How to develop your personal creativity

We have written recently about some of the wonderful discussions hosted at the Touch Design Open Space session when communications and marketing professionals talked through issues of the day with each other. You can see some summaries of these discussions in our?blog posts.

One of the most popular sessions was on stimulating creativity through a workshop on creative play. During the session, attendees carried out a series of quick creative exercises designed to get themselves and their team members thinking creatively. The activities included drawing circles, responding to shape and form; using animal noises as the basis for developing editorial content; and drawing on pictures of blank truck liveries to create an eye-catching campaign. There was of course a lot of fun and laughter emerging from this group on the day, but in addition to the amusement value, the session was designed to show how everyone can use tools and processes to help them think differently around creative subjects.

The creative process is fundamental to the success of a design studio. For our design team, all of us recognise that on some days, the creative flow of ideas, thoughts and inspiration is alive and buzzing, while on other days, the blank piece of paper stays a little blank for longer. That’s just the human condition. One of the ways we seek to overcome an occasional creative block is by taking a team approach to client briefs and projects, everyone pitching in with ideas and suggestions.

Jo Sculpher, our newly appointed Creative Director at Touch, explains a little more about how she views the design and creative process.

“It depends on what the project is, obviously, some clients you've worked with for a very long time, and they’ve got their set way and a brand guide for their way of doing things which you need to stick to. In other cases, if it’s a new branding or campaign, and the brief is quite open, we generally all get involved. We might chat about it to start with, we might have a little think on our own, but then come together and share our ideas.?

?“Often, someone will say something which will spark an idea where you connect things in different ways. It’s then a case of going back to the computer and trying to get lots of the ideas down. The challenge is obviously not to get stuck and being overwhelmed by a blank piece of paper. Sometimes it’s about starting something even if you’re not sure where it’s going to go. It’s good to get at least three or four different ideas down so you can test them out. We then test and refine and see what everyone else thinks, finally picking our preferred options to develop further.

?“Sometimes where we end up is not what you imagined when you first heard the brief. That normally comes from the whole team’s input as well. The answer is often found in trying to come at things from another angle, not just going with the most obvious approach. If I find I feel I need some creative help, I will sometimes go for a walk and you find something springs to mind even when you don’t realise that you’re thinking about something. Walking and talking is always good for the creative process.”?