By Vlad Frolov

Superhat

On Monday we had a masterclass from Marc and because there’s nothing deep and dark lurking inside me (for now) I’ll talk about that instead of my feelings today.

The two-hour masterclass could quite easily be summarised in a limited number of sentences. Here they are:

The creative process is a mysterious mess but it really doesn’t need to be. We can all be quite creative as long as we follow the correct instructions with correctitude. To paraphrase, as unlikely as it may seem at first, creativity is quite formulaic.

First of all, to be creative, one must prepare by using some deliberate divergent thinking. Find a problem. Break down the problem into categories. For each category, write down at least 10 ideas (or maximum 5, whatever floats your boat) in around 30 to 60 seconds. It helps if you hold your breath for the time because as you slowly suffocate yourself, better ideas spring to mind as your brain attempts to resuscitate itself by bringing images of loved ones forth in your increasingly blurred field of vision. Then from these opposing lists, mix and match.

Then you have to shower because that’s how you really get ideas. If you avoid showers at all costs, you can do any other mindless activity. For example, I enjoy washing dishes.

Once you have several ideas, you now deserve to wear hats. There are at least six hats although this is controversial as some have argued that a seventh one exist, while some propose an infinite number of hats. The fundamentalists hold that there is a blue, white, black, yellow, red and green hats. The blue hat, which must always be worn first and last in the idea-eliminating process, is the planning hat. The white hat is the information and data hat. The black hat is the critical, depressed hat. The yellow hat is the happy hat. The red hat is the gut-feeling hat (also known in the horoscope as Libra). The green hat is the creativity, finding-new-solutions hat. You mustn’t wear any hat for longer than two to three minutes at a time because that might give you a headache.

And voila, you got yourself a decent idea.

To summarise,

1. Break the task into categories
2. For each category, hold breath until there are several ideas
3. Mix and match
4. Shower and/or wash dishes
5. Wear hats, especially blue hat at beginning and end.