Creativity is Multidimensional

My passion for the arts began at a young age – my hand stenciled turkeys always made it to the refrigerator. Over time, my tools for creativity expanded beyond coloring utensils as I discovered a “graphic arts” class my junior year of high school. I strived to excel in the Adobe suite, which stemmed from my love affair of face swapping, a software called Photoshop and its friend, Illustrator. My assignments then were to learn Adobe as a technical skill, but since beginning college, I have had assistance in guiding and directing my technical skills into a creative means of effective communication and expression.

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Along-side continuing my interest in graphic design, I was registered for “Media Analysis.” Attending these lectures felt like two different worlds; in one class there is art direction and campaign production, in another class there is empirical data and tables. To my surprise, trolling on Photoshop was not the appropriate art direction when it came to advertising campaigns and, more shocking, the numbers and tables in media analysis were intriguing.

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My revelation in “Toolkit for Brand Communications” was that I enjoyed the challenge of making a creative brief into a visual narrative or concept. The creative brief acted as the foundation and direction of the ad campaign – this is what the brand wants to say, so how do I communicate a brand through design? With this goal in mind, I had more questions than I did answers. At the end of the design process, we held critiques that provided an audience’s (or consumer) perspective on our work. In-turn, critiques also provided a scale of measuring the effectiveness of the campaign. I learned it is hard to communicate to a mass of people through design because there is always room for interpretation. Yet, I also learned the way to communicate to people, is to understand them and listen to them which is the the process of conducting consumer research.

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In my opposing class, “Media Analysis,” we did not work creatively, hence the “analysis” part. We monitored and analyzed social media platforms of Starbucks to determine how they present themselves and how they engage with their audience. The behavior of social presentation and engagement combined with demographic data reports allowed my group to create a target market and brand persona (as just one part of our total creation of a media plan). We interpreted published data as a means to report findings and particular information that would lead to the development of a successful media plan. I felt I was working behind the scenes. Before you can strategize, execute or produce, you must know who you are working with or for so you must do your research.

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I strayed far from the spotlight of creation, but I had not left the creativity. Whether it be graphic design or the organization of data, there is a common goal of communication through a means of creativity and expression. Both presentations ultimately use creative formats or elements to share information or communicate a message. Graphic arts at the surface is what we typically think as creative work with symbols, pictures, fancy fonts, unique layouts etc. However, behind the scenes of the product, the development of a media plan (or any informational presentation) is also creative work. It is creative through methodology (how are you gathering your information), deciding what tables or charts will best represent the data and properly articulating findings in order to best present the information for understanding.

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I found my real passion of research through my desire to communicate for others (for a client or by translating numerical values to a written context). I found myself expressing curiosity in consumer behavior in regard to mass communications – what makes people act, how do you reach people, what are people looking for; how does this affect marketing (and related decisions) of a company. I realized creativity is not one dimensional. Creativity is what it takes to research. I explored and broadened my creativity within creating data reports and expressing a brand as if it were a person. Ultimately, I focused on “how to” communicate. The end goal of research is to effectively communicate an idea or information. The end goal of mass communication, whether it be brand image or creating a brand persona, is to communicate a clear and concise message.

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