — Picasso
’Slay a Sacred Cow’ — Every organization has its sacred cows, those things that shouldn’t be touched or changed. This card challenges you to let go of one that may no longer be serving you.
’Slay a Dragon’— See a theme? 😂 This card is about facing and fighting your fears; see your dragon as a sign of opportunity.
👩💻 How do I use this as a facilitator?
Let’s learn how to put these cards into action.
→ While there aren’t necessarily step-by-steps for using these strategies, I think the paragraphs are enough to spark activities or approaches to bring these into workshops.
→ All these cards help me bring out new and divergent thought in people during workshops by helping them think differently.
→ Many of the cards can be transformed into workshop activities or methods.
Using a Card to Create an Activity Example — Take the ‘Slay a Sacred Cow’ card from above; this can be a whole activity on its own! First, as it relates to the challenge at hand in the workshop, go wide on all those sacred cows — things we think can’t change in our process or materials. Next comes exploration; we think about the why of each of these to determine if they have outlived their purpose — does the why still make sense? Finally, we go narrow; what can we now slay?
Want to grab your own deck?
Click HERE to purchase.
Roger von Oech, the author of this deck, also has some cool books you might want to check out!
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A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can be More Creative
Creative Contrarian: 20 “Wise Fool” Strategies to Boost Creativity and Curb Groupthink
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior to Be More Creative
Note: the above links are affiliate links
