Wade through the weeds
I love being in the juicy (sticky) part of developing a new campaign.
When you’ve narrowed the brief, honed in on your audience and are searching for insights and the creative route to take.
Will it resonate? Will it have impact? Will it turn heads? What even is our idea? Does it make sense? Do we need to start from scratch? How will we bring this to life? 🤯
These questions often spring to mind throughout the design process. But stick with it! All this creative turmoil will be worth it in the end (I promise).
Here’s why wading through the weeds leads to blooming brilliant ideas...
✱ Anything could be relevant — inspiration can come from anywhere so the more references, opinions, visuals you stumble across the better! I find keeping a digital scrapbook or an 'inspiration' thread helps capture any hidden gems.
✱ Weeds can be beautiful if you look at them differently — put the ‘bad’ ideas out there, let them breathe and the good ones should stick out. Talking through ideas again and again, with lots of different people, can help weed out the best ones.
✱ It forces you to truly get to know your audience — dig beneath the surface and really tune into their world. Less small talk, more DMCs. Share your creative route with them early on to stress test how it lands.
✱ Resit the easy path — if coming up with brilliant insight-led ideas was easy, everyone would be doing it. Step away from your creative comfort zone and see where it takes you. Just stepping away from your desk is a good start.
✱ You never know what will come in handy — it takes time to process information. Something might not make sense now but could spark ideas later down the line.
Want to see this process in action? Check out the Bring Your Own Cup campaign I worked on at Hubbub.
I’m Michelle. A multidisciplinary graphic designer passionate about creating positive change. Follow me on LinkedIn for more musings on design, creativity and inspiring action.