What is creativity? Is it the ability to make a design look different to anything you have ever seen? Is it a new idea which has never been done before? Is it a different way of completing a task which has been done the same way for 10 years? Or is it the ability to look at a problem and find a solution which will meet the objectives of your brief? All of these are in fact components of creativity.

Creativity historically has been connected to the arts, but creativity is entwined through many industries which require a person to find a solution. Sometimes these solutions are straight forward and sometimes they require some creative thinking.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Because we work for clients and we quote nearly all of our projects before we start, we need to put a time limit on the creative work we provide. This time limit is based on the type of work the client needs and it can also be based on the project budget they have supplied us.

In order for Brown Ink to run successfully, we need to marry the creativity with the running of a business. We do this by having a very detailed process we adhere to when finding solutions.

The process consists of:

1. Using our researched knowledge to set the objectives and guidelines for what we need to achieve.
2. Understanding who the target market is. We want to find out what the point of differences are which will stand out to the proposed target market.
3. The message we want to impart will be merged into a creative idea which will grab attention or highlight the brand.

WEBSITE CREATIVITY

Creativity with websites come with a list of rules. These rules provide much frustration for designers. Tablets, smartphones and laptops means your creative masterpiece needs to not only work on a computer but on all these other devices. This means that most of the time your website design (look and feel) has some compromise. But here is the secret, the design should not just be about the look, if you have a great idea the idea will stand the test of time when the font and colours you choose may start to date.

Designing for a website is completely different to designing for a press advert. For starters the website is interactive with many different functions at your disposal. A good web designer will use the “WOW” features sparingly because if overused will become less wow and more “ANNOYING”.

ADVERTISING CREATIVITY

The first rule of advertising is “STAND OUT”, the second rule of advertising is keep your message simple. We often work with clients who pay $2,500 for a full page publication advert, then allow $500 for the creative and design of the advert. They assume incorrectly that simply having an advert will be enough to get the phone to ring.

Firstly the advert needs to be aimed at the target market of the publication. If it is a magazine then the publication will have data on its readership. We access this data and start creating an advert which will marry the following components:

1. The publication demographic, how will they engage with our story.
2. The clients objective for the advert eg. visit the website, ring for a demo.
3. The story and message development.
4. The presentation of the story (how it will look).