"Creativity, from Scratch": Find the way to be free and let your creativity flow endlessly
When I think of “creativity”, many pictures come to my mind. In fact, a long time ago I read “Creativity from Scratch (opens in a new tab)”, a good book that looks light and short, but has powerful content. I can almost say with certainty that creative people must read this masterpiece. Of course, I also believe that everyone can understand how creativity is generated from the reading process.
This book (opens in a new tab) Author 杨杰美 (opens in a new tab) (James Webb Young has passed away for forty-six years. Although the fields of advertising and creativity are developing rapidly, it can almost be described as “a thousand miles a day”. But all this has never detracted from “Creativity, from scratch (opens in a new tab)” (A Technique for Producing Ideas) is so authoritative that even with the evolution of the times, some of the principles mentioned in this small book (such as concentration) are even more respected by many experts and scholars today.
Jamie Yang, born in 1886 AD, is a well-known advertising guru in the United States. He has worked at JWT Advertising Agency (JWT) for more than half a century. He has published The Diary of an Ad Man (published in 1944), A Technique For Producing Ideas, and How to Become an Advertiser? “(How To Become An Advertising Man) and other three classic advertising works.
I still remember that in 1939, advertising master Yang Jiemei first published content related to “Creativity, from scratch (opens in a new tab)” in the advertising class of the graduate students at the University of Chicago Business School. Afterwards, the book was officially assembled and published in 1965, and it was immediately sought after by elites in the advertising and public relations industries in Europe and the United States. Suddenly, Luoyang Zhigui, Yang Jiemei’s views attracted many people in the advertising and entrepreneurial circles. Not only did he personally win many honors and awards, but everyone also regarded some of the principles mentioned in the book as their guide.
Many people envy the exciting and rich lives of creative people, but they are also curious about how they have endless inspiration. How does creativity come from? Yang Jiemei tried to use five steps to help everyone summarize it: first, collect a large amount of information, then digest and absorb it, and let the subconscious mind work for you. Afterwards, you can get creative and make final corrections to your ideas to suit their actual use.
For myself, because I love creation and regard writing (opens in a new tab) as my main interest and work, I have known the importance of focusing and exercising my mind very early. I train myself to stop relying on inspiration (https://www.helpful.guide/2019/05/how-to-get-inspired-to-write.html (opens in a new tab)), and instead observe a large number of things from daily life, and accumulate and internalize them into my own creative database. Once you are not fettered by inspiration (opens in a new tab), then your creation can flow freely and freely.
I very much agree with “Creativity, from scratch (opens in a new tab)》author Yang Jiemei (opens in a new tab) mentioned that creative production is indeed an art. Therefore, what we should learn most is not where to find specific inspiration (opens in a new tab), but how to train the mind to be familiar with the methods of creative production, and to be able to fully grasp the basic principles behind all creativity.
Having said that, we don’t have to think too hard about creativity! Because the master also told us that creativity is just a recombination of old elements. Think about it when the iPhone came out, didn’t some people sarcastically say, “This product is nothing?” It just combines mechanisms such as a Walkman, a phone, GPS navigation, and the Internet. But the difficulty is often not the idea itself, but how to implement the idea and perfectly meet the various needs of consumers.
If you still don’t know how to generate creativity, I think you can also follow the advice of master Yang Jiemei and start by looking for the context and correlation between things: try to broaden your horizons, and then find various details from points, lines to surfaces, and then construct a “three-dimensional” structure.
Observation is not only the most important psychological habit of creative people, but also a very basic homework. When we already have a blueprint in our minds, the generation of ideas can naturally come at our fingertips!
I sincerely recommend this good book (opens in a new tab) to everyone. I hope everyone can find a way to be comfortable in the process of creative thinking.
[
★ Welcome to like the “Vista Writing Companion Program (opens in a new tab)” fan page!
★ Do you want your copywriting to be liked by more people? Come and watch “Slow Reading and Understanding in Seconds (opens in a new tab)”.
★ To improve your content power, please don’t miss the online course “Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands (opens in a new tab)” ★ Photo Credit: Roman Kraft (opens in a new tab)
Further reading
- Inspiration Unlocked: Use “20 Drawers of Creativity” to create unlimited possibilities
- Reading experience of “Creativity from Scratch”: Find the way to be free and let creativity flow endlessly
- I read “Daily Practice of Creative Thinking”: Strengthening the connection between the right brain and the left brain
Next step
Bring this topic to your team
Vista Cheng speaks and runs workshops on AI workflows, writing and content systems for companies, schools and public agencies.
