Hegarty on Creativity: There Are No Rules

by John Hegarty

Ideas borrow, blend, subvert, develop, and bounce off other ideas.

So it’s an arrogance to say your idea is original. In fact, the value of an idea is in how it draws its inspiration from the world around us and then reinterprets it in a way we haven’t seen before.

Does this work make you look at an issue in a different way? Does it awaken your interest in the subject, leading you to reassess your opinion of it? Has the work and its process of creation made you understand the world in a different, more moving, inspiring, or thoughtful way? Does it move you to action?

Whatever you’re creating, simplicity is the ultimate goal. The power of reduction, as we say in advertising, means taking a complex thought and reducing it down to a simple, powerful message.

At the foundation of any great idea is the truth, the most powerful force in creativity.

Finding your own truth and expressing it imaginatively is the skill you must develop, and very often keeping it simple will show you the way.

When you are intent on putting a great wrong right, creativity will often exceed all expectations. Out of conflict comes purpose.

So get angry but don’t let it eat you up. Instead, find a piece of paper, a canvas, anything, and get it out of you. You’ll be amazed at how therapeutic this can be. And how creative.

Storytelling is the most powerful form of communication ever invented. Through stories we learn, entertain, communicate and socialize with each other.

If the idea is the foundation of the creative process, then the story is the vehicle that delivers it, making it memorable and provocative.

Just remember that no matter what piece of technology has been invented, from the camera to the computer, or will be invented and no matter what value it claims to deliver, if it can’t in some shape or another deliver the full impact of a well-told story its worth will eventually diminish.

It’s no good having great ideas if you can’t sell them.

To create great work you should be making up your own beliefs as you go along, changing them one day to the next, always pushing against the boundaries of current thinking, trying to escape the confines of conventional wisdom. Resist the pressure to conform and your work will be anything but imitative.

Some people believe you can create brilliance by brainstorming with lots of people. Well you can’t.

Collaboration is great for sex but not for creativity.

A great idea creates its own timing.

Fame has its own power.

if money has a voice, it doesn’t have a soul. It’s a tool not a philosophy.

Every McCartney needs a Lennon.