Where do ideas come from?
It's as classic as coq au vin at a dinner party this one: smartish well paid person with expensive hair finally drifts over and asks, so what do you do then?
I'm in advertising. That's the stock answer.
Then, if they show a glimmer of interest I elaborate:
I'm the Creative Director of an ad agency called Orchestra.
If, unbeilievably their eyes haven't misted over, or they haven't spotted a long-lost friend over my shoulder, we may get to the next question:
What, exactly, do you do?
I come up with ideas, I would say.
At which point they nod and bite on a cheese straw, realise their glass is empty and drift off.
So. I come up with ideas. Yes. But how? Why? And where?
More's the point: where do ideas come from?
Right now I am -- other than writing this blog as a means of diversion -- looking at a creative brief for a client of ours.
It's not a bad brief.
It tells me a lot things I didn't already know about the client and their business, but it's still a two-dimensional thing. I'm forever banging on to our newbies that a creative brief is not a job-ticket: it's the moment of inspiration. That a good creative idea starts with the brief. Sometimes even before the brief has been written. But even so: where do these ideas come from? Not form the piece of paper, obviously.
But from the words on the paper? Or rather the thoughts that go into putting those words on that piece of paper? Insight?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It seems to me -- and at the risk of sounding like an old fart -- having been in the ad business twenty-odd years now, I still don't know where ideas come from.
And that makes me quite happy.
If I knew, if I knew the location of the Ideas Bank where I could jog along to and raid and which oracle-like would throw up the answer when I needed it there'd be no creative moment of realisation. Creative is of creation. Sometimes a big bang. Sometimes a slow dawn of evolution. But ask any creative (and if they don't agree they're not truly a creative): there is nothing quite like that moment of realisation.
Like when you suddenly know the answer to the cryptic crossword clue.
Like when you suddenly see the magic eye image come into sharp focus.
Like when you suddenly see the person you love.
An idea just happens.
And sometimes it disappears if you don't hold on to it.
One final word. I saw Philip Pullman speak at the Oxford Literary Festival a little while ago. He said: "People always ask me where my ideas come from. I say I have no idea. But I do know where they go to. My desk. And if I'm not there they go away again."
Here's a short little film I made a few years ago. It's about an idea.
