I don’t think people are quite aware of what the creative process is, especially if they don’t work in a so called creative field. As a matter of fact I don’t think they are aware of the fact that it actually IS A PROCESS. Being creative and producing creative outcomes is something that by no means works on request so I decided to describe the process and how it works, according also to my experiences.
How to start your creative process?
Well we are always told to be unique, original, innovative, etc., but how do we find our reference point in order to begin in the first place. Vacuum is not a place to work so we need something to lean on and evolve from there. Simply put, copy the masters of your craft and set things in motion. I personally started to follow different artists, entrepreneurs, designers, photographers and their work. It kind of helped me to find myself and my tendencies, figured out what triggered me and what did not. Of course I’m not talking about plagiarism or cheating I’m just pointing out the important preliminary step to start and let the brain boil.
By doing the copying of the work you think is worth to admire, be prepared to fail which is almost a guarantee. Single attempts don’t end up in success and genius results, but teach us to fail and cope with such lessons. Some people are de facto afraid of that and are not even willing to try, be it because of the emotional stress or ego issues. As soon as we come to the realization life is not a fairy tale and so is business the duration of recovery after failure is much shorter and the process less painful. Every problem or obstacle in life is there to keep us on right track so we don’t lose the direction and it’s up to us how we are going to solve it and keep on going. Of course we don’t want to look bad when we fail, because society teaches us failure is not an option, but we have to learn to love failure, embrace it and keep on going. What happens afterwards is quite natural and it usually manifests in form of new and amazing ideas which can lead us to different direction. If the end result of the past didn’t work out, we have to process it, figure out what went wrong, share it with the world (if our ego doesn’t get in the way) and learn the essence of it. It’s almost a guarantee something new may appear from the process of failure if handled properly and it can even be much much better. Creative effort can be full of risk, failures, learning and all in all hard work. Spending days, months and even years on creative pursuits will eventually bring magnificent results, but it takes sacrifice, sometimes frustration, fear, disappointment and lots of study. But on the other hand we can use all this for inspiration and start our own creative process.
Monika Dežela Grkman
Production Bureau 