The Thinking Nobody Sees
The Journey Behind the ‘Big Idea’
I've always been a why person.
It’s got me more than a few eye rolls over the years. Hand me a new brief and, before we’ve gotten to the deliverables, my first question is why.
Why does this matter? Why would people engage? Why would they buy?
Contrary to popular belief (sorry, team), I don't ask because I enjoy making things complicated. I'm trying to understand the problem deeply enough to find an idea simple enough to solve it. That's the irony of it. A single big idea usually comes after a roller-coaster journey of doubting my career choice and my self-worth, only for someone to assume I came up with it in the shower.
A brief is very often written out of context. Not because it's wrong, but because it's written from inside an organisation. It tells you what the business thinks it needs, but it doesn't necessarily tell you everything that's happening around the problem. It's our job to show them what they need.
So I start digging a little deeper.
What's changed? What are people feeling and responding to? What cultural forces are shaping the category? What has the brand already built, and what might be getting in the way? If we're launching into a new category or market, what do we need to understand before we get there?
And ultimately, who are we talking to and why should they care?
I've always found that the interesting part of a brief is usually somewhere in those questions about people and culture, and very often, in a constraint.
If a brief is a business problem to solve, I believe the answer has to be human relevance.
So how do I get there? It’s not a linear process, but these are some of the ways I approach solving a creative problem.
‘I like connecting the dots between the business problem and the human problem, the history and the future, and the brand and the people experiencing it.’
Hannah Shore
Looking Backwards to Look Forward
I've realised that whenever I'm working on something new, I tend to look backwards first. It probably comes from my love of history, but I think the past is incredibly useful in branding.
I'm often looking for the stories. How the business began, who started it and why, and the moments that have shaped what it has become. So often, the answers are already there. You just have to look at it differently.
I'm also looking at what the brand has already built. What assets do people recognise? What's working? What could be kept, adapted or brought back to life? Change for change's sake isn't worth it, IMO. I want to understand what's there before deciding what needs to change.
The past gives brands depth. It gives them stories and reasons to believe, and over time, familiar brand assets compound, much like money, into something powerful. Throwing that away for the latest trend doesn’t sit right.
So sometimes the answer isn't something new at all. It's breathing new life into something that's been there all along. A good refresh should feel like a brand evolving while carrying its history with it.
Cultural Context
Always my favourite part of a project. I think living and working across the Middle East and Africa for much of my career has made me particularly curious about culture, especially when it’s a long way from the one you know.
I've lived in some of the places I've worked and spent years working across many others. It gives you a different perspective. You start to understand that a country or a demographic is never one thing. There are layers, contradictions and nuances alongside global cultural influences. I'm always looking for those things. The unexpected detail, the tension, the modern interpretation of something traditional.
I also spend time scrolling Instagram because it's one of the easiest ways to see what people are responding to. What they're sharing, what they're making, what they're talking about, what feels current and what has already been done to death. It's a form of social listening, AKA professional stalking.
And I listen closely to the people I'm working with too. The business, the founder, the people who have lived with the problem. They often hold the clues to the answer, in the stories they tell, the things they're proud of and even the things they don't think are interesting because it's just everyday life to them.
That's the part of the who I find most interesting.
Beautiful design isn’t an idea
I love creating beautiful things, with design, with photography, with my calligraphy, even my home. But beautiful design isn't an idea. It's the crafted expression of one.
You can make almost anything look good, but if there is nothing underneath it, the work has very little to hold onto.
The design I find most compelling is the kind that feels right. The thinking makes sense, the idea has something to say and the craft has brought it together in a way that feels effortless. That's when you know the idea has got beyond the identity and has started to become a brand.
Good craft makes the final solution look easy (spoiler alert: it’s not!).
A living identity system
Beyond a logo and a set of guidelines, a brand has to be able to live across the many platforms and touchpoints we have today.
One of my biggest considerations when creating now is how the idea can be expressed through the design system, even when the logo isn’t there. What are the things that make it recognisable? What gives it enough personality and flexibility to keep showing up in different ways?
But the brand also has to live beyond the people who created it. The strongest brands aren't simply controlled from inside an organisation. Over time, they are experienced, interpreted, talked about and carried forward by the people who encounter them.
That's when an identity moves beyond a set of assets. It stops being design and starts being a brand people know and love.
Joining the dots
People assume that a Creative Director's job is to have ideas. But an idea is just where you land. Getting there is the rollercoaster. Why gets you to the truth of the problem. Who gets you to the people living with it. Ask one without the other and you end up with something clever that nobody needs, or something relevant that nobody notices.
History, culture, craft and how a brand lives aren't four different processes. They're four lenses I use to get closer to the same thing.
There’s research, questioning, listening and plenty of scrolling. There are hunches to follow, ideas to be challenged and, eventually, all those things come together to create that single ‘big idea’ that is so simple, you wonder why it took you so long to get there.
I think creativity is about being curious enough to keep looking, brave enough to follow an idea when you find one, and disciplined enough to know when you’ve found the right one.
And even then, I can’t always explain exactly how it happened. Because that’s the magic of creativity. There is no real formula to it.
