By Daniel Johnson

 

 

Innovation and Theatre

 

 

When I dropped out of university
I wanted deeply to understand why people do what they do.

I needed to know other people so that I could know myself.

I desired, for the first time, to see the world with my own eyes and make my own decisions.

To wake up and see the strings tugging all of us up and down the stage of life.

I thought I’d learn to feel the puppeteers tug and dance only if I wanted to, knowing full well I could cut myself free.

I think my drive and desire to know more about myself lead to the realisation that I’m a creative fundamentally.

And that means I’m doomed to be a ‘’starving artist!’’
Imagine, someone who brings joy into the world.

Who makes meaning in between the mundane.

Who stops traffic with his dance, or conjures tears with her words. Is supposed to accept they will have less?

I detest that mentality.

So adamantly that I studied myself, the world around me and business more furiously.

Consuming book after book.

My search for options and meaning expanded into spirituality and self-development and books on purpose and investing and ted talks and and and.
All the while I would fire off ideas daily (usually of the digital marketing sort: a web store for this or that) long before knowing anything about advertising.This all slowed down for me last year. Too much introspection can be tiresome.

But Adahs recent masterclass on identity renewed my desire for reflection. Especially after making work I’m not terribly interested in.

So I’ve been mulling over my highs and lows at SCA. And revisiting what I’ve learnt about myself from my years of introspection.

And this week I realised I’ve been trying to stay within the confines of advertising this year. But honestly, I’ve no inherent interest in ads.

Posters, design etc are all necessary and even interesting. But c’mon….

Why not fuck with A.I.

Or not twist some algorithms.

Or create a new product.

Or build a neural network.

Or use DNA ancestry results in a weird way. Or get people to lucid dream
Or to fly without the plane.

Yeah, now that’s sexy.

Fuck advertising, I’m at SCA for ideas.

The power of an idea, the power of communication.

The power to break into someone’s mind and plant a thought. (Can you tell that I’m a big Christopher Nolan fan?)

Innovation and Theatre.

That’s how I phrase it at the moment, It simply summarises my desire to create techy, entrepreneurial ideas, sold with a story.

Art AND business. One does not doom you to expel the other. To me, it’s all creating. It’s both of these sides of me I want to bring into my work.

Feel free to see what kind of work gets my creative panties wet. And what we might create together if you’re so inclined:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgtZzMYR20ZiBBrGj_4hvGRU1Wj1f7gt8 https://tbwa.com/work/reuters-unboxing https://www.rga.com/work/case-studies/rise-academy https://tbwa.com/work/this-is-a-tree-tbwa-smp-boysen
Non-agency stuff:
https://mschf.xyz/ https://www.creativelab5.com/ https://x.company/projects/ https://www.ustwo.com/work/

And seen as your still here, why not have a gander at some culture close to me:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgtZzMYR20Zipr6Uh5oTahqlT_6shNT-6