Fire PRO

Hints, tips and help

Ideas, everywhere: find all the creative inspiration you’ll ever need in two minutes

“It’s as true today as it always was - he who seeks beauty will find it.” Bill Cunningham, American photographer

Watch this video.

Uninspiring, huh? 

Watch again.

Any creative ideas in there? You sure?

What about those amazing tree outlines against the blue sky?

Using bus advertising for your marketing.

The soaring plane scrapping its trail in the sky (could be writing a campaign message?)

The simple use of icons and colours on the road signs to impart meaning.

The range of different fonts for the shops on the black sign – and what they all represent.

Vegan tuna. I mean, VEGAN TUNA.

It’s easy to believe this level of creative inspiration requires travel to far-flung rainforests or beaches, or six years in art school.

Nah. It’s right outside your front door. Literally.

 

So, the next time someone walks into your office and asks for your “comms inspiration/magic/stardust”, don’t sit and gnash your teeth, while muttering something about barely having enough time to sneeze.

 

Step out of the front door of your building and walk for two minutes.

 

And look. No, really look. And listen. And smell. Wake your senses up to everything around you and open up a world of ideas, everywhere. 

 

Treat yourself. Take a two-minute creativity tour.

 

Ordinary + extra attention = the extraordinary

 

If it’s our job to be creative, then we need to be able to see things others don’t. Spot the difference. Connect the unconnected.

 

Someone drew the dots between flat-pack furniture and heavy grime. And ice cream and pensions. And Jason Donovan and chocolate.

 

And fire comms teams are similarly brilliant at taking inspiration from everywhere – songs, wildlife, films.

 

When we take the time to pay more attention to what we see (or hear, or smell) we can make extraordinary discoveries and connections. 

 

It’s often claimed that time is the biggest killer of creativity. Take an ideas, everywhere mindset and time becomes an irrelevance. You’ll be bombarded by inspiration 24/7.

 

That’s whether you’re stuck in traffic (“my fuel’s nearly in the red – that’s an interesting metaphor for a  push on mental health”), on the coffee run (“everyone takes their coffee/tea a different way - could tap into this for our recruitment campaign”) or just scrolling through your Insta feed (“black and white works really well for capturing emotion”).

 

No special equipment needed. No away days. No budget. Just you and your senses.

 

Creativity is right outside. Just take a longer look.

 

  • We’d love to see the results of your two-minute creativity tours. Hit us up @alivewithideas or #IdeasEverywhere with your inspiration or if you could just do with a bit of extra creativity in your corner.

 

Comments

Have your say...

Comments are closed for this article