– Written by Ella Pitt
It is easy to think of creativity as spontaneous and unpredictable and, very often, that does seem to be the case with our best ideas coming to us with no forewarning. Moments of sudden initiative can be enjoyed precisely because of their air of unpredictability; similar to the friends you rely on to call on you without warning with exciting plans that are impossible to say no to.
That being said, appreciation for the unprompted nature of creativity doesn’t necessarily take away the attraction of a world in which we could simply decide to have a good idea. This would be particularly handy in the marketing world in which great marketing campaigns are often unique and impactful precisely because they started as somebody’s good idea.
Before working from home, being out and about was the easiest way for me to prompt the beginnings of new ideas. Sometimes it would be a walk to the train station causing the first few lines of a new poem to emerge and eventually become something more tangible. Other times, a conversation with a friend or something encountered on a night out that would have me scribbling notes down on my phone to save for later.
The changes to the way we work, socialise and generally spend time then had ramifications for this kind of creative processing. As an advocate for striving to do things differently and widening the fields of experience and comfortability, I’m trying to see this as an opportunity to introduce variety in where I look for my inspiration too.
There seems to be general consensus that the turbulence of 2020 will have long-lasting ramifications on every walk of life, some of those being impossible to predict right now. It makes sense that this could be the case for the ways we think and create too. Without my usual commute and train journey thinking time, I’ve been depending more on memories, nostalgia, music and my sense as the springboard for creation. I’m sure this will be shaken up again in due course as we navigate the loosening of restrictions. That being said, I have enjoyed watching the huge variety of approaches in adapting to protect creativity in a changing world and the underlying message that the creative functions of the brain are resilient and relentless.
Ella