Hey, from this month, I will try to write some thoughts about different subjects around creativity and visual things in general. This time it’s somehow about originality.

How six months of scrapping the web for visual content changed my perception of originality

In our design obsessiveness for originality, we aim to create work that hasn’t been seen before—unique, trend-setting, and innovative. But after six months of consciously searching for such projects, I was really intrigued by why that is so hard to come by.

It’s not that I don’t want to create innovative, unique, and original work. It’s just that, in reality, I see very few of these groundbreaking projects come to light. Instead, I see many great projects that bring a unique perspective and visual flair to design. However, when you put them side by side, you need an “I haven’t really seen this before” perspective. And that’s where all those great projects converge in a way.

I’m not talking about obvious trends but about a sort of connection that we, as designers, seem to have with certain types of ideas and visual metaphors. I have seen projects from other studios that looked exactly like sketches we’ve done for clients (good thing they weren’t approved—how awkward would that have been?) and projects with no apparent connection between them or their responsible agencies that use the same underlying ideas or visual cues.

So, of course, it has to be the software: same tools, same results. Or the same creative processes: same ways of thinking, same ideas. Or the same content we’re watching: same visual culture, same visual styles. And maybe all of them. All these are also not new and have been talked about extensively, especially since Midjourney got mainstream.

But I think there’s something else as well. There’s an overloaded environment where everything is very good already, so even discovering something fresh requires conscious time and consistent effort, let alone creating it. And with all the tools, ideas, and visual inspiration available, one doesn’t need that consistent effort to create something actually beautiful and working. On the contrary, it can be done fairly fast. And that, counterintuitively, doesn't leave much time for one to consciously spend on these business-inefficient, risky, and fail-prone creative endeavors. 

So, how can we (re)-introduce these elements into our design practices to keep expanding what we can do and how we do it? How can we carve out time for true creative exploration in our busy schedules? 

ARTICLES OF THE MONTH

That’s all.
Until next month

Cheers,
Andrei