Creativity Vs. Skill
- Writer for DDI on Medium
- Aug 13, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 19
Ok, so you’ve “learned” to use Adobe Photoshop.
That’s not what we’re talking about when the word creativity is used. There is a huge difference between a gift and a talent. The latter you learn, and the former you’re born with.
Creativity is the difference between ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Guillermo Del Toro’s disobedient fairy tale rivals Disney’s authority on the experiences of the protagonist by re-contextualizing the use of certain elements pulled from a number of classic Disney stories. Basically, he flipped your favorite stereotypical damsel-in-distress act on its ass, creating an ode to the magic of imagination and being unlike anything else we’ve ever seen.
The same could be said for Ari Aster’s ‘Hereditary’. I don’t know about you, but when you’ve seen enough horror films, you kinda end up anticipating what could happen next, and truly creative minds don’t like feeling boxed in. Just look at George R.R. Martin and Tim Burton; they all use context as a door to creative freedom, and Ari Aster is no different. In Hereditary, you’re unsure of what’s next. The director did such a good job creating a stressful, oppressive, terrifying, emotionally and physically exhausting experience of the film, that you’re not sure if you want to go back for seconds (and that’s saying a lot from someone like me who loves horror films), but curiosity alone will make you do it again because the experience was so distinct.
Creative People See Opportunity, Everyone Else Sees The Matrix
The difference is in the way our brain naturally works!
If you’re mostly analytical and methodical in your thinking, that means you naturally use the left side of your brain, and if you’re more creative and artistic, you use the right side of your brain. This explains how someone can so easily misinterpret or be offended by Ads like ‘Carnival Baby’, or the STAML ad.
Branding is about escapism.
If it makes sense for your brand to communicate a specific way, then you shouldn’t shy away from doing so if it’s at the expense of communicating something meaningful to the people who matter.
Illustrative of this point is this local furniture store ad:
Now, to me, being trained outside of Trinidad and Tobago, this was a stroke of genius.
The message was clear and strong instead of wimpy and generic. It got people angry, it got some people laughing, some even loved it, but what it really did was flip the audience’s assumptions about what is considered “advertising” in corporate Trinidad and Tobago upside down.
But, it was pulled from billboards because of too many limiting, antiquated standards.
If marketing in Trinidad and Tobago is boring (which it is), it's only because too many flip-floppers telling cre-a-tives (not this one) how to do their jobs!
So, for all the local influencers and salespeople wondering if "marketing like this should be dead in the water," creativity isn't about graphs and pie charts; it's about your use of the vehicle to deliver the message. Standards might be cheaper, but with that AD, they made sure 3.5K people didn't forget it!
But oh, you probably don't even have weaknesses...right?!
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