A month-long task. To challenge the creative strength of the Ardmore Studio. Designers, Creatives and Digital teams alike came together to put their ideas to the test. With daily word prompts and the ultimate goal of making it on the Ardmore Instagram Story. The month started strong. With the whole studio neck and neck, aiming to create a masterpiece each and every time. It was a dangerous game to get involved in…what if people didn’t understand what you meant? What if you missed the deadline…and after all, you only had a mere 15 minutes to come up with your winning design…safe to say this highly regimented and creatively led task descended into madness before week one was even over. With submissions completely ignoring rules and regulations and sometimes even the orchestrator forgetting the day we were on… It was epic.
Early Days
Thinktober was a somewhat simple concept. At 5pm on the dot, every workday of October, the studio team was presented with a prompt word (or two). We were then given only 15 minutes to visualise this word in whatever way we saw fit.
At first, we approached the task with caution. Really trying to pull the essence of the prompt word out through whatever means necessary. I even got stressed some nights thinking… Is this really the best can do? For the first few days it was creative boot camp and we were all the new trainees.
Systematic breakdown
After a while though, as we got more and more used to the daily task and how there were really no rules to what we could make, that’s when the best concepts started to emerge. Thinktober was truly like a fine wine. It only got better with time. As the creative barriers broke down, the studio felt free to make and create whatever came to mind. We got less worried about making a grand design and instead more concerned with finding the fastest and simplest way to explain an idea. This ranged from succinct animations to a scribble on a post-it-note (That one actually made the Instagram if you can believe it) And that was the joy of Thinktober.
Leave time for play
Thinktober provided a stress free no strings attached creative task for the studio. It provided a short period of time every workday for us to create whatever we saw fit, it made us laugh and giggle with each other, it made us look at things in a different way. It is in these moments that some of the best creative concepts can emerge. It is during these small somewhat silly creative tasks that we have the ability to bounce ideas off one another, we get to peak into how other members on our team perceive and approach tasks and we get the opportunity to create for the sake of creating.
“There is a very simple law in operation here, the first law of creativity- the quality of and uniqueness of stimulus in, has a direct impact on the quality and uniqueness of ideas out.”
-From Sticky Wisdom, How to start a creative revolution at work.
Rethink the Routine
Basically, Thinktober brought to light that the way we think about new information or challenges is limited by our routines, mental slots or daily parameters we set ourselves.
We need to disrupt our everyday notions to allow room for experimentation and ideation. Exploration leads to innovation. It leads to powerful new insights which can be used to massively increase the effectiveness of our ideas and capabilities further down the line.
Thinktober was a great example of this and I believe it had a massively positive impact on the work we created in the month of October. I hope that the rewards this small task had are not forgotten and we move to bringing more of these creative stimuli into our everyday.
Check out our Instagram Highlights on @ardmoreadv to see the Thinktober winners and entries!
