SCABs

MOSH Intake Describe Their Individual Creative Processes

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By MOSH – The Intake of 2014/15

 

Different people different creative processes

(describe how your creative process is right now and how you want it to be)

 

Georgia: Have to write lines in silence or in a calm environment (not the studio) after a lot of sleep

Brainstorming – moderately hungover, find it helps me to not filter myself and I find everything Clarissa says hilarious so it’s good for partnership relations.

I definitely work best in the mornings, and need a break at around 4PM because my mind melts. I absolutely HATE doing all nighters, I basically stop caring and just want to go to sleep so that is an organisational problem Clarissa and I are always working on.

 

Clarissa: I like to work in the British Library in the IP room, it’s silent and full of studious academics who make me feel guilty if I ever check facebook or twitter. There is also the databases which are really useful too for market research. I like to look through D&AD and adsoftheworld to see competitors work before I do anything. THEN, I like to write SMP’s with Georgia and then SMP’s separately in my room before I go to sleep that night. I work best in the evening.

 

Tom:

In no particular order:

I like to dance. Moving my body tends to kick my brain into to action.

I like coffee. But time them carefully, don’t spiral into a caffeinated psychosis.

I like to love the brand. Ideas won’t come if you sit there thinking, ‘this is a pile of shit’.

I like stories. I look for ones that are good enough to whisper into a friends ear.

I like D&AD annuals. When you fill your brain with good stuff, good stuff can happen.

I like urinating. Ideas often come in the SCA toilets, especially since they were redecorated.

I like mentors. A good one will tell you when your idea is a turd, a bad one will help you polish it.

I like new scenery. The best place I ever worked was at the front of the top deck of a bus.

I like to sniff N50’s. It smells better than any other pen and it’s worth every brain cell I lose.

I like urgency. If you feel like you’ve ‘got ages’, manufacture some deadlines, you’ll achieve more.

Nick:

Get out of the studio, write down how I feel about the brand before doing any research. Then, dig to find all sorts of information on the brand. Once I feel I’ve done sufficient research and got a couple of directions I get home. On my way back if I start to get some ideas I’ll then switch on the music. Music and commuting should have hopefully relaxed my brain to get some ideas flowing. once I get home, I usually start to sing out loud and dance like a 13 years old teenager in front of the mirror. The worse it looks and it sounds the better, I realised it helps to generate ideas but even more important to remain open to any idea. Then because I hate to brainstorm while I’m sitting I spread A3 sheets all over my room and start to write down anything which pops into my mind.

Jacqui: I tend to write lines on the train or sat behind or at a pub bar. A desk  and a healthy seating position normally provides an immediate mind block. I’ll write solidly for 10 minutes without filtering, take 2, then brain dump again and analyze when I’m with my partner. If I’m working in the studio, I find I need headphones to be able to concentrate; ironically I can’t concentrate with headphones on if I’m in other environments. My focus is better in the morning, but I’m more awake and feel like I have more brain power after lunch. I’ve always found that I come up with the best stuff at night, but my current routine doesn’t allow for staying up late as I have to be up at 6 most days, so now nothing good ever happens past 8pm due to fatigue.

Jezza: Read the brief with cookies. Sleep. Print the brief a 2nd time because of the cookies and sleep again. Find different angles and a ukulele. Play ukulele and use the 4R’s to find the best angles. Write SMP’s on every angles. Sleep on it. Write SMP’s again. Share them. Kill them. Look somewhere else, ask Larry what he wants to do tonight. Go to the pub. Come back with one SMP, and start scamping. Put them on the wall, decide what is best. Then wait for Marc to kill it.

 

Annie: Years ago I was talking with my aunt who is a really successful painter. I asked her how does she manage to produce any work when she doesn’t have an office or a schedule to keep, as for a 16-year-old teen this felt impossible. She told me that she has a very strict routine; she had incorporated creativity into her routine. Every morning she would get up at 7, send the kids and hubby off, make a cup of coffee and breakfast. Then she would tidy the house, cook lunch until lunch and after that she would paint from 1 till 5. She actually did this, every single day of the work week. Some days she would just sit for 4 hours staring at the blank canvas, others she would paint non stop.

The important bit was she has trained her mind to get excited, not intimidated at the blank canvas. For her it was the space to put all those things that have been creeping at the back of her mind. The trick, she said, was training your brain into having a creative space, a creative routine you know you can rely on to give life to ideas.

In reality sitting in front of the canvas wasn’t her ‘creative time’ – it was the time she did all the things she needed to get done, all the ideas/concepts she had conceived at the back of her head while doing anything else but paint.

Since then I’ve adopted her attitude – from the moment I hear the problem my brain starts picking on it. I ‘work’ from 9 to 5 and when I leave the studio I leave my work. This way it isn’t creeping on my consciousness but sitting at the back, using the better processing power. After a bit of existing and competitors’ research I like to dive into the customer’s mind, to really understand what troubles them, to find someone like them to talk to. So far this has helped me find a problem/mess to solve.

Then I like to move on to the reality checking stage – the moment when you’re sitting with your partner and are sharing your ideas. This is one of my favourite stages because you start playing with the problem, looking at it from every possible angle, no matter how silly it might sound.

I do start checking our idea again – with my partner, with other people, even with my parents. When I start art directing unlike many others Søren taught me to set myself a SMP of the art direction. This helps me move away from the literal executions to more lateral ones. Once I’ve got a clear idea what the SMP behind the visuals is I can take it anywhere.

It’s simple – just do something that hasn’t been done before.

 

James: Lateral drinking

 

Edwina: Get the mess, write down first ideas on my own, talk to partner, research, discuss with partner, get more focused ideas, find them all really bad, try doing other things, worry about time and go back to the brief, get more random ideas, find them really bad, panic, talk about settling, convince myself I have more time, lose sleep over it (and life, the universe and everything), can’t think straight because of lack of sleep, coffee fuelled panic, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Pump myself up for next brief.

 

What I should do: not dismiss ideas because of what some mentors say, not kill ideas before playing around with them and seeing where they can go, remember that creativity is a process and not a flash of genius, remember that stressing out fucks up the process, stick to the deadlines I set, remember that different people have different processes and that I shouldn’t dismiss the one that makes me feel comfortable because the person I’m working with likes to do it differently, it’s ok to spend time away from your partner.

 

I work best alone at night when there are no distractions, but I’m usually too tired after school and I can’t stay up late because I have to get up early the next day. I need to find the next best thing for me.

I wake up a lot during the night so I’ve started thinking about briefs when I do. If I’m lucky, I’ll fall asleep pretty quickly and dream that I’m working on the brief (yes this actually happens). If I’m even luckier, I’ll remember what I came up with. It’s great because it’s like someone else is doing the work for you. You can also train yourself to have lucid dreams although the few times I’ve had them I had much bigger plans for my subconscious, and they did not include advertising.

 

Teddy: Immediately start thinking of what rhymes with the name of the product, then I think best about how to incorporate my rhyme into a hard hitting hashtag, before going about thinking how I can make it into a disruptive piece of online content. I also try to find the most useless way I can include a QR code. Then let Frazer take the blame.

 

Frazer: My creative process mainly revolves around making it look like I have a creative process. This includes staring off into the distance and pacing around the water dispenser. I’ve drawn Steve Henry’s face onto a balloon that sits on my desk. Sometimes if people are becoming suspicious of my process I chew my pen for added intenseness, then no one can deny, I surely must be thinking of something relevant.

 

Ben: In rough, I write down everything that first comes to mind upon hearing the brief, those random thoughts not grounded in any research are always the most interesting. Whilst researching ask why? ask what if? remain curious. Then most importantly talk with your partner. Talk and talk, listen and listen, don’t edit, don’t stop just keep building on all the good ideas and all the crap ones, until you get that eureka moment. If it doesn’t come, drop the problem, do something else, talk to mentors, friends, sleep on it and go at it again from a different angle tomorrow. Oh, and then craft it into something brilliant.

 

Lucy: I’m all in favour of a stroll outside, a swing on a swing, a trip to Sainsbury’s to buy some maltesers, anything to get out of the hotbox that is SCA. I also find ‘Kaff’ a wonderful place to work. They do a great hot choc, and their playlists are always inspiring.

 

Søren: Repeat the brand and the mess to myself. Have the second coffee of the day. Empty my head without doing any research. Research a bit. Try to find the right insight. 3,5 min dance around in the studio. Put headphones on and listen to relaxing good music. Write down every words I find interesting to the brief. Change the pen. Research a bit more. Talk to my partner. Say “So whats the problem on this one”. Listen carefully to all the words from my partner and writing the best one down. Have thoughts like “that a shitty idea” “we need to start somewhere”. doubt more and more that we can come up with something thats good enough. Try to come up with more ideas. Get stock. Have the third coffee of the day. Work on other briefs. Tell a lie to someone. Go back to the original brief. Use techniques like “benefit of the benefit”, “4r’s” and random page from dave’s book. Get more and more in doubt of we can come up with something thats good enough. Try to laugh of something random. Have the fourth coffee of the day and it doesn’t work anymore. Try to distract my mind by talking to other people. Ride my bike home. Try to sing a song. Look a my walls in my room. Watch some random youtube video. Watch some stupid danish tv where I don’t need to think. Sleep on what we have until now.

 

Stephen: Firstly, accept that the curve of every brief is unique. Then trust your gut. Trust your partner. Listen at least twice as much as you talk. Try some creative techniques, but don’t expect them to give you an answer. Get out of the studio and look at the world around you. Feed your mind and it’ll bail you out when you’re staring into oblivion.  And apart from that, have fun.

 

Edward: Try and ignore the creeping grimness. Walk to school. Get up early on Saturday and tidy the kitchen while your housemates are still asleep. Don’t drink. Buy some new pens. Just sit down and start doing something. Set yourself a shorter deadline than the actual deadline. Write some lines and don’t stop until your hand hurts. If you can’t think of any lines just write the same one over and over. Swim.

 

Ash: Just copy: In rough, I write down everything that first comes to mind upon hearing the brief, those random thoughts not grounded in any research are always the most interesting. Whilst researching ask why? ask what if? remain curious. Then most importantly talk with your partner. Talk and talk, listen and listen, don’t edit, don’t stop just keep building on all the good ideas and all the crap ones, until you get that eureka moment. If it doesn’t come, drop the problem, do something else, talk to mentors, friends, sleep on it and go at it again from a different angle tomorrow. Oh, and then craft it into something brilliant.

 

JT: I think I do all my best work in an environment where I have no other choice but to work, normally in a Cafe or library. I get distracted very easily and will even look for an excuse to leave my desk and do something else, this strangely helps sometimes though. Ill sit and think about a problem for a while trying to find an answer and its only when I get up for a coffee or chat the answer comes to me.

 

Fiona:

First a coffee.

I like having a bit of time by myself at the beginning to write every words, ideas, insight, pictures that come to my mind before starting the brief. Who knows, it might have good stuffs in there. Then I put the paper away and begin the research.

I try to get to know the brand, find overall facts, interesting insights, look at what other brands did so I don’t do the same.

It’s always good to start with a problem.

Coffee again.

When I get to know the brand very well I can begin to find ideas again. I take the most 3 interesting facts about it and play with them. I love using Dave Birss techniques or random links to push the idea further.

I often get blocked at this stage of the process because it goes everywhere or nowhere. I take a walk, have a cigarette, a coffee or a chai latte if it’s really bad, have a go on the swing, go sit somewhere else, have a drink at the pub…

Weirdly, I find it easier to find ideas when I am not thinking about the brief. Interesting ideas comes when you don’t expect them so I always have a bloc note and a pen next to the shower or under my pillow.

 

JT: I think I do all my best work in an environment where I have no other choice but to work, normally in a Cafe or library. I get distracted very easily and will even look for an excuse to leave my desk and do something else, this strangely helps sometimes though. Ill sit and think about a problem for a while trying to find an answer and its only when I get up for a coffee or chat the answer comes to me.

 

E-B

I haven’t found my creative process yet. It usually starts with mass procrastination and opening about 75 tabs, 7 of which may be relevant to the product. After working my way through these I realise i should have been making notes. Hopefully the good stuff has gone in anyways. I walk around for a bit and watch other people scamping, realise that i’m time wasting and get back to work. I would like to scamp more and am trying to get that into my process because usually it gets left by the wayside. I like writing straplines and SMPS after the research and initial ridiculous conversations. Working on my own away from my partner actually helps quite a lot. sometimes its easier chatting about ideas when they are half formed. Then I talk to mentors and usually start afresh. I try some creative techniques to think outside the square.

 

Nina: My current creative process includes procrastination, Greggs sausage rolls and all nighters. I’ve learnt this week to do separate work away from my partner because ideas become more solid which results in productive chatting. I’m going to make time for doing my own creative projects and collecting dots. This time away from Portfolio briefs allows ideas to simmer and I can tackle them with a fresh mind.

Marcella: No idea what my creative process is, at all. Something I know for sure is what I don’t like to do, which hopefully will lead me to what I do like to do. I hate sitting on a table writing a brief, putting too much rational thoughts onto it and squeeze my brain til there’s no juice left to use for creativity. I spent the last few briefs doing that I had no fun at all. I also discovered that working on few things together really frees my mind from being stuck on only one thing. It’s a training which I am enjoying more and more. I still haven’t found the right way of managing time but I am definitely working on it. I heard many times mentors saying to walk away from the brief and do something else. But what I actually did all the time was walking away but still think about it. I will try and improve myself to really take a break and move my mind and body from it.

 

Larry – doing as little as possible for as long as possible. Going to the movies mainly.

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