Saturday 8:00 am, sitting at my favorite café at Molos area Limassol, enjoying an americano and watching the beautiful scenery; calm sea and people walking up and down. I can’t help but wonder… is this the ideal place for inspiration? Or is it just the right moment? Or the mood?
Inspiration for what? A piece of art? A song? Music? Dance? Theater? A book? A new project or a new marketing campaign? You see inspiration is not essential only for artists. It is important in businesses as well. Many new products were developed because of the inspiration of one person. For Marketing, inspiration is the element that distinguishes a good campaign from a memorable one!
So how do you get inspired? Is there a perfect location? An hour of the day? A specific methodology? For each one of us it may be different things, or a set of elements put together. It can be a walk at the beach or sitting by the fireplace and listening to the rain. It can be early in the morning or late at night or even while sleeping! It can be by watching people’s or our pet’s behavior. It can also be by doing more pragmatic things like studying books and researching online. Usually it is a combination of many things. Inspiration is the stimuli we receive from our environment, our background, our job, our family and friends, our activities.
In the book “How to catch the Big Idea” Ralf Langwost interviews Top Creatives around the world on their strategies for inspiration. You will find that there is not set way or methodology that can be taught really! Of course, the reason this book was written in the first place was to help you get inspired and I am sure there probably are many books on the subject. But what the books or any articles can do for you is to inspire you to find your way of inspiration!
Here are 10 sources you can turn to:
1) Nature – Spend time examining it, studying it, enjoying it, loving it! It will reward you
2) People – Don’t just talk to them. Listen to what they say, listen to their conversations, look and examine their faces, their hands, the way they move and react
3) Animals – Some of the most successful campaigns included animals. They are cute, adorable and fun. Watch them, play with them, they will guide you!
4) Your environment – home, work, gym, places you visit can all be sources of inspiration.
5) Art – Colours, applications, statues, forms, shapes… can all be graphics elements or sources for new inspiration
6) Music – Listen to the music, listen to the music, visualize it, realize it!
7) Daily habits – repeating patterns, routines, daily rituals can be inspiration!
8) Places – Your favorite location, place of relaxation, café, club, spot in the house… just take a sit and unleash your imagination…
9) Books – The more you read… the more you learn! A book can offer you historical or interesting facts that you can relate to your campaigns. Or it can teach you words that are uncommon and sound interesting of a brand name. It can just inspire you to set the scene for a video scenario…
10) Research (online and offline) – the more you learn about your product, brand, competition and customers the more you understand and come close to your target
All you need to do is unlock your barriers… to get those creative juices flowing!
Inspiration is inside of us. It just needs the perfect stimuli to ignite it!
Let your imagination run wild… According to Einstein “Imagination is better than knowledge!”
Inspired by the world…
Chrystalla