In Christopher Doyle’s CreativeMornings/Sydney talk, he spoke about creativity and what it mean to him. He started off by first describing what gets him down about creativity—mainly being the internet, and how it handicaps our ability to go out and make something original.
He recalled his old art director, who organized designers into three categories: Imitator, Appropriators, and Innovators. While we all want to live in the third group, more often than not, we live in the second group, but, at the very least, let’s avoid that first category.
There is creativity in appropriation.
“Striving for originality has to be a part of what you do,” Christopher told the audience. He warns us against saying that there is no original idea, but to, instead, consciously try to put your own spin on things.
“It’s hard. Innovation is scary. But it’s the space we want to be in.”