How to be Creative

So you want to be more crea­tive, in art, in busi­ness, wha­te­ver. Here are some tips that have wor­ked for me over the years:

1. Ignore every­body.

The more ori­gi­nal your idea is, the less good advice other peo­ple will be able to give you. When I first star­ted with the biz card for­mat, peo­ple thought I was nuts. Why wasn’t I trying to do something more easy for mar­kets to digest i.e. cutey-pie gree­ting cards or wha­te­ver?

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.

The two are not the same thing.

We all spend a lot of time being impres­sed by folk we’ve never met. Some­body fea­tu­red in the media who’s got a big com­pany, a big pro­duct, a big movie, a big bes­tse­ller. Wha­te­ver.

And we spend even more time trying unsuc­cess­fully to keep up with them. Trying to start up our own com­pa­nies, our own pro­ducts, our own film pro­jects, books and what­not.

I’m as guilty as anyone. I tried lots of dif­fe­rent things over the years, trying des­pe­ra­tely to pry my career out of the jaws of medioc­rity. Some to do with busi­ness, some to do with art etc.

One eve­ning, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sit­ting at a bar, fee­ling a bit bur­ned out by work and life in gene­ral, I just star­ted dra­wing on the back of busi­ness cards for no rea­son. I didn’t really need a rea­son. I just did it because it was there, because it amu­sed me in a kind of ran­dom, arbi­trary way.

Of course it was stu­pid. Of course it was uncom­mer­cial. Of course it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Of course it was a com­plete and utter waste of time. But in retros­pect, it was this built-in futi­lity that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact oppo­site of all the “Big Plans” my peers and I were used to making. It was so libe­ra­ting not to have to be thin­king about all that, for a change.

It was so libe­ra­ting to be doing something that didn’t have to impress any­body, for a change.

It was so libe­ra­ting to have something that belon­ged just to me and no one else, for a change.

It was so libe­ra­ting to feel com­plete sove­reignty, for a change. To feel com­plete free­dom, for a change.

And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world star­ted paying atten­tion.

The sove­reignty you have over your work will ins­pire far more peo­ple than the actual con­tent ever will. How your own sove­reignty ins­pi­res other peo­ple to find their own sove­reignty, their own sense of free­dom and pos­si­bi­lity, will change the world far more than the the work’s objec­tive merits ever will.

Your idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more free­dom you have to do something really ama­zing.

The more ama­zing, the more peo­ple will click with your idea. The more peo­ple click with your idea, the more it will change the world.

That’s what dood­ling on busi­ness cards taught me.

3. Ever­yone is born crea­tive; ever­yone is given a box of cra­yons in kin­der­gar­ten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the cra­yons away and replace them with books on alge­bra etc. Being sud­denly hit years later with the crea­tive bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I would like my cra­yons back, please.”

4. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds alto­gether.

Your plan for get­ting your work out there has to be as ori­gi­nal as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new mar­ket. There’s no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hope­fuls, wai­ting for a miracle. All exis­ting busi­ness models are wrong. Find a new one.