It’s monday and it’s another creative process post!
For new readers: Much has been written about The Creative Process, which in its purest form is simply a way of solving a problem. That sounds simple, doesn’t it? Creativity and its process, contrary to popular belief, is not just reserved for artists and designers. I believe that everyone can benefit from learning and understanding the numerous ways of the creative process. I will invite people to share their own personal creative processes with us and hope this will help you with identifying your own.
I’m really excited to feature the talented mercedes leon and without any further ado, I’m going to let Mercedes introduce herself.
The Creative Process – Mercedes Leon
Hello. My name is Mercedes. I’m 27. I come from Spain but moved to the UK 2 years ago. I make a living from being a mixture of illustrator, designer and something we could class as ‘thinker’ (I know, I’m still surprised) and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks going to the office and thinking on the notion of creativity and the creative process.
After many fags, notes, arrows and incomplete mental maps and sketches, I’ve ended up with not a lot of new stuff. After I proudly assembled all my flamboyant, hard-won keywords, each one connected with each other in some sort of hierarchy, I casually took a look at Wikipedia only to find very similar results, maybe in slightly different fashion, but essentially the same. Although I think this here looks a lot nicer.
For both me and Wikipedia, the creative process may have several STAGES.
Motivation/Incentive: We need to place that (whatever it is) in the real world. Be it showing it to family, trying to sell it or implementing it –there we have the outcome. Being creative can make you feel better but if nobody else knows about it, it’s kind of nonsense.
Ideation/Incubation:
The first idea might come because of an external necessity, such as a brief or the need of making money, or it might just appear spontaneously (with no-one demanding it)
Process/Execution:
Once we have an idea, we want to write it down, to communicate it, or implement it. During this process in which the idea takes shape, it probably will be redefined and re-imagined and other tangible ideas or outcomes may appear.
Outcomes:
The result of the above, be it in writing, as an object or a method. It can be quite different from what we initially ideated, but that doesn’t matter. 
The thing about creativity, which is interesting, is that it’s something that can be applied to everyday things, to any area or subject matter. It is not something restricted to advertising neither to artists. It is about trying to (create) make or design something new, or better, or doing it in a different way. So creativity can be applied to everything.
The only difference between those so-called creatives and those who are not is the skill and determination to express, communicate and materialise or implement the idea. There is a great deal of darkness, insecurity, limitations and challenges during the creative process, and that’s exactly when one should be flexible, pay attention to detail and persevere. Flexible because the outcome rarely is exactly as we imagined it in the first place, and we should accept that. Perseverance because it’s necessary to face the problems during the process and try to resolve them. This has a reward and it’s the unexpected aspects of the outcome, which can be even better than we initially imagined. If it’s not, but still does the job, then we should be happy, learn from it and move on.
The creative process may require to challenge or forget the way we’ve always done it, the previous examples, with an aim to make it ‘different’, hopefully better in one way or another. ‘Never surrender’ is something that I learned while I was at Uni (be patient, you never know), and ‘Hard work’ is another one that took me years to digest but has happened to be a golden rule for succeeding in the creative process (which means, finish what you start and do it as well as you can).
Summing up, creativity is about observation, imagination and thinking a bit differently. It’s about never surrendering in our aim to do things better, having fun, recognition, hard work, uncertainty and self-confidence. It’s about communication and expression, about challenge, defeat and small little victories. I guess a bit like writing this post!
Mercedes, thank you so much for describing your creative process. I now feel a little responsible for you having too many fags:-) but hey ho, I’m sure we all appreciate you sharing your interesting journey. Gracias!
