There are no new ideas

A lot of creative ideas are old. Time just gives them a new skin. 

Well I don’t know that I completely believe this, but I probably believe that most ideas that seem new are refreshed versions of things that have been done before. I've just been judging this year's PR Week Awards. There are some fantastic entries and many of them conform to traditional creative patterns. This isn't a bad thing at all. Patterns exist for a purpose. Humans enjoy familiarity and subliminal predictability.

A few weeks ago, Patrick Baty, the renowned paint expert, posted the following image. It’s a cross-section of the paint taken from the wall of an old house enlarged under a specialist microscope. Look at the sheer number of layers of dramatically different pigment (the orange stands out) that have been applied to the walls over time. Whilst the skin changes, the structure under the surface remains the same. The effect can be different, but the rudiments remain.

Patterns in creativity exist in all genres. Most films, for instance, share a similar skeleton. Blake Friedman has analysed that skeleton in his book, ‘Save the Cat’. His hypothesis (widely tested) is that most genre movies conform to a very strict structure. The ‘save the cat’ moment, which we’ll all recognise, is the point in the film when the hero endears him or herself to us by doing something akin to saving a cat. There’s the ‘all is lost moment’. Set a stop watch and you’ll find these moments at similar points in many movies: romantic comedies, sci fi, etc.

I don’t think these seemingly rigid formulae lessen the impact of a creative idea. It worked the first time because on some level it appealed to an audience and with a fresh lick of paint it can do so again.

We delight in jokes. My favourite joke, by Bob Monkhouse, goes:

"They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian. They're not laughing now."

There are many others that follow the same trajectory, and that doesn’t diminish them. There’s a subliminal joy and comfort in the familiar pattern.

Most of what we do is a reengineering of what’s been done before. Frequently an improvement, sometimes a lesser product, but powerful nonetheless.

The requirement is to learn the vocabulary of ideas, to understand when best to deploy them, what bits to add, what to remove and how best to decorate them. Patrick Baty has written a book called The Anatomy of Colour, which I'd say is the colour equivalent of Owen Jones's famous The Grammar of Ornament. Every creative genre has its guidelines. Yes, occasionally boundaries are pushed and new forms developed, but there is also a proven repertoire of structures and patterns that apply to great creative work. I keep my own notes of what works and why - and it is endlessly valuable.

Returning to film for a moment, a good example of improvement on a pattern can be found in watching the various film versions of The 39 Steps. The early Hitchcock version is virtually unwatchable, though at the time it was voted the Best British Film of 1935 and Orson Welles referred to it as 'a masterpiece.' The treatment is too linear and lacks the light, shade, suspense and other decorative improvements added in later versions. Watch it; you’ll see.

The skeleton of the familiar is valuable. It’s tried, tested and a primed canvas on which to lay a creative treatment. Don’t lose sight of the old when trying to do something new.