Designers – Stop, Drop and Roll! Take back your creativity
Every designer faces the same predicament, controlled creativity. Sort of an oxymoron don’t you think? How can you control creativity, is it even creativity if it’s being controlled? Others of you may be calling this something less dramatic; ‘creative limitations’, creative obstacles’ or maybe you’re so dejected you’ve simply learned to accept this and call it ‘reality’. This truly is an issue, I’ll go so far as to label it an emergency – so, lets control this fire and put it out just like we learned in 2nd grade: stop, drop and roll. Stop everything you’re currently doing right now! Drop all of your bad habits and predispositions towards controlled creativity. Roll out a new approach to not only the creative process, but to how you are viewed and utilized within your organization.
Trust me, I am not about to preach for you to run into your boss’ office tomorrow morning and demand corporate change, a new job description and instant respect and gratification. What I challenge every designer to do tomorrow is in a non-verbally explicit and non-confrontational way start to implement the concept of business oriented design. This is done in a very subtle and very easy manner – it’s simply a communication strategy. As designers we need to provide creative solutions, not simply implement them.
Right now many of you, whether you know it or not, are probably viewed more as production more-so than creative. How many meetingings do you attend where you’re given a list of solutions with a timeline for implementation? I’m sure some of you are wondering what’s wrong with this; you’re probably thinking this sounds like every meeting and every job you’ve ever had. The issue is that this is where controlled creativity begins – the project hasn’t even started and more than 50% of the creative strategy is complete and defined for you. The only reason you have a job at this point is because you happen to know adobe products better than the office manager. That may be a strong comment to make, but think about it for a second. In the last four companies I’ve worked for, executive assistants and offices managers were largely responsible for PowerPoint Presentations. I remember the days when design positions for this same work were a dime-a-dozen; easily paying up to a $60,000 annual salary. I challenge every true creative designer out there to get yourself out of this production mind-set within your organization and regain control of your creativity.
How do we take control of our creativity? Simple; start providing meaningful creative solutions to business objectives and requirements. This is the true job description of a creative designer; deliver creative solutions that meet business objectives with respect to their requirements. When you’re approached with a solution – stop everything, take a step back and respectfully ask, “What is your objective?” Example; you are told to make the box yellow – don’t go straight to PhotoShop and immediately take your color pallet to yellow. Instead, ask, “What are you trying to accomplish?” or “What are the intentions or business objectives of the box?” If the objective is to make the content within the box stand-out or ‘pop’, then it is for you to determine how to best accomplish that objective in a creative manner. Perhaps it is changing your font attributes, adding a drop-shadow or just simply re-positioning the box – whatever the solution may be; it’s for you to guide. When you go to the doctor you don’t start with demands on how to cure your illness; you start with the problem and leave it to him to recommend the cure. In order to take control of our creativity, we need to stop being implementers only and start being solution providers.
- June 25th, 2006
- 2comments
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Your advice is good in theory, but the reality is that many designers are simply not equipped well enough with the skills and knowledge to translate high level business requirements into creative solutions and right down to the colour of the box.
This is where Info Architects, User Experience Architects, Creative Producers or Directors etc, might step into the picture.
Many would argue that the designer’s role is essentially about making things look pretty with Adobe products, and to leave the nasty business requirements and company-wide creative solutions to those who are more capable, and dedicated to that particular role.
You are absolutely correct. It is your comment and many like them I hear around the work place that prompted the post. Many designers are not equipped with the skills and knowledge to be solution providers – these are the “production” types I was referring to early. Lets be honest, not everyone can be superstar – production types are a necessity. My advice is to those of us who truly are business-oriented-designers, or those of us who want to be more than “production”. A true creative designer is well versed (or should be) in IA, user-experience and creative strategy – it is this highly talented creative designer that I challenge. To those of you who are in production and are demanding more with regard to creative freedom – start taking action.