John Hegarty, Hegarty on Creativity
Sir John Hegarty was a founding member of Saatchi & Saatchi, TBWA London and Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
In his book Hegarty on Creativity the advertising legend issues 50 thoughts on creative thinking.
Here’s my favourite 6.
There is no such thing as originality: Everything we create is based on something that’s gone before. It has to be. Ideas borrow, blend, subvert, develop, and bounce of other ideas. In fact, the value of an idea is in how it draws its inspiration from the world around us and then interprets it in a way we haven’t seen before.
Creativity isn’t an occupation. It’s a preoccupation: Truly great creative people are constantly working. Looking, speaking, watching. They are curious by nature, fascinated not just by their own interests and experiences but those of other people too. Everything they encounter is being absorbed, processed, and reformed, eventually to return in some new shape as an idea.
Consume information from unusual sources: If you have only read the same creative journals, only visit the popular art galleries, and only see the same films, plays, and performances as everyone else, you soon start thinking like everyone else. Everything is connected and the more connections you make the more interesting your work will become.
Collaboration can easily turn into consensus: Much today is written about collaboration and the need to work or brainstorm with others in order to bring an idea to fruition. It’s all very friendly and inclusive. But be careful. Some people believe you can create brilliance by brainstorming with lots of people. You can’t. Collaboration is great for sex but not for creativity.
Selling is one of the most undervalued skills of any creative career: The ability to sell a good idea is almost as important as having one. Capturing the essence of your work in one succinct soundbites is crucial to encouraging the person buying it and helping the public understand it. A great idea is only a great idea when you share it with the world. To do that effectively you need to be able to define what it is you created.
Think short term: There are no facts on the future. So stop trying to predict what’s ahead of you and choose instead to make this moment, the one you’re living in right now, the most enjoyable and rewarding it can be. Do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you.
Hegarty on Advertising expounds on these six insights, as well as more than 40 more.
Highly recommend.
Pick up your copy here.