The Groove Issue 44 - Five Steps to Follow In Your Creative Process
FIVE STEPS TO FOLLOW IN YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS
Coming up with ideas of value that can entice new costumers for your business, garner media attention for your products or services, bring investors for your business, collectors for your art or partnerships in a new venture usually all follow a very similar process.
In 1940, advertising executive James Webb Young published a guide called “A Technique for Producing Ideas” where he summarized the creative process in five steps.
I thought it would be interesting to see how these five steps materialized in the practice of Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the greatest and most innovative people in history. A man who changed architecture forever and whose field of influence is so wide, it’s hard to tell where it starts and ends.
Step One: Gather New Material
Frank Lloyd Wright on the construction-site of the Guggenheim Museum, 1959. Photo: © SWR/William Short/Frank Lloyd Foundation/Avery Archives/Museum of Modern Art New York
Wright was obsessed with nature and organic shapes and would often take a basic geometric unit and repeat it again and again - like the fractalization of a crystal - often starting with assorted plant life and the geology around him.
He believed works of architecture should be complete works of art. His intent was to design buildings whose resulting whole was much more than the sum of the parts.
For example, when he got the commission to design the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan after being approached by Hilla Rebay, art advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, he envisioned the building as a nautilus shell that inspired the spiral ramp, and the radial symmetry of a spider web informed the design of the rotunda skylight. Wright would go and learn all aspects of how animals and nature form and interact with these shapes.
If you become obsessed with some small piece of inspiration, or something that you are curious about, you can come up with hundreds of ways to research it, to see what new things bubble up to the surface that may inform or change the direction of what you are trying to get to.
Step Two: Thoroughly Work Over the Materials In Your Mind
Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1936.
Wright worked on his designs first in his mind, to the point that his friends and associates claim to have rarely seen him working on any sketches or plans unless he had it all figured it out in his head.
According to Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, who was close to Wright and later became the archivist of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives, even for Wright’s incredibly famous Fallingwater, probably the most famous home of the 20th century and which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, Wright didn’t start working on the sketches until the time when the clients, Liliane and Edgar J. Kaufmann, called him to say they were on their way and would be at Wright’s studio within two hours.
While I don’t recommend waiting for your client to be on their way for you to start working on your presentation, I think that the time we spend reorganizing ideas in your head before you attempt to put anything out in the world is crucial for creativity. Rather than impulsively answering to the first thought that comes to mind, let things marinate in your head for a while.
Step Three: Step Away From The Problem
While Wright had the ideas forming in his mind, he was usually working on other things during the day. He was having meetings, walking around the studio, taking phone calls, but not really close at all to the drafting table or even thinking in silence. He was always doing something else.
This is usually called the “incubation effect” and it consists of two phases. The first phase comes when you decide to step back and put your mind somewhere else after doing step one and two above.
Step Four: Let Your Idea Return to You
So one day, in the presence of Brooks Pfeiffer, a friend asked Wright: “Frank, when do you come up with your ideas for your buildings?” He answered: “Between 4 and 7 o’clock in the morning. I go to sleep promptly, then I wake up around 4 and can’t sleep. But my mind is clear, so I get up and work for three or four hours.”
This is the second phase of the incubation effect. When you get “aha” moments seemingly out-of-the-blue. But they aren’t random at all. Your subconscious has been hard at work trying to solve the riddles you’ve begun with all the preceding steps.
Step Five: Shape and Develop Your Idea Based on Feedback
Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West, 1955, working with his architects and associates. Courtesy Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Wright worked in a collaborative process and drew his ideas from the work of others. In his earlier days, he worked with some of the top architects of the Chicago School and then with those of Prairie School. Throughout his life, Wright's studio was populated by many talented architects who later went on to became notable themselves. They were always exchanging ideas.
But also, as someone who was designing for clients, even as legendary as he was, Wright had to listen to his clients’ feedback too.
There are many ways to go about this step. You may not even think that your idea needs any third-party feedback. But there’s a world of consumers, clients, and audiences out there in the world who will let you know whether you got it or not.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.
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