By Nick Lindo

 

Passion Projects Didn’t Make Sense To Me Until Now.

 

Before we started at SCA we were told to start a ‘passion project’.

 

I thought it sounded pretty pretentious and didn’t really understand why this might be so important.

 

But I thought I had better start as I intended to go on and so got to work making a short film about the street art I do around London.

 

It was fun to make but to be honest I still didn’t feel like I knew why a passion project would be helpful.

 

Around five weeks it began to become more apparent.

 

As you spend more and more time with the same people you realise that your input starts to synchronise.

 

By which I mean, you read similar things, you hear the same speakers, you work on the same briefs, sit in the same spaces and even buy the same lunch.

 

How can you expect to differentiate your creative output when everything you ingest is the same as your classmates?

 

So at that point I thought I ‘got’ the passion project – Do different things outside of work to make sure that you’re unique in work.

 

But recently I’ve realised that there is even more to it than that.

 

After ten weeks we’ve started on our portfolio briefs.

 

They are longer and more complex – there is more strategy to get our heads around and there are so many techniques to use that it’s difficult to know where to start or even where the end point is.

 

I’ve started to feel like there is so much to juggle that it’s easy to slip into a mathematical mind-set. Problem; workings; solution.

 

But the problem with a mathematical approach to creative work is that you can end up with a logical but uninspired solution.

 

You’re coming up with a solution that you believe works but not one that you believe in.

 

Which is why we do passion projects.

 

It’s to not forget our own personality and voice in our work.

 

It’s the difference between telling someone your own opinion on a matter and trying to guess what a friend’s opinion would be on that matter.

 

The first comes from you – the second is just educated guesswork.

 

I am still struggling with these longer briefs.

 

But it’s early in the year and I feel like when we do start to come up with the good stuff it will be because we feel strongly about the project.

 

And because we are using our own voice like we do with our creative projects outside of SCA.