By Lee Allen

Five-eyed Deer

Here are five sexy techniques for creative geeks to help you reach your creative peaks, you can thank me later:

1. Break Words Apart: Before being blessed with superpowers, most of my ideas pre-SCA stemmed from this technique and while it sounds painful in theory, it’s an easy habit to get into; at every opportunity break words apart, especially brand names, it will give you endless ammunition: look for smaller words within them (see if you can swap out the smaller for words), synonyms, rhymes and also puns, which brings me on to my next point…

2. Puns are your friend: Whilst using puns in copy is seemingly frowned upon (not sure why, because we all love them really!), for me using puns in your ideas is the best way to link two completely random things because it comes with a ready made connection in the name and often in puns lies a ready-made idea: two of the Amstel ideas which Sophie enjoyed, Spinema & Project Recycle, came directly from connecting two words.

3. Bank Ideas: Store every good idea you have, I type all mine up on my phone and once every few weeks I’ll upload them onto my laptop into categories. So far I’ve been able to lean on my idea bank for five or six ideas at SCA. If you come up with an idea that’s off brief, write it down! If you think of something that makes you laugh, write it down! If you think of a solution to a problem, however small or silly, write it down!

4. Note Down Interesting Interactions: Anytime you’ve had a funny conversation with a friend, often amongst it lies a bundle of ideas, write down what was funny about it – a silly lunchtime conversation I had with Fenton a few weeks ago birthed the concept of an arranged civil partnership, it made us laugh so maybe it will have some comedic value elsewhere – who knows? Also if your hear somebody describe something in a unique way, take note! If any kind of strong emotion is aroused from a conversation you’ve had, find out what caused that emotion – one day you’ll be able to use it to your advantage.

5. Memes = Insights: Forget focus groups or Big Data, easy access to insights about human behaviour can be found everyday on your Facebook timeline in the form of memes. Memes are great commentary on human habits and behaviour, often they’ll feel very personal to you but the same will go for each of the few hundred thousand people that have shared it to their friends. So when a meme does speak to you, dissect it and work out why.

by Lee Allen