How to be More Creative

(This passage is a presentation given by Ross Chowles who is working in advertising field. In this presentation, he discusses how to more creative. Although he focuses on creativity in advertising, he does offer many interesting and useful ways for everyone to be creative even if you are not doing advertising.) 

How to be more creative – China presentation

What is creativity?

Creativity is solving a problem

For instance: money. People used to carry around heavy ingots of precious metal. This was very inefficient as it was heavy. If you were rich it was hell.

So those clever Chinese people invented paper money which was far lighter and you could stuff your money in your underwear without much discomfort.

  

Creativity is making something that has never been seen before.

The wheel seems so simple once you’ve seen it but to think of the wheel for the first time is pure creative genius. Copying something that already exists is not creating. Doing something new that another person has not thought of is creativity. Here Gaudi, created many buildings that even 100 years later seem shockingly new.

  

It’s making something that is beautiful
In advertising it’s about touching someone’s emotions
In advertising it’s about manipulating someone’s mind
Ok, so how do you do it?

The ability to create something that moves people, that takes people’s breath away must be the most sublime act of all. Artists, musicians, architects and choreographs are all driven to achieve this goal. 

  

People don’t think about the product they buy, they feel about the product they buy. It’s our job to make people feel about our client’s products.

We create desire in people, we instill hope, we play on their shame, their fears, their greed, their dreams. And we use creativity to do this.

Creativity is the tool

There are levels of creativity – like all things in life you get the good, the bad and the very ugly. The creative process is no different. For every great movie written and produced, there are 10 mediocre ones and twenty crap one. We all want to be brilliant.

1.    Understand people – Every creative person should study psychology or at least read about those who understood human beings: Freud, Jung, Shakespeare. It’s only when you get in touch with how a human works that you can talk to a human. If you understand human beings, you can manipulate their attitudes. After all, our job is to make consumers choose our client’s product over the competition.

2.    By discarding your prejudices – Prejudices hold you back. They keep you in a world of stereotypes formed in the past, and they are generally wrong. South Africa, for instance: when you ask people in the rest of the world to describe South Africa, this is what they describe. Animals in the street, Nelson Mandela, starving children, civil war and child soldiers. While Nelson Mandela and animals do make up a large part of our country and culture, we also are a sophisticated country that supplies China with steel, diamonds and so on. Prejudices keep you trapped in the past. Let them go. Face life with an open mind.

3.    Travel – One sure way of breaking down prejudices is to travel. It’s  a big world and very different to what ever you are used to. Travel stimulates. Travel educates. Travel rubs your nerves raw. Travel opens your mind.

4.    Make friends with people different from you ­– If you spend all  your time with people you went to school with, in the area you grew up in, listening to the same music telling, the same jokes, you’re not going to grow much. By making friends with people who are not like you – different age, race, religion, wealth – you’ll be exposed to a foreign but stimulating world.

5.    Fall in love – Falling in love releases endorphins. Your senses are heightened. Your outlook is future focused. Creative energy is released. Take Picasso, probably the most prolific artist ever. Prolific in volume and in developing groundbreaking styles. Every time Picasso fell in love with a new muse, he created a new style. A new way at looking at the art that shook the world

6.    Listen to Miles Davis – Like Picasso, Miles Davis changed the course of music. And like Picasso, he did it many times. The musician’s musician, Miles will take you to places that regular straight-up-and-down pop music can’t. The mind becomes as lucid as the music because the music is not trapped in a rigid conformity.

7.    Build things with your hands – Because of the computer, we tend to live in a two-dimensional world. But working in a three-dimensional world makes you understand space and how things fit into that space. There is also such a primal sense of satisfaction when you make something with your hands. I built a lot in my house(book shelves, CD boxes).

8.    Read – Someone once told me that ignorance is temporary. One book and it starts to disappear. Books fill your head with imagination and stimulation. You can live other people’s lives, and in a different place and time. All books are good. Great books are fantastic. Read 1421, about how China discovered the world; Perfume, all about the sense of smell and murder. A Short History of Nearly Everything makes sense of what they taught you at school but you didn’t understand. Civilisation, about western art, inspiring. Art books, ancient and modern. All good for the mind and soul.

9.    Write a book – We all have a story to tell; write it down. Different disciplines are required in writing a book but are invigorating all the same. I’ve finished mine on how to start and run an ad agency. I’m not going to print it but rather make it freely available on the web.

10  Paint – Painting has to be the scariest but most liberating form of expression_r_r. So go to lessons, buy canvasses and have fun. Also try different styles. Keep exploring different techniques until you find your style.

    11  Watch movies – Great movies. Stories well told are a stimulus  and a treat. But make sure you watch great movies as opposed to crap films.

12 Make your own movie – Take a camera, get an edit package, find some music and have fun. Some movies was made purely with a stills camera.

11 Cook – They say people who can cook make better lovers. Cooking is the essence of life. Cooking beyond just filling your tummy can be so creative, so sensual. Best of all, you can have lots of fun experimenting.

12 Start a clothing brand – Hey I did, I just don’t think I’ll sell many. Guess friends and family will be getting my t-shirts for Xmas.

13 Do something different at night or weekends – Filling your evenings or weekends with things other than advertising awards annuals will enrich your life experience that makes your more valuable as a communicator. Doing exciting things will stimulate you, relax you and let you meet people you would not have met in the ad agency.

14  Embrace obstacles – Creative people hate it when an obstacle is given, like ‘you can only use one colour’ or ‘you have to use a celebrity’ in your ad. Creative people feel that this restricts them. The truth is that the opposite is true. When you have no restrictions, you go around in circles. But when you have a restriction, it actually stimulates solutions. For instance, here is a corporate ID we did for a sound studio. The client could only afford one colour. This forced the designer to come up with an idea that required one colour but still told a story. She took a sound wave that you see on the computer when you are recording, but made the sound of the name of the company on the letterhead, the name of the engineer on the business card, the sound of ‘fax’. This design went on to win lots of awards. Embrace obstacles. They are your friends.

15 Embrace technology – I’m frustrated that because of my age, I don’t grasp technology like people younger than me. The better you know Photoshop, or searching the web or cameras, the more powerful you are. The more control you have. If you are not the master of your technology, you’ll only be able to create to the level of your understanding.  But never forget the tools of the past, for they have soul. I love designers and art directors who paint, or cut paper or make collages. Old techniques give textures the computer wishes it could give.

16 Make your own blog – Self-expression_r_r must be the most stimulating process, and where better than your own blog. It’s your space and you can say anything you want. Unlike a diary, it’s public which makes the heart beat a little faster knowing someone’s reading it.

17 Use your gut to make decisions ­– Too often we make decisions with our head. That decision nearly always turns out to be the wrong decision. Your gut instinct is the best decision-making tool. Do what you ‘feel’ is the right thing to do.

18 Don’t give up – It intrigues me that on Wednesday, Sting is messing around with a tune, on Thursday, he’s written Shape of My Heart. But if he gave up on Wednesday, he wouldn’t have created Shape of My Heart. You need to keep on pushing until you really know that your best idea is done. Is a better idea just around the corner?  Yes.

19Be brave – Get naked. Fear of ridicule holds us back. If you were brave enough to get naked in front of a whole bunch of people, then you will be brave enough to put your work under scrutiny. The more you let your fear of ridicule go, the more exciting your work will be.

Team Presentation

My collaboration with Sabrina was very exciting as we brainstormed ideas in demonstrating a creative process. When we first met we didn't know which direction we wanted to take with the presentation or even how to successfully demonstrate the creative process. We discussed different approaches in what we thought was considered creative and how to replicate that process in a group setting and that is how we came up with having each person perform to fixed melodies that had to emote a certain emotion or action and one unfixed melody that could be freely improvised. The results were wonderful and each person's interpretation of the melody was very personal and contrasting. If I were to recreate our process I would like to change it so that the listeners wouldn't have any clues in which they could choose from. Words are very powerful and influential and sometimes can sway our initial perceptions of sound as we try to make them fit a description.

Creative Process Reflection

This semester has been very inspiring as we looked into what the creative process means to us. The understanding of creative process for me is the process of opening your mind and trying new possibilities. If we are able to approach everything that we do in a fresh and new way, thinking in a way that is outside of our typical approach, we will be on our way to something creative. There have many excellent books given to us this semester that have really helped me think differently and and to approach all aspects of my life in a new way. Not new in the sense of never been done, but new in the sense of an approach or awareness that I did not have before.  The book that I connected with most is Zen in the Art of Archery. The idea of using archery to achieve a state of Zen was very awakening for me as I realized that we are all trying to achieve that same level of Zen with our instruments and our  approaches music. We are constantly trying to find unity in our musicianship by incorporating our knowledge, inspiration, gestures, and our very sense of life into our ideas. I'd like to share a passage from the book, it embodies the struggles that I am currently experiencing in music and what it means to play with this type of purpose.

"The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoow the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen."

 "But you yourself have told me often enough that archery is not a pastime, not a purposeless game, but a matter of life and death!" "I stand by that. We master archers say: one shot--one life!What this means, you cannot yet understand.

Creative Credo

Before I took this class, I tended to restrict creativity to certain areas, such as advertising,  composing, designing and so on and thought that only those fields need creativity. However, after several classes, I started realizing that we can explore creative process in anything and everyone can be a creator no matter what his/her job is.  We can be a creator when we are cooking, eating and reading, and we can show our creativity in many things. Through observing things, communicating with others, reading, learning new and different ideas from others, challenging ourselves, reflecting on ourselves, we can also stimulate our creativity. 

When I searched for "creative process", I found that everyone can have his/her own idea and pattern of creative process. However, although every creative process pattern is distinctive from others, they share some basic things. For example, almost every process include observation, which means that you need to get information and knowledge from the outside world for creating something. This corresponds to what we did in the class - documenting things in life, reading, listening to others' opinions. We engage and absorb the information and knowledge, and then take advantage of them to lay the foundation for our creating. Therefore, this is a very important step for us to be creative.  Also, every creative process include presenting and performing, which means you need to present your work and show your idea. Therefore, you can get feedback from others and reflect on yourself and then refine your idea and work.  

This really changed my understanding about creativity and helps build my confidence in being creative. Also, I really learnt a lot of great ways that can stimulate our creativity in this class:  I really find it useful to document my life since it helps me notice things that I have never noticed before. I had some new and different ideas about many things. For instance, when I was doing the 8 videos of exploring creative process, I started realizing that I can be creative even when I am dressing myself. I need to observe the weather and consider the occasion for dressing. Then I need to pick up a suitable dress and coordinate the dress with shoes and accessories. The whole process needs my creativity so that I can make myself perfect looking.

The activities in this class are very interesting and made me think deeper about creativity. For example, through writing Haiku, I realized that I have the talent of being a writer and being creative. Also, in order to get inspiration while we are creating something, we should observe and pay attention to details in life that we may neglect sometimes.

Time Spent

Hi Creators,

Below is a link to a pie chart of my time spent over the course of a week. This week wasn't a typical week as this was recorded during the week of Mother's Day so the amount of family time is much higher than usual. I wish that I lived closer to NYU so that my commute time would be less, or at least close enough to bike so that I could exercise while commuting.


https://www.meta-chart.com/share/weekly-time-spent

Group presentation

I did my presentation with Levi. We met twice before the class and prepared our presentation. We tried to have the improvisation part in our class, and give more chances to our classmates to engage in creative process. Both of us agreed that improvisation was an important tool to help students engage in creative process. We spent a lot of time on deciding the activity. I like every student participate in the class to do the improvisation and use music to express the emotion we selected. After improvising, we shared our ideas about the activities, and classmates gave us comments. If we can do it again, we will add more different activities, not only improvisation, but also have more kinds of performing to share our creative process.

Creative process------ a point of view

Decision-making and its role in improvisation is also a widely discussed topic.

 “A critical component of creative growth is the development of the decision-making process” (Balkin, 1990, p.32). Making decisions is an important part in creative process. During improvising, improvisers should choose musical behavior immediately and will not have second chance to change it. Creative process includes the following circumstances: dealing with problems, overcoming opposite attitudes and feelings, try to be persistence, collaboration (Balkin, 1990).

College students already have their own perspective of the world that they have their own opinions and plenty of ideas. How can they choose ideas and focus on the specific field? Their family, social environment and culture effects their thinking and can help guide their ideas and emotions. Creative process cannot happen in an isolated environment. It is connected with the environment around the students, which not only requires knowledge about specific field, but also requires various knowledge from other related disciplines. Creators need to try again and again to find their passion, and endure it to achieve the aims.

When we participate in creative activities, we may face problems. Problems will appear repeatedly. This process is beneficial but difficult. For non-music major students, although teachers will provide the musical knowledge in the music class, music theory and other related knowledge is still too complicated for some of them. When they cannot deal with the problems after they spent a lot of energy on it, they will feel frustrated. It is significant to apply flow theory to teach students.

When looking at creativity and improvisation is in imperative to take a moment to examine flow theory, first introduced by Csikszentmihalyi (1975). This theory claims the feeling of complete and energized focus in an activity that changes with the challenge and participant’s ability. If the challenge is much over the ability of the participant, the participant will feel anxiety, while if the challenge is much less than one’s ability, the participant will feel bored. Applying to music education, the class should have moderate challenge to motivate students while preventing them from being bored.

Young people are prone to risk, so they often make mistakes during the creative process. If they are afraid to take challenge, teachers should help them to develop self-confidence for it. “Right is right, but wrong may be more provocative and vital” (Balkin, 1990, p.32). Students should be taught to extract valuable experience from the mistakes in learning improvisation. If they are afraid to make mistakes, they will lose many chances to discover the beauty of our world. If they just make mistakes and never acquire knowledge during the process, these mistakes are not valuable. 

Though mistakes are important for creative process, negative emotions still occur and cause anxiety to students.  If they cannot overcome these emotions now, they will have more difficulties in the future, because more and more negative attitude will appear and interrupt their works so that they cannot concentrate on their research and performing anymore. Having more positive energy is important part in creative process.

Refrence

Balkin, A. (1990). What Is Creativity? What Is It Not? Music Educators Journal, 29-29.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass