Thinking Outside the Box

"Think outside the box," probably the most cliché creativity admonishment of all time, typically means to think about a problem in a new or different way, and to avoid the pitfalls that continually eventuate in the same unsatisfactory solutions or dead-end answers.

However, whenever I hear a client, thought-leader, or teacher encourage with this timeworn phrase, it sets off a strobe light in my head that reminds me to avoid even the appearance of creativity if I want to succeed under this individual's mundane yardstick: uncreative people seem to stand up and salute this stale advice, and hide behind its apparent significance.

Nevertheless, the phrase "think outside the box" suggests a more subtle bit of good advice for designers: "box" is a common term for "computer." The phrase "think outside the computer" has important ramifications for graphic designers and, I'm sure, for others. So, what is meant by "think outside the computer" and why is it important?

All creative thoughts take place in a mental space that is clearly limited. Sometimes, a thinker may deliberately limit creative options, (e.g., only concerned with those solutions that involve water if working on an ad campaign for bottled water that requires fantastic or incredible water images), whereas other thinkers might be limited by available resources, while still others are limited simply by their lack of knowledge, experience or initiative. Both intentional and unavoidable limits can increase creativeness. Limits are essential to creativity: without limits, possibilities quickly spin out of the range of usefulness and demand more and more unnecessary creative thinking (e.g., an irrelevant requirement to invent a new kind of hammer before you can build a house).

Today's up and coming graphic designers often get trapped in the belief that they must use a computer in order to be creative. Or that they can't be creative unless they use a computer or special software product. This artificial limit has led to a slew of predictable and trite graphic design solutions in recent years. In fairness, this belief is the only refuge for those who might have been better off in a non-creative field: cool imaging filters are simply not the same thing as creative. Granted, there will always be a market for unimaginative graphic design work, but this should not encourage designers to aspire to mediocre work.

Thinking outside the computer means more than merely avoiding burying oneself in Adobe Photoshop or Flash during the creative process, it also means avoiding the pitfalls of limiting creativity to only those concepts that can be proofed on a letter-size ink-jet printer using a sheet of white paper. Try designing brochures with unusual sizes, proportions, shapes, papers and textures. Design brochures that incorporate foil stamping, die-cuts or embossing, instead of the typical CMYK Getty stock photos. Try creating trademarks that show up well in granite or sandblasted glass, rather than being limited to use only as full color printing or Web display.

And consider this: Abraham Lincoln said that "to a hammer, all problems are nails." This particular creative trap is self-destructive. When designers believe that "to a designer, all creativity requires a computer," then the pursuit of imaginative, original, innovative, and inventive ideas becomes narrow and often hopeless.

An old tale, making the rounds years ago, involved a manufacturer asking three advertising agencies to submit proposals that would increase sales of their toothpaste, makes the case for thinking outside the computer (or in earlier times, outside the drawing board).

Each agency developed a plan to increase sales. Two of the agencies, predictably, presented slick proposals for a new trademark, updated contemporary package design, television commercials with bouncy jingle, and witty print ads. But the agency that got the account—the third advertising designer—simply unscrewed the cap, displayed the tube to the members of the company, and said, "Make the opening larger."

Hours of fussing around with Adobe Photoshop filters, computer generated color palettes, and state-of-the-art font packages would not have resulted in such an elegant and appropriate solution—the solution was so far outside the box that there was no box.