I like quotes.
Always have.
I like them because they often frame something in a way that sets my brain on another track.
It’s why I enjoyed the Rules Of Rubin series I did a while back. And while that was for a specific work-related reason, I came out of it with far more than I imagined.
Recently I had another one of those quotes, not by Rubin but by Paracelsus … a Swiss physician who was a pioneer in many areas of the medical revolution’ during the Renaissance.
It’s that one at the top of this post.
Yes, I know what it is saying is obvious.
Let’s be honest, the phrase ‘everything in moderation’ has been around for decades, but there’s something about this that just has more bite.
Maybe it’s the use of the word poison.
Maybe it’s the way it doesn’t define any specific thing as bad.
Maybe it’s the way it doesn’t feel condescending or judgemental.
But it set my mind whirring far more than using words like ‘moderation’ and I would imagine it would do the same to any creative having to work with such a brief.
Quotes have a wonderful way of doing that.
They’re far more valuable to provoke different ways of thinking than filling in a creative brief with the answer you want the creatives to execute rather than giving them the problem you want their brains to explore and resolve.
We’re in danger of only valuing literal thinking rather than lateral … and that’s what I love about quotes. They challenge how you think … make you take some leaps, look in some new corners, explore what you think is possible … but never adding pressure on what or where you go with them.
I have always had a hard time writing briefs.
I place so much pressure on myself to get to something intriguing and interesting that I end up writing 7 or 8 different versions – all with different possibilities – so I and the team – can have a real chat about where our energy is at.
I think my record is something like 14 odd for Spotify.
And that’s before we even start on all the other briefs that come from it.
I still do that, but what’s helped my sanity is starting with a bunch of quotes or poems or song lyrics. Stuff related to the issue without being obviously directly about it.
It’s such a great time saver to open discussion.
Like the brief before the brief.
The opportunity to work out what excites you about a possibility without getting too lost in the detail of the possibility. At least initially.
So next time you’re stuck on where you should go, don’t start filling in the brief boxes in the hope the answer will present itself [it never does] … fill up the walls with stuff that opens things up before you start closing things down.
Because the best briefs are not a flow of logic, but a story of adventure.