the creativity equation
Article by Laura Forlong
I’m a graphic designer with 14 years’ experience, having worked in publishing, design and advertising agencies as well as freelance. Whilst my passion lies in crafting brand identities and visual elements, as a lover of words I also enjoy the challenge of copywriting and dabble in the world of strategy. I would describe my style as considered, purposeful and elegant with a strong focus on typography.
Many people speak of sparks of inspiration in the realisation and formulation of a new creative concept, business, or project – but the creative process is a lot more than just that single spark, if there even is one at all. Sometimes we are lucky enough to be blessed with a little flash whether that’s at the start or some point during the process, but more than anything it’s driven by hard work and toil. And of course, design is only part of the equation – for a successful, purposeful brand, alignment to strategy is also essential.
For me if there was a formula for the creative process on a project it would look something like this: creative output = (discomfort + hard graft + risk + sparks of inspiration) x strategy [co = (d + hg + r + i) x s]
Discomfort is all about sitting in a place of uncertainty and feeling the weight of not knowing the ‘solution’ yet, something that I still find challenging from time to time. Sometimes a project seems so large or complex the enormity of it feels overwhelming, but I find once I cross the threshold and just make a start, any start, this feeling fades and I’m on my way, eating the elephant one bite at a time.
There is a lot of hard graft with any new project. A ton of researching, trial and error, and mental stamina. Sometimes seemingly endless cyclic experimenting with new thoughts and ideas – from concepting, to fit with strategy, to trial, to client feedback and back to concepting. But a lot of the time this is where the magic really happens and where the unexpected presents itself. Where research unearths a perfect carrier for the brands hero visual or where client feedback presents a gem of an anecdote.
Risk is all about reimagining the language of design and pushing the boundaries. Depending on the client and their target market/consumers how far do you push this? Is this a company that’s groundbreaking and innovative, so it makes sense to have more provocative and experimental design? Or are they more traditional and have a reputation of reliability and precision that needs to be emulated in the brand identity?
Inspiration, as I mentioned above is an absolute bonus not a guarantee. In my experience you cannot rely on this alone.
And finally, alignment to strategy – creative executions without strategy to help guide and define it are like a ship without a rudder, directionless. Strategy is a specific journey that you are asking the audience to take, moving from one position to another and potentially changing their attitudes or behaviours along the way. It is a set of choices that helps position you/your brand on your playing field in a way that you win. Strategy provides focus and direction and pushes you to affect change. Aligning the creative to the strategy makes for a very powerful, purposeful, and successful outcome.
I think there are two other important factors for consideration when it comes to the design process: originality, and communication.
Originality is seen as the pinnacle of creative expression, when in fact originality is a myth, no idea is ever completely new or unique. Given the sheer scale of the human population, it is inevitable that any thought, idea, or design has existed in some form before, in all likelihood many times over. Just as artists are inspired by a myriad of sources and use appropriation in their work, designers too, borrow and adopt from a plethora of visual reference. In my mind the key to originality is in trying to present the idea, to the specific audience, in a way that they may have not seen before – giving it a ‘new’ voice and making it memorable.
This clear, distinctive visual voice is the essence of successful design – effective communication. Over the years an accepted code or language of images, signs and symbols has amassed as a means to present that voice. While we can push the boundaries of this, as we do within the level of risk, we cannot completely stray from it without losing the purpose or inherent storytelling of the design. The voice can’t be so abstract that it is no longer useful. Above all else design must be purposeful, strategic, and evocative communication.
The creative process in action – reinvigorating and repositioning of the wheyco brand
In the initial stages of the wheyco brand reinvigoration there was a lot of research, experimenting and iterations before anything really clicked and we reached the true essence of the company. We were months deep in hard graft and a whole lot of discomfort before a breakthrough, or rather two!
First our research uncovered a set of manufacturing symbols, which while a little obscure to us resonated with the wheyco team seeing them frequently in their work. Taking these symbols and applying a lens of originality – specifically how do we address and present these symbols in a new way, led us to repurpose them into a set of unique brand patterns. These became a key part of the visual architecture and brought a whole new voice to the elements and brand.
The second was in a discussion we had with the client about the wheyco team; while they were not known as innovators, they had earned a reputation for the precision, consistency and reliability of their products, they were proud makers/manufacturers. This inspired the development of two key positioning statements; ‘We are makers’ and ‘Made right’.
The underlying strategy for wheyco was based around two key principles; relevance and differentiation. By deeply understanding how wheyco benefits its customers, we understand what gives wheyco relevance and can build the brand on that. By delivering on precision, consistency and reliability wheyco lowers market and product risk which leads to long-term sustained profitability. We also focused on what differentiates wheyco from their competitors – a reputation for manufacturing excellence. These principles influenced the creation of the key positioning statements; ‘We are makers’ the inward facing (how wheyco is positioned to their team), and two outward facing ‘Made Right’ (how wheyco is positioned to customers) and ‘Made for makers’ (how wheyco ingredients are positioned to their customers).
‘We are makers’ truly resonated with the team at wheyco. It felt like it unearthed something that they knew and felt all along but had now become something tangible that they could take ownership of and stand behind. This along with the redeveloped identity saw a renewed sense of pride in the team. [Could we get input from Kerstin on further alignment with client]
We were lucky enough in this project for a little spark of inspiration to pop out in amongst the hard work too. In a headspace of manufacturing and a focus on German precision the idea came to present wheyco’s key products – protein, permeate and lactose – in a form that references the periodic table. The resulting symbols with their innate sense of expertise and precision became easily identifiable markers for customers, with a further suite developed for categories and applications.
Further extending the storytelling with the ‘Makers’ positioning as mentioned above, the line ‘Made for makers’ was specifically developed for customer facing collateral promoting wheyco ingredients. Wheyco manufactures products of excellence, so their customers have the best possible building blocks for their product development and consequently end consumers. Wheyco’s customers are makers too.
The wheyco brand reinvigoration had all the elements of the creativity equation. Being such a large and multifaceted project there was a good dose of discomfort and uncertainty at the start. This was alleviated by throwing ourselves headfirst into the hard graft which ultimately resulted in two breakthrough storytelling moments, one visual and one strategic. A wee spark of inspiration helped add an additional layer to the brands visual architecture, honing in on wheyco’s German precision and expertise. And the three key positioning statements and overarching strategy successfully defined wheyco’s voice – telling their story, in a purposeful, strategic and distinctive way, both internally, building on the team culture and externally to their loyal customer base.
Click here to see a selection of the creative outputs for wheyco.