An argument for keeping the creativity in creative

Kleenex. Coca Cola. Brands so iconic most consumers refer to the brand name over the item function or category itself. Can you picture the box or can instantly? With the smooth yet bold lettering? I bet you can. And why? It’s great creative. And I bet it took a lot of creativity to get there*.

Humans are, or at least were, naturally curious creatures. We seek understanding, beauty, and a general “what happens when…” approach to the world. For a creative like me, this is what fuels my creativity. What if I tried to shape clay like this, what if I started a story with this line, what if I mix these two colors together…the list goes on and on. Creativity is the process that leads to the outcome, not just a final output. I’ve lost count of the amount of projects that I found more inspiration and craft and story in the process, that led to an en entirely different output that I intended. Because it was better than I could’ve intended. For true creative excellence, the process is the secret sauce.

Or, at least it was.

Enter the world of AI prompts and deliverables at anyone’s fingertips, we’re now surrounded by creative work that skipped the process all together. We’re reading copy that feels as soulless as the brand it’s speaking for, video with glossy-eyed AI characters that no one is reading as genuine, and more serif fonts on earth-toned deliverables than I’ve ever seen (who knew this is what would make serif fonts have a comeback?) And here’s the thing, at cursory glance, some of this looks or sounds good, even really good. But if you spend more than a few seconds with it (which, the brand really hopes you do), it doesn’t all quite add up. And it all basically looks the same. What happens when it all looks the same? We lose the desire to be curious.

One of my favorite ways to spend time with my friends is a craft hang. We get together, bring a project we’re working on, listen to music, and chat. Our hands are busy, so no way to look at phones, and the focus is on doing something with our hands while connecting with each other. And these are not complicated crafts, I’m talking coloring, air clay, a crochet project…you get the idea. When I was a kid, at every birthday party my mom would organize a craft for us. We painted picture frames, made friendship bracelets, really anything AC Moore had to offer that was affordable in the 90s. We wanted to see how the things would come together, be curious about why some things worked and others didn’t. And now here we are, a few decades later, returning to the practice that formed friendships to begin with. We’re craving the connection and creativity the world has started to dim.

I’m reading a lot of chatter online about the death of copywriters and designers and professional creatives in the age of AI. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a lot to be nervous about. But here’s the thing: in a sea of sameness, true creative is what will stand out. Words with a story and angle behind them, designs spun intentionally out of the creative process, pushing ideas to areas we could’ve never thought of at the start. I’m also not saying I’m anti-AI in the creative space, but the hype around it replacing creatives is hyperbole: it’s just another tool in our every growing toolset. In fact, I think we just might be on the precipice of a golden age in creative. Just don’t let the bots get you down.

*For those intrigued, branding for Coke began in 1915, with the goal of creating a bottle so identifiable that even once broken on the ground, people would still recognize it was a coke bottle. And in the 1930s, the ad for Kleenex was “Don’t Carry a Cold in Your Pocket” to encourage consumers away from a reused handkerchief into a more sanitary, disposable option.