SCABs

Thea Hamren’s Toolbox – by @LucyRBaker93

Lucy Baker

By Lucy Baker

The lovely Thea Hamren came to talk to us the other day about her creative process. As creatives, we have a tendency to be arrogant and lazy. We are ‘creative’, therefore ideas must surely just ooze out of us without trying? Sadly, this is not the case. 

This SCAB is therefore more of a regurgitation of Thea’s wisdom, which everyone should stick to in order to to ideate widely, and wisely. 

Thea’s Toolbox:

Debrief like a pro. Use the process GET, WHO, TO, BY. Get this audience, who think this, to do this, by doing this. By debriefing, you are making sure that you have a strong foundation for a tangible idea. 

Have a decent ideation process. When the focus question comes in, begin idea generation. Evaluate those ideas, and filter out the bad ones. With the remaining, concrete ideas, develop them. Make them better. 

Negative brainstorm. This is a useful technique if you are stuck for new ideas. Finding the worst possible solution for something quite often relieves your mind of creative stress, and allows you to look at your brief in a new way. It can also be a good laugh. Take that bad solution and then try the polar opposite. 

Make sure it passes the What, How, Why test. What is the core of the idea in a sentence? How is it going to work? Why is it right, and what is the impact on the campaign on the future of the product?

I shall leave this SCAB with some pearls of Hamren wisdom:

You’re only as good as your last piece of work.

Just because you are a creative director, it doesn’t mean you are that creative. It’s important to remind yourself that you need to stay fresh and have principles around creativity.

Be playful like children yet structured like soldiers. 

An idea rarely travels alone.

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