How To Do Better Creative Work

Effective creative work is not a nice-to-have, it's a necessity - it’s the only way you’ll stand out in a fiercely competitive marketplace. Whether you're in digital, direct or advertising, the CEO of an agency or just starting out, How to do better creative work has been written for you. In fact, you'll see that everyone plays a crucial role in producing creative work that works: What it means to be creative, How to build a creative culture, How virtually all great work is underpinned by a simple problem/solution dynamic, How to use that dynamic to create your big marketing ideas, How to brief a creative team, How to use 'relevant abruption' to produce big creative ideas, How to simultaneously build a brand and get response, How to sell your work, How to run a creative department. All this is illustrated by some of the best advertising, direct and digital work ever produced, plus 12 case studies featuring ideas that have not only sold millions of pounds worth of products, but also won dozens of the world's most coveted awards. "Steve writes like he talks, with great intelligence, wisdom and common sense. He's one of the few people capable of looking at a notoriously self-obsessed industry and saying, "The Emperor has no clothes." And he's one of an even smaller number who can look at its problems and say, "here's how you fix it." Creative Work is as challenging as it is engaging. When I reached the end I felt like I wanted to continue the conversation, which is probably the highest compliment you can offer a book." - Jon Steel, author of Truth, Lies & Advertising and Perfect Pitch. "This is genuinely essential reading for anyone who wants to demystify the advertising creative process – and vastly more entertaining than your average business book. Harrison’s simple, commonsense approach makes you wonder why so many ad campaigns fail so spectacularly. Buy it, read it and learn from it!” - Larissa Vince, Campaign magazine. "This is a smart, straightforward and very special book. It affirmed so much I knew already, but my eyes were opened afresh to what is genuinely important about the work that we do. I came away with ten or twelve things I wanted to share with the rest of the team at glue and it also fortunately gave me some confidence that we’re getting a lot of this right already." - Mark Cridge, CEO, glue London. "Steve is one of the dying breed of creative directors that clients crave. He tells it like it is and delivers. How to do better creative work is a refreshingly honest must-read for any client, suit or creative who want to cut through the bullshit and produce great creative work that does the job. Harrison has the right to say what he likes about the ad industry - and he does!" - Charlie Smith, Head of Brand Marketing, Vodafone UK. "This book isn't just about how clients can help get the best work from their agency. I loved the insight into the thinking that goes on before the creative idea is had and realise it applies to every business that takes a creative approach to problem solving." - Paul Ferraiolo, President, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, North America. “If, one day, my son tells me that he wants to be part of this business, I will make sure that he reads Steve ́s book and, if possible, find a way for him to spend a couple of hours with Steve himself” - Pablo Alzugary, President, Shackleton Madrid.

This is a complete guide to creating effective and award winning creative work. Harrison reveals the dynamic that lies at the heart of all great work and provides a step-by-step process to ensure you too produce award winning creative work that sells.

Complete with checklists and self-assessment questionnaires, this book will ensure that you develop your creativity in a practical way.

This engaging and highly regarded book takes readers through the key stages of their PhD research journey, from the initial ideas through to successful completion and publication. It gives helpful guidance on forming research questions, organising ideas, pulling together a final draft, handling the viva and getting published. Each chapter contains a wealth of practical suggestions and tips for readers to try out and adapt to their own research needs and disciplinary style. This text will be essential reading for PhD students and their supervisors in humanities, arts, social sciences, business, law, health and related disciplines.

In a world where every business, brand, product, and service needs a strong visual identity, it’s critical for clients and creative professionals to work together. And the key to success, as with any relationship, is communication. In Dear Client, award-winning graphic designer Bonnie Siegler offers an invaluable step-by-step guide to how to talk so creatives will listen, and how to listen when creatives talk. Written as a series of honest, friendly lessons—“Know What You Like,” “Decide Who Will Decide,” “Focus Groups Suck,” “Don’t Say ‘Make It Yellow,’ Say ‘Make It Sunny,’” “Serve Lunch During Lunchtime Meetings”—it shows exactly how to deal with the subjectivity, emotional pitfalls, and occasional chaos of a creative partnership. Here’s how to articulate your visual goals and set a clear, consistent direction. How to give feedback that works and avoid words that inhibit creative thinking. How to be open to something you didn’t imagine. And most of all, how to have fun, save money, and get the results you want.

With this book you can discover how to unlock your latent creativity and make your dreams a reality. It provides a 12-week course that guides you through the process of recovering your creative self.

In his New York Times bestseller Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon showed readers how to unlock their creativity by “stealing” from the community of other movers and shakers. Now, in an even more forward-thinking and necessary book, he shows how to take that critical next step on a creative journey—getting known. Show Your Work! is about why generosity trumps genius. It’s about getting findable, about using the network instead of wasting time “networking.” It’s not self-promotion, it’s self-discovery—let others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, Show Your Work! offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, productive. In chapters such as You Don’t Have to Be a Genius; Share Something Small Every Day; and Stick Around, Kleon creates a user’s manual for embracing the communal nature of creativity— what he calls the “ecology of talent.” From broader life lessons about work (you can’t find your voice if you don’t use it) to the etiquette of sharing—and the dangers of oversharing—to the practicalities of Internet life (build a good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it’s an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.