Creatives & Coffee: Finding Ways to Be in the Moment
The drawings show what happens when you look at one thing in the world and reimagine it as something else.
The crowd at our latest Creatives & Coffee was punctual. Things were already in full swing at Round K well before the official 9:30 a.m. start time: custom coffees had been ordered, and new acquaintances had been made. Attendees were personally interacting with one another like in the good ol’ days before iPhones. (We half-joke that Creatives & Coffee is a great place to network for people who hate networking.)
We probably could have let everyone carry on for the next hour, but we had more important things in store — namely hearing from our featured presenter Ande Campbell Hubbard, the Sr. Creative Director at Planned Parenthood. It was a big week for the progressive organization. Hell, every week is a big week for Planned Parenthood, given the great lengths it has to go to provide essential healthcare to millions in the face of ongoing opposition.
Campbell has worked at Planned Parenthood for nine years, and she shared with us the three analog techniques she uses to eliminate distractions and find new creative ideas around her. The topic couldn’t be more timely: A big gripe in the creative community right now is that so much stuff looks the same. And that shouldn’t come as a shock if everyone finds inspiration from the same tech platforms and via similar algorithms. Those who want to make something different must use a different ideation approach than everyone else. And that is where Campbell’s techniques come into play.
Here are her techniques to carve out time for visual stimulation that can actually lead to new ideas.
“See the potential and good in things that are generally overlooked.”
Technique 1: Reimagining the Same Old / See Something New in the Mundane
Campbell likes to look at things that everyone can see — say, a garbage can or a tree — and imagine them as something else. Maybe that tree looks like a silhouette that can represent a feeling she is trying to convey in her work? Or maybe it’s looking at that wooden floorboard in her apartment and seeing a parrot face? Or is that a spiky-haired boy? Whatever you see, the point is to use these new visuals as a spark that gets your ideas moving, as well as provide moments of gratitude. See the potential and good in things that are generally overlooked.
Art really is everywhere you look. Image c/o Hubbard.
A floorboard? Or a face? Or both? Image c/o Hubbard.
Technique 2: Make Connections Between Audio and Visual / Whispers from the Universe
Creative professionals listen to music all day, but is there a way to get new ideas from the songs? Campbell believes so, which is why she writes down certain song lyrics, spoken words, or phrases that reoccur or create patterns. Because, in a multi-sensory world, it’s important to seek inspiration from more than just visuals, even if you are a visual person. She writes them all down, takes them back to her desk, and sees how she might draw connections (however unlikely) between them to think in new ways.
Technique 3: Take a Walk, Pick a Theme
It’s rarely enough to go outside for a walk around the neighborhood and wait for creative inspiration to strike. People need clear direction to focus, and giving intention to your walk is one way to do it. Campbell picks a topic to guide her thinking. For example, she might pick the color yellow or things that start with the letter “R” and see how many items she spots that meet that criteria.
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Sponsored by Adobe, Creatives & Coffee is about going inside a professional’s creative process, exercises, and principles and then applying a new idea to one’s own work through an interactive exercise. So, we closed the event by asking all attendees to find something in the room and reimagine it as something else (technique #1). They had five minutes to draw it on a Post-It note.
One attendee looked at the chandelier and used it as inspo to make a CSA ad.
Another attendee looked at the chandelier and saw a bidet. What imagination!
The stained glass chandelier was a popular choice. One person rethought it as a hanging fruit and vegetable bowl that could be turned into a CSA ad. Another attendee imagined the chandelier as an “end of days bidet,” which we honestly did not see coming, but reaffirms a working theory that everyone kinda loves toilets. Our Strategy Director, Tucker Margulies, took a slightly different approach and wrote out what he saw between the chandelier and the flaky croissants on offer — “The Chandelier Flakes,” which we all agreed would make a great name for a band.
If this all sounds fun and a bit silly, trust your instincts. The whole point of Campbell’s exercise is to rev the creative engine. It’s about seeing things that others overlook, putting something unexpected on paper, and warming up to the Big Idea. Detaching from your phone is an added bonus—don’t be a phone zombie!
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