Where do creative ideas come from?

Creative thinking often feels miraculous, like our thoughts are plucked from the ether.

However, the creative process itself is often ordered.

With the right inputs, the output will reveal itself naturally.

Sure, the results will vary, and everyone has their own ‘process’, but underneath the madness of genius, patterns will emerge.

So, with that in mind, I’ve tried to identify the things I think are important, or perhaps, dare I say, useful to thinking creatively.

These can be applied by Creatives and Planners alike. They are, in essence, a set of behavioural principles that I believe anyone can adopt to aid their creative thinking.

Some of them will be certainly familiar, others a little odd. But there is always a method to the madness.

Think like Sherlock.

Within the context of advertising, we like to believe our ideas are the natural result of the mythical creature we call “insight”.

It is a rare beast. People are often confused by what it is, and often mistake it for more regular species.

There are many different kinds of insights, but I’d like to focus today on training yourself to better understand insights about people.

Insights are the product of deductive thinking. That is to say, by thinking a particular way, you can extrapolate the often hidden meanings behind observable realities.

Sherlock Holmes is a perfect example of this in action. From observing seemingly minor details of a person, he is able to paint a mental picture of their life, their emotional state, wider intentions, and for more dramatic purposes, whether they are indeed a murderer.

While we aren’t hunting criminals, we are, however, trying to better understand the human psyche, and we can teach ourselves to use these deductive tricks to train our minds to be more empathetic towards the people we sell to.

Make a habit of watching people. Sit in cafes, park benches, art galleries, wherever you find yourself. Study people’s posture, the movements on their faces, the way they walk, what they do with their hands, the pacing of their speech.

Take these details and extrapolate them to build your own mental picture of who they are as a person.

Ask yourself open questions to build on your observations.

What were they like as a child?

Whom would they have been in your own school playing ground?

What does their home look like as you walk inside?

What is unique about them as a person?

What are their idiosyncrasies?

Imagine you’ve known them all your life. Place them in different situations you’ve lived through. Weddings, birthdays, that night out when you were seventeen and you got dumped.

What would they have done? What would they have said to you?

By looking past the surface, you can build a more empathetic picture of a person, and you may find that rare unicorn, an insight.

Build a Mind Palace.

Ideas happen when our subconscious connects seemingly disconnected pieces of information to form something new. We aid this process by filling our minds with fuel.

Sherlock retreats into what he describes as his Mind Palace. A visual representation within his own mind of all of the information he’s accrued on a subject. From within these metaphysical walls, he pieces together the facts to form a hypothesis.

We should build or own Mind Palaces and fill the walls with exhibits.

Study the arts. Listen to new songs every day from artists you hate, but others love. Learn ancient history. Read old encyclopedias. Read the dictionary.

Study how the brain works. Learn about neuroscience, behavioural science, and semiotics.

Read nursery rhymes, hymns, fables, myths, stories, and legends from cultures around the world.

Start a scrapbook (or Pinterest board if you prefer) and collect colours, textures, sounds, voices, faces, and images that for whatever reason, you find alluring.

This is an exercise in expansion.

What you will find is that in your subconscious, your brain will naturally find patterns and connections between the information. The more points you can give your subconscious, the more easily it will make the connections for you.

It’ll do the heavy lifting and serve these thoughts to your conscious brain as ideas.

Your Mind Palace will become the foundation on which you catalyse your creative thinking, so add exhibits to the rooms every day.

Go on adventures.

Creative craft is hard work. It’s often stationary, solitary, and found behind a desk. It’s the process of focusing and condensing work towards perfection.

But creative thinking, on the other hand, the act of unearthing an idea, is an act of liberation. It often occurs when doing something entirely different.

Sometimes it happens during the mundanity of ordinary, everyday life, like sitting on the toilet or washing up a frying pan.

But sometimes it happens in the in-between moments. When you’re going somewhere new or consciously choosing to step outside what you would normally consider, well, normality.

Put simply, you need to get out more.

Get away from your desk.

Ask for forgiveness later. 

If your work is good, then it won’t really matter if you missed the meeting about the other meeting.

Visit exhibitions. Eat lunch in an art gallery. Go to the park and sit under a tree.

Go on an adventure and discover something new around you.

Walk in any direction without a map and see where you end up. Getting lost is a wonderful way of finding your way.

If you do go to the pub (which is often the default of Adlanders), then treat it as an opportunity, as opposed to an escape. There are people there. Speak to them, rather than just drinking quietly in the corner.

And say “yes” to anything that presents the opportunity for change.

Change is good. Stagnation is the true enemy of creativity.

You will find your creative energies surge when you adopt this mindset of an adventurer.

So, in conclusion...

Think like Sherlock, build your own Mind Palace, and go on more adventures.

In the worst case, you will become a more empathetic, interesting person.

In the best case, you will uncover more of the hidden mysteries of life and create something truly meaningful.

Life is often characterised by the ordinary, everyday normalities that we all sometimes choose to endure.

Yet, behind this infinite grey lie the colourful miracles that fill life with everything that makes it worth living for.

Enjoy discovering them.