Primary Research

For this projects Primary Research I interviewed 10 people all from different creative industries about their opinion of the Creative Process.

The interviews below are all completely unedited and only shown as evidence for this projects Creative Process.

Neil Leonard, Graphic Designer/Web Designer & Developer

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for the email and for coming along yesterday. I hope your portfolio develops well!

I'm happy to try and answer the questions… here it goes!

1. My ideal creative process would be: 

1. get the brief

2. generate some ideas and roughs

3. test the ideas

4. refine the work 

5. present it to the client and then go through steps 2, 3 & 4 until it was right

The actual creative process is more akin to firefighting. Clients tend not to be that articulate when briefing, so the greatest part of the creative process is spent trying to understand what they need and reacting when you find your initial assumptions were slightly off or they have not communicated the brief effectively. Some clients are great and know exactly what they want (and trust you), and these tend to be the ones that work within the creative industries! 

Understanding what a client wants and getting them to articulate it is a real skill, and I only feel recently that I've got better at it. 

Additionally, I would say that I like parameters – I'm not someone that can summon creativity out of the blue. Real life problems are the most inspiring to me. 

2 & 3. Creativity is sold to people now as a lifestyle (possibly a commodity). People want to see behind the scenes to learn the lifestyle, or get to know the 'celebrities' within that particular industry. Generally people share a lot more, and sometimes images are just shard to keep social media alive. Graphic designers share because it makes them look busy, interesting and like experts in their field. Also, everyone shares their lives through social media so it is common, but designer might have more 'visual' things to share. 

Many students will look like graphic designers before they have started a course because magazines and press communicate so effectively how a designer should dress (dark jeans and check shirts) what they should drink (coffee) and even the music they should listen to. It's a lifestyle that people can buy into and also a social marker. People now look at the behind the scenes pictures as they would for celebrities because they want to learn the lifestyle.

Within other sectors (craft for example) people are really interested in process, machinery and watching skilled individuals at work. Again, this is largely about an aspirational lifestyle. The recent crowd funded book by Folksy is a really good example of this. 

The picture of my desk was intended as a joke as it was a complete mess, but still people seemed to find it interesting! 

4.I would suggest talks by Kresse Wesling or Jessica Hische this one and this one are really good. I would also suggest looking at Uppercase magazine as there is a lot or behind the scene/creative. Anything by Sagmeister & Walsh is normally great and you could try the Design Matter podcasts. 

I hope this helps!

Best regards,

Neil

Amy Reed, Third Year Fashion & Textiles Student

Robbie Lowden, Third Year Photography Student

Claire Sambrook, Lecturer at University of Portsmouth

Daniel Nicholas, Third Year Entertainment Technology Student

Jack Daly, Freelance Photographer & Third Year Entertainment Technology Student

Jamie Lewis, Third Year Games Development Student

Natalie Wilsher, Third Year Television & Broadcasting Student

Peter Chipping, Freelance Television Director

Rob Sutcliffe, Music Supervisor at Scott Free Productions

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to talk to me for this project, your contribution has been a huge help.