If your a design professional you've been hit with this scenario before. You must deliver several creative concepts for something. Concepts that must come from within you. So you take time to reflect and use your proven methods which get you into a creative mindset and help the ideas flow. At first you've got nothing, or something that is not really new or innovative more likely a derivative of something you've done or seen.
Then it happens.
Inspiration hits and the ideas start to flow. You grab onto a few of the good ones for support but end up really leaning on the strongest to save you. You can feel it in your gut. It's good. It may be better than good, but telling yourself not to get too excited you start to work. The execution part is fairly easy now, it happens all by itself. What you do either supports the great new concept or it doesn't. A euphoric feeling builds in your gut, your on the right track and you have confidence that your client will see it.
Then you get the call.
"I know you'll be sharing your ideas with us soon and we're really looking forward to seeing them. But, could you please also do one that looks like (or acts like) X."
You shudder. You really don't want to do exactly what they're asking for, but there's really no reason to say no. In fact, you're so sure that what you've done will blow this other idea out of the water that it doesn't matter. They'll see the light when the ideas are side by side - it's a win win.
But they don't see the light. They see just what they asked for brought to life and they love it. They take pains to recognize the interesting concepts that you've presented but those are not the ones that they want. They want their vision, not yours. You launch one last desperate salvo in defense of the real "creative" being presented. But it's all for naught. You'll execute on their vision and get paid. It may even meet with some success. You may even be given some recognition for what you've done, but it will never sit right with you.
Battle with our own ego is certainly one of the tougher challenges we face. Let go and move on to the next project, or...?
Comments
No one has commented yet.