Finding the New

Recently, I’ve been celebrating the ways in which industries can learn from one another and exploring how a cross-industry approach has been valuable for us at Territory Studio. 

Our project mix has always been varied - from gaming to architecture, brand innovation to film, the team would be hard pressed to argue they aren’t kept on their toes! As a result, we’re constantly tapping into a broad range of design thinking, far beyond a single ‘core’ specialism.

This breadth is wonderful and, from my point of view, is one of the things that sets us apart. But breadth also means more stimulus to sift through – so where do you start?

Outside of the bubble

Creating user interfaces and screen graphics for films and storytelling is pretty niche I’m sure we can agree.  After all, there are only so many ways of creating “alien data” before you start to repeat yourself…

However, no film director wants to repeat the work of others. Nor do we, as their motion graphics specialists, want to limit the vision. The work simply has to stand out. And that is the challenge for us.

Of course, you can’t guarantee originality or something ground-breaking all the time and I certainly don’t purport to reveal the magic formula below.  However, I have learnt from some great directors and creatives over the years some tricks that can give you a fighting chance…

Be mindful of your influences

We are all influenced and inspired by the world around us. But where we seek our inspiration can end up creating a bubble of sameness, instead of provoking original ways of thinking. 

On platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, we’re encouraged to share and consume creative inspiration and new visual material on a daily if not hourly basis. In some ways, it’s how we keep our creative energy up. But these influence points can become mind constraints if we’re not careful. Whilst I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t use these tools, we should be mindful of using them in isolation. 

When we worked on Prometheus, we were very mindful of repeating the holograms and graphics of other films such as Minority Report or Iron Man. We needed to find a unique creative voice that spoke to the Alien canon but was relevant to today’s audiences. 

From the outset, we were aware of H.R. Geiger’s influence and the need to find a balance of machine and organic. Our specific brief was to take data and graphics and be inspired and influenced by tropical fish and coral reefs. This unusual starting point created a springboard for the creative team to explore an unfamiliar source of inspiration and therefore create work that leant less on previous projects. It also forced us to overcome new creative challenges, and therefore find new solutions.

This technique of putting unfamiliar creative challenges in our way has worked wonders for us when creating fantastical designs because we’re forced to be expressive with the data and graphics. We’re not tied to a functional UX and I do wonder if there’s a way of tweaking this method to make it more applicable to “real world” challenges.

Smart Teams

I often talk about the need for research. In some cases, this comes from watching other creatives who are particularly established in their own fields. Consider costume designers for theatre and film. Here the profession is creatively robust - the research and development process is given serious time and the output benefits greatly from extensive up-front planning. 

I make a point to watch costume designers on film and learn from the amount of research they do. The weave, colour, texture and design of a fabric or garment can say so much of a film characters position in society. The weight or movement of materials can constrain or influence a performer’s movement in a way that says something underlying about a character. There are layers of thought and meaning.

Early on in our journey, Territory Studio were encouraged to work with external consultants on film projects in order to get the data right and make the creative output authentic. I think an unforeseen benefit of working this way is that the design team has become smarter and more informed about how the work they’re creating complements that of other creatives. 

Whether it be working with NASA on The Martian, the CIA on Zero Dark Thirty or code consultants on Ex-Machina, we’ve always found working closely with independent experts a rewarding experience that encourages unique insight into the creative brief and ultimately better work.

Questioning the tools and process

Personally, I feel like the tools, environment and our process have more to do with our creative success than we give them credit for. As an industry, we love to celebrate individual creative “superstars” and invest in romantic visions of the creative genius. They do exist, of course, but I also think that broader paradigm shifts – through technological advancements, for instance - create original challenges and therefore fresh solutions. 

Instead of waiting for these shifts, however, is there a way we can create these conditions ourselves to encourage similar “visionary” creative outcomes?

I’ll use photography as an example. When I first learnt to use a camera, it was a Canon 35mm single lens reflex. I developed my own film and had to do everything manually on the camera. Exposure, shutter speed, focus – all were set manually. Moreover, you could only see the success of a shot until the film was developed days later. As a result, every shot felt precious. Each moment of clicking the shutter release had a heightened meaning. 

Then, when digital arrived, we could suddenly take everything in “auto” mode, with the instant gratification of seeing our shot. We could take many shots and select our favourites, no longer limited by the finite length of film roll. The importance of the perfect moment diminished and we began to form a different relationship to the results.

Conversely, before the advent of film photography,  fine artists were commissioned to recreate and record reality. When photography turned up, offering a more accurate recreation of reality, artists had to question the value and meaning of their work. 

From this shift in the art world came Impressionism, followed by Expressionism and Modernism. It was technological innovation which sparked this a paradigm movement and therefore the flurry of great creative activity that followed it. 

It’s my belief that shifting aspects of the tools or our creative process (Bladerunner 2049 being my go-to example!) is a way of reducing the chances of repetitive iteration. Macro technology or cultural shifts can also do this but they are harder to influence or create. A simple shift from digital tools to analogue tools for a moment or working at pace on several ideas which we then discard are all ways of changing the tempo and lens through which we look at a problem.

As industries question traditional thinking in general, accelerated by the pandemic, we’ll have opportunity to see new paradigms coming into focus in the coming months and years – all of which will galvanise fresh creative solutions.

I’m really interested to hear from others to know if the above resonates for them and what other methodologies can be used to find new solutions and ways of seeing the world. Let me know what you think!