Creativity Archives - Emotive Brand

Embrace Constraints to Unleash Creativity

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Saja Chodosh

Breaking the Conventional Wisdom of Creativity

Creativity is often idealized as something that flourishes within a boundless environment and thrives under a lack of regulation. As creative thinkers ourselves, we’ve often fallen into the trap of dreaming of empty days with nothing to do but create, no person or particular task or restriction to attend to, no strict directions to follow…Without rules and impediments, the world of creativity and innovation would be our oyster…right?

But, contrary to popular belief, constraint can actually power creativity. HBR, based on 145 empirical studies, found that people, teams, and companies benefit from the right dose of constraints. Similarly, psychologists have found that limitations force new perspectives. And Tess Callahan, in her TED Talk, calls the relationship between constraints and creativity ‘an unexpected love affair.’

This data and research have huge implications for teams, companies, and brands leaning on creativity and innovation during this year where change has established itself as the new normal. Constraints, when embraced and leveraged, can be productive, enlightening, and even exciting.

Creativity Within Our Studio

When we moved our studio to remote work in March, we were unsure of how we would continue to create with the agility, passion, and creativity that’s always lived within our studio walls. At first, it was easy to think only in terms of new limitations and unwelcome rules. Lack of in-person collaboration. The inability to meet clients in person. The pressures and constraints from forces of disruption all around us: economic and beyond.

Now, months later, creativity within our studio is thriving. We can see that the constraints of ‘stay-at-home’ have forced us to rethink how we work and why we work that way. We’re thinking outside the norms to figure out challenges like collaboration, building client trust, and workshopping strategy, and creative work through emotive, digital experiences.

Our Clients’ Creativity is Soaring Too

We’ve seen in real-time that our clients have been pushed to think differently as well. The value of creativity is skyrocketing and teams are relying on creative, strategic problem solving, and solvers more than ever before. HR teams that have relied on in-person college fairs to recruit are building immersive, digital experiences that compel candidates further, with less budget. Product teams are using their data technology and applying it to solve new problems like health, wellness, and virus tracking. C-suite executives are embracing this time of transformation, using it to reassess their position and establish relevance in a market that values trust, purpose, and empathy more than ever before.

Creativity in the Brand and Business World at Large

The world is watching as today’s brands prove their creativity under dynamic constraints. Dyson saw a need, identified a capability outside their usual application, and brought 15,000 ventilators to the world. Small, local restaurants are reinventing the dining experience with QR codes and other technology. Technology companies like Whoop are working with researchers from leading health organizations and universities to help populations with earlier detection of the virus, repurposing their fitness tool as a detection tool.

Although we might not hope for the continuation of many of these limitations or challenges, embracing them as mechanisms for change, seeing things anew, and pushing what’s possible forward is proving to be one of the silver linings of these challenging times.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Photo Credit: https://icons8.com/

Talking Marketing Strategies in a COVID-19 World: Interview with Joshua Schnoll, Marketing VP

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Saja Chodosh

An Interview with a VP of Marketing: Marketing Strategies, Growth, Innovation, & Teamwork in a COVID-19 World

We sat down with Joshua Schnoll, VP of Marketing at AppDirect, a subscription commerce platform that gives businesses the freedom to grow, to talk about marketing strategies in a COVID-19 world and beyond. Joshua shares insights and thoughts on how strategy has shifted, the implications of this time on growth, brand, innovation, and teamwork, as well as what kind of mindset leaders should be adopting as this crisis continues to unfold.

Obviously, our world has been greatly altered in the past months. How have your marketing strategies changed with it?

Most importantly, we’re hyper-focused on empathy. Empathy for everyone: teams, customers, future customers…even vendors. When we renegotiated with the hotel where we consistently do AppDirect’s Engage event, we approached it as a mutual decision. How can we do the right thing, for each other?

Just because COVID-19 has changed everything doesn’t mean we’ve stopped marketing at AppDirect. We’re just thinking about marketing strategy within the context of the moment. Our subscription commerce platform helps large telcos offer SaaS and IaaS solutions to SMBs. So, we immediately pivoted to create solutions and content for remote work. Zoom might be the application that most associate with remote work, but the reality is much broader. Security, document management…we’re helping firms understand what they needed to make the full transition and providing those solutions to them.

Clearly, our events strategy has also changed. We’re taking a conservative approach. Larger events (around 50 people or more) won’t be back until a vaccine is found, shifting us to a full digital strategy. That means weekly webinars, small virtual executive discussions where non-competing customers can discuss strategies, and virtual customer round tables that host a broader audience.

Do you think these shifts will last long-term? Or prove to be more ephemeral changes?

I was having this debate with some of my friends, asking the question: will the conference world rebound after this threat has passed? I believe that as social creatures our nature is to want to be around other people. When you get out of the office and travel to a different place, even if it’s a few blocks away, it’s enriching in a way that virtual events simply are not. The serendipitous meeting that occurs in the hallway, the session you mistakenly walk into that proves to be amazing, the great food you eat while meeting customers…those are simply impossible to replicate digitally today. As many collaboration tools are out there, collaboration is never more productive than when in person.

That being said, I do think that the number of in-person visits will reduce and 25-30% of what we used to do in-person will be remote. There will be more virtual events, as everyone builds that muscle in a way they hadn’t before.

As a marketer, you’re inherently interested in how your consumers, your people, are connecting with your brand…engaging, buying…how do you think today’s marketers should be thinking about connecting with people/users in relevant, compelling, meaningful ways?

I think it’s important to keep your long-term strategy in mind and not lose that. The context customers engage in has changed radically, and we need to react to that – but with an eye still kept on the strategy. Think holistically about the customer experience. Your company strengths are the same, but customer needs may have shifted and the world in which people live is altered. How can you meet them where they are today? I think patience is big here. This is a scary, uncertain time for people. Be relevant, be empathetic, and be patient. That’s where I’m focused.

Let’s talk digital. As you know well, the business world was already moving there. Will COVID-19 accelerate or transform the shift to digital? In what ways?

It’s funny – we help firms transform their digital commerce and our greatest competition has always been the status quo, not some competitor. In fundamentally changing your business, shifting to subscriptions, and enabling digital solutions, fear and risk are often what hold businesses back. And COVID is like a wrecking ball to the status quo. Things we once considered unimaginable are the current reality. We’re seeing a number of clients that had slow-rolled digital transformation efforts now fast-tracking them, if they have the resources. I’d say it helps to be partly down the road. Take K-12 education. If a school district hasn’t even thought about what learning platform they’d invest in and now they have to transition to fully digital, that’s going to be difficult. The more work you’ve done, the easier this is.

A lot of businesses who were previously thinking in terms of growth are now thinking about security, stability, staying afloat…do you think it’s possible to drive growth during this time? How?

It really gets back to the hierarchy of needs. For firms that are suffering devastation from an immediate shutdown of their sector, I’m not sure they can think much about growth. Other sectors are different. I think we all need to have patience for growth. Don’t lose those growth ambitions, but be patient.

How does brand play a role? Do you see the role or importance of brand shifting as well?

Like we’ve discussed, this is bringing long-term implications for marketing, messaging, sales…. And brand must lead and play a role. Ask: how does the brand want to show up in the world? And use this strategy to guide how to move forward. Letting brand lead right now is really important. It’s not necessarily about optimizing for revenue, it’s about optimizing for a long-term relationship… and if you focus on making the brand relevant in a new context, and act appropriately, you’ll reap the benefits.

Interestingly, with constraints often comes newfound innovation… Do you see your business, and others around you, adopting more creative, resourceful, or innovative strategies?

AppDirect was founded in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession. Sticking with the status quo never works. This is a time to be more creative and resourceful. Think of ideas like “Goat-to-Meeting” – the animal sanctuary that started offering virtual tours and goat or llama cameos for company or school virtual meetings – that would have never been invented in a pre-COVID world. They’re finding new ways to connect with people and keep their not-for-profit farm going. Just the other day, our team was planning on how we can meaningfully connect with customers over a nice dinner. We’re looking at how to get meals and wine delivered to make a virtual dinner session feel real and special.

What mindset should a VP of Marketing be taking on during this time? What kind of thinking is working for you? What kind of thinking is working against you?

The productive mindset right now is a creative, strategic mindset. And I think, importantly, an optimistic and hopeful mindset. I don’t think this is the time for pessimism. It’s about the art of the possible. When you adopt a mindset of possibility, things get interesting and innovative. COVID has erased the separation between work and home, work selves and personal selves. And there’s something in embracing that informalness, that connection, that authenticity. And lastly, I think gratefulness for what we do have. For me, a great team of people. A company that is able to weather things. Health. Family.

How are you keeping morale up amongst your team and employee base?

We’ve gone through phases at AppDirect. When we first shifted to remote, we were really focused on making sure everyone had what they needed and were safe. We ran daily team stand-ups, we checked in regularly, we over-communicated on purpose. Once people started to realize that we were in this for the long haul, our approach shifted. It was clear that the most valuable commodity to our employees was their time. So to keep morale high, we enabled people to control their own time. We reduced the number of check-ins and increased flexibility so that people could have more time with kids and significant others. At the same time, we’ve been prioritizing team recognition. Acknowledging and celebrating the great effort everyone is making with small rewards like care packages for home.

If you need help adapting your marketing strategies, your brand, business, or culture during this time please reach out.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency based in San Fransisco, California.

Shedding Ego in The Branding Process

Posted on February 20, 2020 by Jonathan Haggard

As creatives, we believe deeply in our craft and put ourselves fully into what we make. Our humor, our creativity, our problem-solving gets baked into the product. So, when work is rejected, it can feel like you’re being rejected. Add tight deadlines and multiple projects to the mix, and emotions are even higher. The key to keeping a level head is all about leaving your ego at the door and keeping a healthy authorial distance between maker and product. This is a guide for designers of all skill levels, clients, strategists—anyone taking part in the design process.

Assume Good

If someone suggests changing the design, assume that they are coming from a good place. They want to improve the work and giving them the benefit of the doubt will not only start the collaboration off on the right foot, but it’ll also build trust over time.

Try it on for Size

If you disagree with a piece of feedback, implement it anyway and see if it works. Your initial assumptions could either be totally wrong, or it could spur some additional inspiration that you wouldn’t have come to otherwise. The important part of this is to actually try and be an advocate for the thing that you may have initially disagreed with. If you can design from their viewpoint, you might uncover the root cause of the piece of feedback and be able to address it better.

Yes and…

If you’re collaborating with someone and they mention an idea, try to build on their idea even just a little bit. They have given you a nugget and you can help them shine it into something amazing. It takes a lot of courage to share ideas. If you have made a safe environment to share thoughts, you’ll uncover gems that otherwise would be kept secret.

It’s Not YOUR Design, It’s THE Design

Remember that no matter what, everyone’s job is to work together on the design. It is not your solo creation to be hung in a museum long after you’re dead. It’s a communal work that is being refined by multiple people. This helps distance yourself from any feedback that might sting. Oftentimes, when people are criticizing a piece of work, they are trying to improve the work—not make you look bad.

Liven Up the Mood

Even if you feel very attached to a design you’ve been working on and someone points out a flaw, use that as an opportunity for humor. Oftentimes, if you can shift your perspective to the person who criticized the design, you can find a joke to make about it. Humor doesn’t just lighten the mood and facilitate good collaboration, humor has a sneaky way of lowering our own defenses and opening our minds to new ideas. Many brilliant ideas start out as “joke ideas,” something we throw out impulsively, wildly, provocatively. People don’t judge them with the same mind frame because “it’s just a joke.” And this type of playful ideation makes “joke ideas” become real ideas, with real impact.

How it Happens in Practice

Imagine you have an internal design review in 2 days—this time around everyone is expecting the work to be fully designed. Strategy will be there, client services, project management, and the managing director might stroll by. But your designs are stuck, you can’t seem to push through. Instead of trying to break through that wall on your own, take initiative and reach out to someone. Ask them how they’d make it cooler (instead of asking for their feedback). This starts the conversation off as immediately collaborative and frames it so that what they suggest is already going to be an improvement. When they think of something, get stoked about it. Really, let yourself feel that emotion. Then execute their suggestion. It may feel like you’re going down the wrong path, but it’s an open door that will let you get through that wall that was blocking you before.

5 Quick Tips:

Get fast. If it only takes you 20 minutes to make changes, it won’t be that big of a deal. But if it takes 2 hours, then feedback hurts because you know you’re staying late.
Meditate. 10 minutes a day, focus on your breath. This trains the brain to stay calm in situations that are overwhelming.
Write it down. If you don’t, you’ll forget it and you won’t do it.
Be proactive. Ask for feedback. You’ll become accustomed to receiving it gracefully.
Practice. The goal here isn’t to be perfect. In fact, it’s the opposite. Shedding your ego is an ongoing practice that takes regular maintenance. Shedding your ego doesn’t need to be an earth-shattering event. It can be a series of small moments that are strung together.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Non-Business Books to Improve Your Brain and Brand

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Chris Ames

When I worked in a bookstore, I would often help young businesspeople find the books their bosses wanted them to read. This assignment was to help them expand their thinking, get a new perspective, and stand out from the crowd. But invariably, they would always ask for “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” or if they were in sales, “The Art of War.”

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with these titles! But in the words of Haruki Murakami, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

The following books are recommendations outside the business section that will, nonetheless, still greatly improve the way you think about language, design, communication, memory, the world around you, and your brand’s place in it.

Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“Suppose I were to begin by saying I had fallen in love with a color.”

In 240 numbered fragments, Bluets is a philosophical inquiry, a color study, a personal narrative, an ode to an unnamed lover, a history lesson, and a world filtered through the color blue. Expertly juggling such divergent voices as Wittgenstein, Sei Shonagon, William Gass, and Joan Mitchell, Bluets is a brilliant little book that will forever change your relationship to the color blue.

The takeaway: There is immense power in owning a single color. When building your visual identity, don’t fail to consider color psychology.

Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey

“Someone reading a book is a sign of order in the world.”

Over the course of 15 years, award-winning poet Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. These lectures articulate the wisdom accrued through a life dedicated entirely to poetry, and this book is essentially a crash-course humanities degree.

The takeaway: The most successful thought leadership provides the best and deepest answers to your customers’ biggest questions. Think about structuring your thought leadership as an engaging lecture to deliver, either online or as part of a lecture series.

Peter Mendelsund, What We See When We Read

“Words are effective not because of what they carry in them, but for their latent potential to unlock the accumulated experience of the reader. Words ‘contain’ meanings, but, more important, words potentiate meaning.”

What We See When We Read is a gorgeously unique, fully illustrated exploration into the phenomenology of reading—how we visualize images from reading works of literature, from one of our very best book jacket designers, himself a passionate reader.

The takeaway: Narrative doesn’t have to be exhaustive—it just has to contain enough to spark curiosity in your target audience. Try writing your narrative in shorter and shorter iterations: 500 words, 100 words, 10 words, until you’ve crystalized your story down to its most potent elements.

Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

“If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.”

In this super entertaining memoir, a science journalist enters the United States Memory Championship, a competition where “mental athletes” battle to see who can remember such things as an entire deck of cards or the names and faces of 117 strangers. It’s a fascinating inquiry into how we remember and organize information in our minds.

The takeaway: We remember information best when it is tied to loci. How are you housing your most complex information? Your content strategy should be like a well-designed house: a room for each piece of information, with clear pathways for users to navigate, all laddering up to something greater than the sum of its parts. This is how our brain operates, so why not operate your communications the same way?

Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“Empathy isn’t just listening, it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you can see.”

Beginning with her experience as a medical actor, paid to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose, Leslie Jamison’s visceral and revealing essays ask essential questions about our basic understanding of others: How should we care about one another? How can we feel another’s pain, especially when pain can be assumed, distorted, or performed?

The takeaway: Empathy is your secret weapon. When you’re close to a business’ daily operations, it’s hard to see how your brand is perceived by the people you serve, both as customers and employees. To create a meaningful brand, you need practice in stepping out of your own perceptions. There’s an inherent deliberateness, thoughtfulness, and patience that comes with empathy. It’s a muscle we should all flex more often.

Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”

Austin Kleon gave a talk to students at a community college in upstate New York in 2011. For his lecture, he created a list of 10 things he wished he’d heard when he was starting out. Equal parts manifesto and how-to, Steal Like an Artist aims to introduce readers to the idea that all creative work is iterative, no idea is original, and all creators and their output are a sum of their inspirations and heroes.

The takeaway: Do a competitive audit of your field. What do you love? What do you wish you wrote, engineered, designed, built, sold? What can you steal? What can you improve?

What Books Are You Reading?

We’d love to hear what you’re reading and what’s inspiring you. Leave a comment below, or explore this list of further reading:

Edward Tufte, Envisioning Information
Josef Albers, Interaction of Color
Kenya Hara, White
Michael Bierut, Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Ray Fawkes, One Soul
Stephen King, On Writing
Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways
William Kentridge, Six Drawing Lessons
Eleanor Davis, You & a Bike & a Road

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

#100DayProject: From Ancient Symbols to Brand Design

Posted on May 7, 2019 by Chris Ames

This year, the design team at Emotive Brand is participating in the #100DayProject. Today, we sit down with Senior Designer Jonathan Haggard to discuss symbols, simplicity, and how to be brave in your creative decision-making.

What is the #100DayProject?

The 100DayProject is a free art project started by Lindsay Thomson that takes place online. Every spring, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of exploring their creativity. The idea is that you pick a theme or a project and rev on that 100 times. This year, our focus is on how ancient symbols inform contemporary brand design.

In the beginning, you tend to go for the most obvious choices, but by day 19, you find yourself really having to flex your creativity. It forces you to think from different perspectives and be thoughtful about your approach to rendering something in a unique way.

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How did the team land on symbols?

We threw around a couple of ideas, but something about exploring symbols seemed to capture everyone’s imagination early on. Three or four years ago, I created a site called the State of Symbols, which is a designer-friendly repository for symbols. #100DayProject is a great way to build off that work and the fact that there are so many symbols with thousands of years of history fits the 100-day format nicely.

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What excites you most about this project?

I think my favorite aspect is being able to research each symbol and the creative process of meditating on how to render it in a new way. With the State of Symbols, I was mainly recreating existing symbols. This project is much more about breathing new life into these ancient shapes and allowing yourself the time to reflect on the core idea in an illustrative way. That requires learning the history, what it means, and seeding it in your mind as a concrete thing.

Designer Keyoni Scott is helping create the animations, and he described the process “almost like doing crosswords or those daily mind games. It’s a good way to keep the creative mind sharp and fun to just create something daily. Nine times out of ten, I learn something that I didn’t know before and I think that’s amazing.”

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What reference materials are you using in your research?

We’ve been using “Shepherd’s Glossary of Graphic Signs and Symbols,” which is an amazing collection of everything from punctuation to railway iconography to maritime navigation symbols. Also, Carl G. Liungman’s “Dictionary of Symbols” and I. J. Gelb’s “A Study of Writing.”

To me, there’s something about these print collections that are a little more legitimate than wandering for images online. You can find interesting things online, but it can be hard to tell if the person is just making stuff up without the original source. As Design Director Robert Saywitz said, “Projects like these allow you to explore different mediums beyond just the computer and brings inspiration to the forefront rather than waiting for it to arrive.”

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What have you learned from the process thus far?

For one, just how many Venus stars there are. From far east Chinese symbols all the way to the Celtic, thousands of people throughout history have been looking at this planet and rendering it in different ways. Whether it’s a five-pointed or eight-pointed star, there’s something kind of beautiful about everyone drawing inspiration from the same thing.

Another thing is how symbols change over time. We tend to think about meaning being fixed, but certain figures like the pentagram have changed meaning roughly every 1000 years – from the morning and evening star in Palestine to the contemporary Wiccan symbol for the elements and spirit.

Lastly, the pace of the project is a challenge of its own. It needs to go out every single day whether it’s perfect or not, which forces me to be brave about decision making. Sometimes, that means bringing something to life through simplicity. For instance, the North African Berber tribe symbol for “bird” is built out five simple squares, but through the use of animation, it suddenly looks like it’s in flight.

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What lessons can you apply to your design practice and the work we do for brands?

People have been trying to communicate the same ideas for 40,000 years. At its heart, symbols display concepts – and that’s what we do as a brand studio. We get the core concept of a company, distill it down to a simple form – the simpler the better – and we bridge the gap between a visual symbol and a series of beliefs, values, or products. As Senior Designer Beth Abrahamson said, “Symbols and their histories are inherently tied to branding, as most logos are variations of symbols that have been around for centuries and have been reinterpreted many times. Symbols are part of our vocabulary as designers and it’s super important to know where the primary forms come from and what they mean.”

Oftentimes, a company’s symbol has grown so strong that it creates a life of its own and can be simplified down to a basic geometric shape. Look at Google: the open circle form makes this shape accepting, something that has an inward motion that is exaggerated with the horizontal rule created to the right. Regardless of color, scale, or representation, it communicates the friendly nature that Google has come to embody.

Whenever I’m starting a new identity or branding project, I always try to see if there’s anything that communicates the message through the symbol itself. Sometimes, I’ll bring a symbol into Illustrator and start taking it down to its components. It’s critical to do that kind of research, because you don’t want to pick a symbol that’s highly offensive in a certain culture, or references something that’s counter to a company’s mission. Designers have a responsibility to know their history, produce great work, and keep these symbols alive.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Creativity: The New Competitive Advantage for Businesses Today

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Catrina Morbidelli

The Rising Demand for Creativity at Top Businesses Today

Over the last couple of years, top companies have shifted their mindset about creativity and its value. It’s now clear that creativity drives business success today, and brands who want to stay ahead, foster innovation, and stand out in a competitive marketplace need creativity to fuel their business forward.

As a result, creative people are more in demand than ever before. However, what it means to be creative is hard to define. It’s a wide spectrum. People stay creative and approach creativity in unique ways. And being consistently creative is no easy task – even for the most creatively inclined people in any industry.

We believe part of staying creative — staying imaginative, asking questions, taking risks, having vision, saying something new — is staying inspired. However, finding daily inspiration is difficult.

As a fine artist working in a branding agency, relying on daily inspiration is a necessity — both at work and in my personal projects. Starting a new painting or creative undertaking takes a certain type of mindset, and staying committed to a creative lifestyle allows my work to keep evolving. Here’s how.

Conquering Fear

Many artists spend a lot of time feeling afraid that they won’t find the inspiration they need. This often makes the act of creating feel daunting. I believe there is a balance to how much fear is the right amount. Personally, I need fear to push me forward and drive my energy, but I’ve found too much fear can also limit my creativity. It’s scary to stare at a blank page or an empty canvas. The immensity of the white space feels like it might just suck you in sometimes. It makes you question: are you adequate? No matter how intimidating these natural feelings of fear can be, it’s important that we accept them as a natural reaction to creating something new. We can’t negate fear, but instead need to accept it and use it to fuel our creative energy. That’s where courage comes in.

Practicing Courage

You have to be brave if you want to produce something new. Ideas won’t transform into realities without courage. Part of being an artist is striving to create something different – something that doesn’t yet exist, something you can claim as your own — while also creating something that is accessible to the people you want to relate to your art.

This simply isn’t possible without the willingness to escape our comfort zones and take a risk on ourselves. Inspiration and true creativity stem from experimentation, imagination, exploration, and questioning. Being experimental and questioning established norms and the way you see things or do things isn’t always easy, but it is always rewarding. When we really take risks, we can move forward.

Commit to Perseverance

To keep moving forward and continue to cultivate creativity, perseverance and commitment are key. It’s one thing to have ideas – it’s another to see them through. Creating is an entirely involved process. You can’t be half in, half out. It requires full commitment if you want your ideas to come to life. And though the outcome won’t always be what you envisioned, the process is always valuable.

So commit to living a life that is less routine and more curiosity-driven. Understand that by observing, cataloguing, and pulling from your personal experiences, your inspiration will flourish. I believe the notion that inspiration will “just arrive” holds people back from their greatest achievements. Picasso once said, “When the muse finds you, let her find you working.” Don’t get caught up in the romanticism of creativity. Instead, work hard and act on ideas.

Bring Some Faith

While you constantly work at it, you also have to have faith in the creative process. Trust that through practice new realities can be born. Stay informed about the world and the happenings surrounding us. Pay attention to everything that heightens your senses. News stories, poetry, art, books, movies, sounds, scents, and the patterns of people are great sources of inspiration. We must act on the ideas that appear in order to take them past imagination and into creation. And don’t take things so seriously. If an idea hits a wall, step back and work on something else. Come back to the project only after giving yourself the chance to look on it with a fresh set of eyes and thoughts.

Anyone is Creative

The notion that only certain people have what it takes to be creative needs to be squashed. If we allow ourselves to be open to the inspirational process, so many new and exciting things can happen. And this doesn’t only apply to art. Every industry, business, and calling requires creativity.

Businesses today are worried more than ever about how to stand out and say something different. Industries are crowded with competition. People are constantly trying to find new approaches to learned practices. Talent is never secured. More work, innovation, creativity, curiosity, and inspiration is being demanded in every realm. Fostering creativity – in whatever sphere – will open new doors, create unique possibilities, and unlock hidden capacities as long as you are willing to take risks, be open to suggestions, and are ready to be courageous. Creativity will give your business the competitive advantage it needs in 2017.

Keep posted to hear more from of our team about what keeps us inspired and driven.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

The Value of Leadership that Inspires

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Tracy Lloyd

Leadership Leads to Inspiration

The strength of a company depends heavily on its leaders and their leadership. Successful business leaders have to be smart, hardworking, and able to get things done. But, often, that’s simply not enough to fuel a thriving business. Today’s companies require more than just intelligence and drive. As a result, more and more companies are seeking out and focusing on developing their ability to drive inspiration and motivation. And in modern business, whether a leader can inspire, motivate, and engage employees is what sets one leader apart from the next.

Inspiration not only leads to more engaged employees, but it consistently leads to increased innovation and business achievement. A company that can cultivate the skills that will inspire, motivate, and engage employees across the organization will gain a competitive edge in today’s marketplace. Why? Because motivated employees make things happen.

New Requirements for Leaders

Recent changes in the business world have reshaped the workplace, and therefore reshaped what’s required of leaders. Here are three key shifts that are happening today:

1. Focus on the customer experience

The move from product to customer experience is a major source of competitive advantage for businesses today. While companies will always need to deliver high value goods or services, high customer experience has become just as essential. Thus, customer-facing employees have tremendous influence on the success and future of a business. If employees feel inspired and engaged, they will then amaze and inspire customers.

2. Increased independence

This concerns the nature of the work itself. Today, increasingly more jobs rely on collaboration and independence. It’s become common in the workplace for people to collaborate across departments, do their work remotely, and manage themselves. People are expected to generate their own ideas, and take responsibility more than ever before. Being able to stay motivated and creative, especially with little supervision, requires both dedication to your team and passion for your job.

3. More millennials means = demand for meaning

We can’t forget the millennial generation. While the ways in which we work, and the work itself, have both changed, so have today’s youngest employees. Millennials’ value proposition is not related to traditional motivators. The millennial generation will work hard for a company if they believe in its values and purpose, not necessarily for a larger salary or better title. So creating inspiring and meaningful workplace for this generation is critical to attracting and retaining today’s top talent.

How do you motivate employees in an organization when the classic carrot and stick approach will no longer work?

In order to inspire and engage, leaders must energize those around them and create a climate of trust. Their leadership must extend beyond just their own team and be linked with a company’s strategy and overall workplace culture. While there is no “right” way or one way to be inspirational, these types of leaders tend to have courage and lead with authenticity. They utilize empathy and empowerment. And their leadership style flexes and adapts depending upon what’s required of them in the workplace.

To be a next generation leader, these are the key leadership skills to develop and practice:

1. Individualistic

Leadership is not a one size fits all. It takes time to learn and cultivate the abilities, strengths, and motivators of each person. Each person has their own style, motivations, and way of thinking. When you focus on the differences between individuals, you change from trying to build the “perfect” team to building a “great” team — one that will be more productive and engaged.

2. Focus on strengths

Cultivating someone’s inherent talents leaves people feeling authentic, valuable, and empowered. An inspirational leader has a good sense of his or her own self, and therefore, sets a good example by developing their own strengths and offsetting their own weaknesses. When people work in strengths-based environments, creativity and productivity increase. Everyone feels like they can do what they do best.

3. Self-aware

Having a sense of mindfulness promotes better overall health and workplace satisfaction. Being self-aware is the essence of leadership itself – being able to stay calm under pressure, cope with stress, and empathize with others. A leader must be able to reflect on their actions and revise as needed. Remaining open to new ways of thinking and interaction creates a required sense of trust and connection to other people.

4. Optimistic

Remaining resilient and positive in the midst of challenges demonstrates a sense of confidence and level-headedness. Leaders who are optimistic don’t just have a goal in mind, they have a strategy to achieve it, and the motivation to implement their plan. Optimistic leaders are able to inspire people to believe that the future will be better than the present. And furthermore, that they have the power to make it so.

5. Visionary

Orienting people toward an aspirational future creates individual purpose and joy. When people feel relevant, they are more likely to participate and contribute. Proactively developing a culture of “you are part of something larger than yourself” creates a common platform for everyone to make unique contributions towards.

Lead the Employee Experience

In order to deliver a great customer experience, you must deliver a great employee experience. And understanding that employees are looking for more than just a paycheck and a “job well done” is the first step in becoming a successful 21^st century leader.

In today’s workplace, the opportunity to be a leader is open to anyone who develops their inspirational skills and combines them with their own unique strengths, enthusiasm for the job, and authenticity. Valuing inspiration throughout an organization teaches everyone to be more aware, reflective, and empathetic. Ultimately, a team that reinforces the core principles of inspiration will have a competitive edge, and a more productive and resilient future.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.