10 Bright Ideas to Hone Your Craft: Take Risks, Be Insanely, Curious, and More
Header image by Daria Volkova via Unsplash.
During the course of a successful project, there’s often a moment where “the creative factor” of an individual takes the work from good to great. Our stories sit in the intersection of craft, career, and culture, highlighting smart solutions and innovative thinking that help remind us all: Creativity is a skill we can hone, and it is not only reserved for artists.
We believe you can cultivate more creativity through practice and exposure. But any creator knows we also need to constantly learn—new skills, ways of working, and career steps we never considered taking, such as the entrepreneurial path. Come to The Creative Factor to read and learn. Then go and do. On that note, here are 10 of our brightest ideas to help you hone your craft so you can develop unique and memorable work.
1. The Brainstorming Meeting is Absurd
Everybody is looking for ideas all the time, like breathing, or they are not doing it at all. Author Wright Thompson takes it a step further. “If you have to come in at a set time to come up with ideas, I don’t want to be anywhere near you,” he says. “I want to be around people who are curious citizens of the world who want to know everything about everything.” Strive to be a curious citizen of the world.
Full interview here: Wright Thompson Earned It Today
2. You Need to Take Risks to Stand Out…So Take ‘Em
In the world of commercial design, creativity is the one real differentiator. Conversations around validation data and metrics are important, but there is something about that creative spark that's immeasurable. “If you try to quantify that you run the risk of extinguishing it,” says Athletics Executive Digital Director Jameson Proctor. “If there is not some risk being taken, the odds that you're doing something that is truly distinguishing are quite low.”
Full interview here: Taking Risks is Vital to Standing Out
3. Curiosity (not Passion) is the Most Important Thing
Author Elizabeth shares some great creative truths, such as to measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures. One of her best focuses on a key trait and reinforces Wright Thompson’s’ view. “The creators who most inspire me are not necessarily the most passionate, but the most curious,” he says. “Curiosity is what keeps you working steadily, while hotter emotions come and go.”
Full interview here: A Creative Life is an Amplified Life
4. Become a Generalist Who Can Learn New Skills Along the Way
If the world ends, creators will still debate: specialist or generalist? Coalesce product strategy partner Naomi Piercey has a clear answer: “I often tell students that they shouldn’t worry so much about being a specialist in one field and focus more on becoming a generalist that can learn new skills along the way,” she says. “The need for expertise isn’t going away but we are working in a time where we can’t see exactly what’s coming next. People aren’t staying in the same job for 30 years and then retiring. Being a faster learner makes adapting a lot easier. At the end of the day, if I’m writing an advice column, or creating live immersive NFT experiences, or running a branding workshop for a client, it’s still just creative storytelling for a unique group of fans. There’s a superfan for everything. You just have to find where yours are hiding out.”
Full interview here: How Coalesce Delivers the Unexpected
5. Think with Your Pencil
Emmy-winning artist Mike Perry has a joyful, kinetic spirit that can be seen in his own–look no further than his recent collaboration with Hermés. For their new Madison Avenue boutique, he created a multi-dimensional, technicolor New York City block: There are yellow 3D-printed taxis; purple, orange, and green skyscrapers; blue and purple horses galloping past, and birds wearing the fashion house’s signature scarves. As for scale, the buildings are purposefully small, and the birds huge. Ideas like that just don’t pop into Perry’s head. That’s why he “thinks” with his pencil. I draw all the time,” he says. “It’s helpful for my brain to work that way.” So instead of fearing a blank page and feeling like you have to put solidified ideas onto it, view the open space as a way to articulate your thoughts as they come to you.
Full interview here: The Joy and Power of Collaboration
6. Follow Your IDEA: Imagine, Design, Execute, Amplify
Everyone has their own unique creative process…and Creative Live founder Chase Jarvis’s is really, really good. We encourage you to borrow as much as you can. What is it? Jarvis’s process goes by the moniker IDEA. “Imagine is the first phase of any creative project,” he says. “Design is second. You have to figure out how you're going to do it. Then ‘E’ stands for execute. Finally, you have to amplify your work and put it out there. It's a powerful piece to put your work out there in the world and see that it resonates with some people.”
Full interview here: If Want to Define Your Future, Create It
7. When the Machines Rule our Humanity and Creativity Will be the Only Weapon We Have, Wield it Ferociously
When we think about the most important skils for the future of work, adaptability is at the top of the list. “No matter what comes along, if you're adaptable and curious, you're going to be able to survive,” says Working Not Working co-founder Justin Gignac. “We’re not worried about robots taking our jobs because they don't know what it's like to be human, to be insecure, to feel confident. We need to embrace our ability to connect to each other as humans.”
Full interview here: How Two Guys Who “Know Photoshop” Built Working Not Working
8. Don’t be Afraid to Dismantle Everything Involved in your Pursuit
Busywork is the bane of a creator’s existence. So Jordan Mattison created “Good Splits” to allow musicians to calculate their royalties at the click of a button, rather than spend days tangled in spreadsheets (because no one pursues a creative endeavor to pour over Excel). To design Good Splits, Mattison framed his approach by asking two questions: What gets in the way of creators doing their best work? And how can I remove those obstacles? “I'm a tinkerer and seeker,” he says. “I have this endless curiosity of tearing things apart to see how they work.” Then rebuild as you see fit.
Full interview here: Peace, Love, and Royalties
9. Patience! Stubbornness! Tenacity!
Dan Hill, former Director of Strategic Design for the Swedish government spent his days thinking about the most pressing questions the country needs to answer. Big rock questions include, How do we design spaces to increase social fabric? and How might we use our school food system to reinvent farming? No hacks, tips, or trips here! “On the commercial side of design, you can often do something very quickly, working across 10 projects simultaneously,” he says. “But you can't really get into the guts of the system into what I call the ‘dark matter’ unless the positioning and core rights are clearly articulated.” For the longer burn projects, Hill preaches patience. “You are conjuring these projects out of the earth and holding it up in the light and asking everyone to see their everyday systems—and the assumptions baked into them—in a new way. That’s not easy!” he says. “But it is hugely rewarding when we see that such systems can begin to change.”
Full interview here: How to Design for a Country (Sweden!)
10. Find Inspiration In Imperfections
A lot of things happen during the creative process, and things do go wrong, especially if you're using mechanisms that are more complex. “When errors happen, I'm all about celebrating the beauty of the mistake,” says Studio Astolfi founder Joana Astolfi. “The mistake can open the door to a path that reaches the final result. I say embrace these mistakes.”
Full interview here: Inspired By Imperfections
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