Creative Excellence

Have you noticed lately that everyone has to be excellent? No one says it out loud, it’s not a stock traded on Wall Street, and no one can quite define it for you. But, if you’re not excellent, the phone might stop ringing. You feel the pressure to be excellent every time you create something new. You start to get the feeling that if you aren’t excellent, someone else will be.

Why is this happening?

Well, with the economy shifting at such a startling pace, there are many roles inside the business world that are changing, evolving, or disappearing. Everyone is doing 1.5, 2, even 2.5 jobs at once. We are all so busy we can hardly focus on something for long enough to know if it’s good or not. Because everyone is so busy, we are starting to expect excellence from our co-workers and suppliers. We expect excellence. Wow, think about that.

So, how can you be creative in this environment?

I have a feeling that I have more comments and questions than solutions. I have personally experienced this excellence on demand from both sides…expecting it from my staff, and having it expected of us, as a creative team. It’s uncomfortable in both instances. When I’m interviewing new candidates, I tell them that Good is not “good enough” anymore. Some believe me, some don’t. Some walk out after a week of employment, saying that it’s crazy. Some come to me after a year, and said, “I can’t believe you weren’t kidding.” Some hate me, some thank me.

When we’re doing creative projects for our customers, even the smallest, most humble projects come back for revisions 3, 4, 5 or more times. Can we make it less red? Can we convert process to spot colors? Can we increase the resolution of the source file? Then, after the revision process, the question sometimes gets posed…”Do you think this idea will sell for us?” Or, “Yes, you nailed it now…but we don’t have the budget to place the order until Fall, can you save the graphic for us?” Or, “Can we have the 1,000 piece price, but we only need 48 right now?”

Can everyone be excellent at the same time? NO! But you can bet there is someone promising to be excellent right over on Line 2. We value and appreciate the business. But, are you able to guarantee your work? We shouldn’t do spec work, but we’re enticed. We just have to get through this project and we’ll be ok…will we?

Can we put our lives on consignment?

When dealing in the creative field, I have a different problem to tackle…What is excellent? Obviously, the creative arts are somewhat subjective. So, who judges excellence vs. good or average? Focus groups? The Art Director? The Buyer? Your gut? The sales your creative project generates for the customer? Wow, this is a slippery slope!

Well, even though I’ve failed at this at every level, at one point or another, maybe I have a few suggestions or inspirations in striving for excellence:

1. The Creative Brief:  When you set out to create something, try to take some time and write out the problems and solutions as specifically as possible, without sucking the creative juices out of your creative team. This can be tricky!  I tend to list out dozens of possibilities in my Creative Brief.  Sometimes it works, but sometimes it backfires. Too much information in the brief can be extremely overwhelming and distracting for a creative team to digest, process, delegate, and choose which angle to take. However, an empty, vacuous brief can leave everyone wondering, “What do they want?”

Hint: When writing a Creative Brief, be specific about Estimated Hours, Deadline, where and how the project should be sent (e-mail, FedEx, via the sales staff), the exact creative people you want on the project, the way the presentation should look, and of course the project description. I have had entire deadlines blown because we prepared the project to be sent as low-res compressed .jpgs through e-mail, only to have the customer walk in the door with their staff, ready for an in-person presentation!

2. Discovery Process: Lawyers call the discovery process the act of gathering evidence. Well, creative people need the same thing. You need to take the time to research the subject, previous projects, art styles, trends, and experimental concepts so that you can let your mind begin to work on the problem at hand. A lot of creative teams go right from the Creative Brief to their computers and start clicking (I do it all the time). But, when I research the project a little first–take notes, brainstorm, read articles, see previous desgns–I am much more prepared to start working on the project first-hand.

3. Revision Process:  Even though I have the task of being a Creative Director at times, I find myself avoiding decisions constantly, and it’s always in the revision stage. I thought that designers would loathe, resent and resist the revision process, but in fact, they seem to respect it. Creative people truly love to have constructive criticism. This is the stage where your creative staff believe they learn something new. Don’t deprive the process of this step. A solid revision process (before the customer sees the project), can elevate a project from “average” to “excellent” faster than any other part of the process.

Hint: Be careful with your revisions. Make comments specific, “Change Univers to Helvetica please,” or, “The entire layout is way too dark, can we brighten up the colors with at least one bright green?” Also, respect the creative staff by having the decency to write out your revisions. Don’t expect them to remember every nuance of a nebulous revision meeting, punctuated by coffee, jokes, and art talk. Write them down.

4. Customer Questions: For some reason, once the creative project is set in motion, no one feels that they have the right to call the customer for questions, clarification, or updates. A carefully posed set of questions, even in the last few days before the project is due, can completely save a project from surefire death!

Hint: Pose your questions respectfully, clearly, in order, with room for them to answer on the same form on which you send it. Make it easy for them. I will guarantee that the answers will always surprise you.

5. The Final Presentation: When creating your final project, whether it’s presented as a PowerPoint presentation, or a kit with printouts, there is one trick that always improves the final outcome–test the presentation out on your staff!  Go through the layouts, descriptions, values, decisions, direction with other members of your team before sealing it in the envelope. Every time we do this step, we find a structural lapse, or a missing link, which we notice while we are doing the dry run.

6. Stay Positive/Inspirational: Some of the best ideas we have had, have been at the last minute, just before the presentation is due, because we stayed positive and someone has the courage to blurt out an idea at the very end. How many times have great ideas been crushed, cause the Art Director says, “TOO LATE,” and whisks off with the presentation, as is?  If you remain positive, respectful, and inspirational, the creativity can come out at any time. You will also find helpful people who will come out of the woodwork to enhance the project from out of the blue. Maybe someone creates a cut-paper collage cover, maybe someone finds an old piece of diamond plate that makes the back cover, maybe someone handwrites all the page numbers in ancient calligraphy (if the project dictates it, obviously). But, if your creative process is close-minded, one-way, and dictatorial, those hidden talents will remain locked in your artists heads.

Well, as I try to do the same, I encourage you to embrace excellence in your work. You might be surprised how far it could take you.

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