Creative Inspiration

Everyone is creative. Read that again. Everyone is creative. I remember early in my career strutting my stuff as a "creative" stud at a big agency. The creative team was always pampered and led to believe they were "special." I think this is wrong. It actually stunts creativity if you ask me. What a proud, arrogant ass I was. Thankfully, I grew up. I know now, we are all creative. In fact, some of the best ideas I ever produced were ideas other people came up with...clients, account service people, vendors, family, friends. In fact, the very word "inspiration" means to breathe in the Spirit. I capitalized the word "Spirit" here, because the "agency" that provides the creative spark is Divine. My partner Bill and I have had this conversation often. The act of creating is a holy, spiritual act, not unlike prayer. You have to first reflect deeply on the circumstances surrounding your topic, taking in information directly related to the topic, but also scanning information about and around the topic - sometimes even well off the topic. (I like to look at advertising award annuals after I soak up all my notes and information, to get the creative juices flowing.) When you feel you have filled up on the entire case, silence yourself. Let the creative muse strike. Soon (and sometimes due the pressure cooker of deadlines), creative ideas begin to flow. I record them in large quantities. I'll often have pages and pages of them. Headlines, descriptions of visuals, offshoot ideas that may or may not lend any value. There are no rules. Lastly, I leave the list for awhile and let my critical nature return. After an hour or so (sometimes even days), I review the list and narrow it down to a couple of winners. These are ideas we end up presenting to our clients. These are the ideas the Spirit has provided. It's unquestionably an ecstatic experience.