Dave Birss - A User Guide to the Creative Mind

A User Guide
to the
Creative Mind Understanding where ideas come from and helping you have more of them Dave Birss
W HAT THE EXPERTS SAY Dave Birss has nailed the art of writing a book about creativity. Not a surprise really. He has walked the walk and always talks a good talk. This book fuses his immense wisdom and his playful story-telling nature. Buy it. Read it.

Practice it. Share it.. Marc Lewis
Dean, School of Communication Arts

Lucid and useful. Written with economy. Next time you get stuck, use it to get unstuck. Alan Young & Julian Vizard
Creative Partners, St.

Lukes

The genius of this book is to debunk the myth that somehow the act of creation in whatever form is not a discipline. In my experience the greatest producers of all and any creativity I've encountered are as disciplined in the pursuit of their craft as an athlete is in the pursuit of their chosen sport. Jim Thornton
Executive Creative Director, ArnoldKLP

The business world really needs to understand creativity. And Dave has got a ton of good stuff to add to the debate. Steve Henry
Co-founder of Decoded & Creative Director

Dave Birss rubbishes the notion that great ideas are 'plucked from the air'. His book looks at where ideas come from and shows how to boost our 'creativity'.

He should charge a lot of money for it. Lee Tan
Creative Director, TBWA\London
A N A DDITIVE P UBLICATION www.getadditive.com
www.userguidetothecreativemind.com
First published in the UK by Additive
Copyright 2012 by Additive
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. If youre actually reading this, hello. How are you doing? We recommend you keep turning the pages because the good stuff is a few pages further on.
ISBN for this digital edition: 978-1-4716-2443-8 ISBN for print edition: 978-1-4716-2098-0 Words by Dave Birss Cover concept and design by John De Vries
A fully interactive version of this book with examples of great creative work will soon be available in Apples iBookstore.
W HAT THIS BOOK IS NOT This book isnt a shortcut to hard work.

Its a guide to help you understand the creative process, make more of your skills and direct your efforts in fruitful directions. If youre looking for something that will turn your mind into a rainbow fountain of totally fresh and unexpected ideas, I would suggest you try extreme sleep deprivation or LSD. The creative techniques at the end of the book arent there to help you slack off. Theyre there to give you a nudge down some avenues you may not have looked at yet. And this book is not just for advertising creatives. Its for anyone with an interest in understanding more about the murky world of creativity.

Arse covered. Lets move on.
A UTHORS NOTE I never intended to write this book. Its all thanks to Apples iBooks Author application. I wanted to see what its like to use, found it incredibly simple and decided to create something with it as a test. That test then led to this printed gem. Which is the exact opposite of the usual route.

The bones of this book were written more than 10 years ago when I was Deputy Creative Director of an ad agency called Mr Smith. Sadly, it was a short-lived agency that was Crispin Porter + Boguskys European division. And it was my first proper crack at being part of a creative leadership team. There were some juniors in the department who I wanted to help so I started to put some of my thinking down on a laptop screen. I wrote a number of guides covering subjects like how to be more persuasive in your copy, how to write and interpret briefs, how to defend work and the example that makes up the latter part of this book: the creative cheat sheet. I also put a couple of these guides up on the web, this one becoming the most popular.

Ive received emails from all over the world thanking me for it. And so voila! here it is in all its physical glory. Please dont get me wrong; this book is not a how-to guide or a shortcut to creativity. Far from it! It started as a bottom-drawer, emergency kit for when you find yourself stuck in a rut. Its some of the techniques that I use myself when the deadlines tight and Im suffering from the dreaded brain- freeze. Or a hangover.

To make the book more useful, Ive added some of my thoughts on the creative process. Much of these come from my blog posts, other documents and talks that Ive done on creativity. Unsurprisingly, there are thoughts in here that other people have covered before me. Most notably James Webb Young in his wonderful 1965 book A Technique for Producing Ideas. If you havent got a copy, I highly recommend it. Its under 50 pages and only takes a few minutes to read.

Perfect! Im pretty sure this guide will be publicly hated and privately loved by creatives. Thats fine. I just hope that its useful. And Im sure there are things in here thatll also be useful for people who dont make their living out of coming up with ideas to market stuff. I just ask that if you do find it useful or if you have any additions, amends or improvements that you drop me a note to Big, big, big thanks, Dave Birss January 2012
S ECTION 1 Creativity
takes work
W HAT EXACTLY IS CREATIVITY? The advertising industry uses the word all the time. They turn it into a noun.

The call the adverts the creative. They call the people who come up with the adverts the creatives. They also use it as an adjective. That ad is really creative. Were looking for a more creative approach. But what is creativity? The popular misconception is that its an innate ability that some people have and others dont.

That these blessd demigods sit back, pop their feet on the desk and wait for the muse to strike. They pluck ideas out of the ether like great conjurors. Theyre tormented and temperamental beasts with a rare and special talent. Thats bullcrap. And, amazingly, a lot of advertising creatives seem to have fallen for it. But all the best creatives know it isnt like that at all.

It takes far more applied effort. So Id like to demystify things. Creativity is a step by step process as much as making spaghetti bolognese is. And, like making that fine Italian staple, you cant just do the steps in any old order. You need to start with the raw ingredients and do a fair amount of work before you end up with the good stuff. Well take a look at the creative process shortly.