Move faster.
How to speed up the creative process when time is short.
Some things need to be done slowly. You can’t rush a braised short rib or a good deep-tissue massage. But there are times when we creative people need to perform and deliver. Fast. Here are some tips to do that.
Suck early. If you are working on a sizable project, getting started may be difficult. It’s daunting to be awesome when you are producing the first pass on any project. Anne Lamott, in her brilliant book about writing, Bird by Bird, gives a priceless bit of advice: create, what she calls “The shitty first draft.” The idea is to rapidly get something on paper that has a beginning, a middle and an end, however poorly composed. Once you have your shitty first draft, you can then get on with the process of making it less shitty. I’ll go Lamott one better: Be shitty in version one, technically correct in version two, perfect in version three.
Go for quantity not quality. Put a baseball cap on the floor six feet in front of you and try to throw individual playing cards into it. Invariably, only a one or two will hit the target. Success is not completely a function of your skill, it’s really more about how many cards you throw. Coming up with great ideas often works the same way. You aim for awesome, but your idea hits hardwood instead of the bullseye. But if you create enough ideas. If you execute enough variations on a specific theme, sooner or later, just by the law of averages, you will hit the mark. This is especially true when writing headlines. After all, the client only needs to approve one.
Make saving time and labor a design choice. Check out Anime (Japanese cartoons) and you will see a lot of beautiful imagery, but the animation is sparse. At times, there is no animation, just panning of stills. And at other times, only one aspect of a scene is animated, like the background, or a moving hand. It feels like a style choice, but it’s really a massive time saver. It’s not laziness if you have a deadline to hit. It’s a smart decision.
Leave the office. I was editing an eight-page document the other day. Normally, this would take me 2–1/2 hours. But it took all day. Mostly because I work in a collaborative environment where everyone is welcome to come and ask me questions, get my opinion or pull me into a meeting. In hindsight, I should have gone to a local coffee shop.
Compress steps in the schedule. One way to get a project off the launch pad is to have the concept session in the same meeting you have the kick-off. Just start. After all, most small jobs only require a few minutes to kick off, but the first meeting is often scheduled for an hour. So jump in. There are other places to squash steps together. Combine check-ins. Reduce the number of iterations. Go right to finished pieces.
Show tissues. If a client is good at visualizing things, you can save a day or two by showing tissues, a.k.a. sketches, instead of tight comps. Then you can get right to the heart of the winning idea that much faster.
Prototype. Instead of selling an idea by building a deck and researching the options, just go ahead and make it. The idea will sell itself. This works especially well with videos and digital prototypes.
Conceptualize as a team, work as individuals. Let’s face it, teams are awesome, but once the ideas are agreed upon, you can go like lightning if you work solo. One person on copy. Another on art. Another on digital. Go, team. Separately.
Know the difference between a creative gig and an educational gig. There’s no reason to write a detailed creative brief and have a big kick off for a project that is really just conveying information in a simple, clear, educational way. So skip the ideation and go right to execution.
Bring the client in early and often. A client can change the trajectory of a project with one comment. So bring them into the process early, before you’ve gone too far in one direction. Clients appreciate it and your deadlines will not seem so looming as a result.
Work with professionals you know and trust. One great way to get great quality work done fast is to bring in the Pros from Dover (M*A*S*H reference alert). The best directors, producers, audio engineers, actors and photographers don’t mess around. They get stuff done and then they bill you. Plus they make you look good in the process.
Or… DIY. If the idea can handle a little anti-craft feeling, this is one of my favorite time-savers. Use the brains and tools you have on hand and just shoot, record and make what you need. Be crafty. Be imaginative. Be quick. Photography, video, illustration, voice over — if you’ve got a computer, a camera and a serviceable microphone, you can do it. Yourself.
Make the hard choices on day one. The best creative directors are good at this. Don’t let your teams wallow in a bunch of directional choices. Just come right out and say something like, “We don’t have time to find real people and shoot them on a location, so let’s write a script and cast for actors who look like real people…” In the end, you’ll save days or weeks if you can just be realistic about what you can and can’t do.
Have your shit together before the kick-off. Nothing stalls the process like a bunch of unanswered questions or missing assets. So make sure the whole team has everything they need up front. (And creative people, read the effing brief!) You can’t fire the gun until it’s loaded.
And there you have it.
That’s how to go really fast in the ad business. (Ironically, I started this post on December 7th, 2016. Gah.) I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. So please comment and let me know: what’s your favorite tip for getting the work out the door quickly?
Grant Sanders is the Creative Director at Mintz+Hoke Advertising in Avon, CT. Where he goes fast. Until the weekends, that is, when he sometimes takes the slow boat back to his home on Nantucket Island.
