Creative ideation is more than a catch-all term mashed up with a made up word. Creative ideation is learning how to fire bolts of mind lightning to an unsuspecting public. It’s the best part of one of the world’s wackiest, but most fun, careers. Our creative ideation process can be done in 6 simple steps.
Pick your favorite poison, and go where opinions are. Reddit and TikTok rock for learning about the cultish love or hatred of a brand, product, or culture. Don’t forget to read the comments.Â
Go to visual exploration hubs like Behance, Pinterest, Designinspiration, and Stocksy. If you can’t find what’s inspiring, you can make it. Take advantage of AI like Midjourney.Â
Go to the grocery store. The coffee shop. The hardware store. Look around. See who’s there. Act like you’re the consumer. Take notes. Take pictures.Â
Talk to people you know. Or people you don’t. What do they think about this brand? What have they always wanted from them?Â
They see things you miss.
They disrupt thinking.
They will be invested later.
Our job is to aggregate the full spectrum of human experiences and distill them into impactful ideas. Maybe your Project Manager isn’t the best writer. Maybe your Digital Specialist can’t mock up anything to save her life. Doesn’t matter. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
Someone has to throw out the first idea. In brainstorms our strategists and creative directors have a tendency to start with a weird, out there, plausibly terrible idea to loosen up the room. Because: If you’re not having fun in the room, why would people have fun with your work in the world?
Getting out your bad ideas – especially the obvious ones – clears your mind for better ideas.Â
Trying to set up your denouement at the very end doesn’t help anyone. Sharing good ideas sooner rather than later means more time to build them out with the people who can make them better.
Crazy is interesting. Think of puppy monkey baby. Or I’m on a horse. Or in SixSpeed’s, flipping a snowmobile downtown for the super bowl. Lunacy takes you to places sanity can’t reach.
Brainstorming space. Stay as long as time permits.
Planning space. For picking out the best ideas.
Making space. Bring it to life so it can stand up.
Refinement space. To wait until the very end.
It sucks when your favorite idea isn’t sticky. It sucks even more to miss the opportunity to build a better idea. So stay with good ideas. Throw out the bad ideas. Make sure you don’t leave the room with a ton of non starters.
GO MINING
GATHER A GANG OF MISFITS
CLEAR YOUR MENTAL COOKIES
INDULGE LUNACY
KILL YOUR DARLINGS
GIVE UP (BUT COME BACK)
You've been added to the list!