Nick HutchisonFounder and CEO, BookThinkers

The creative process is like growing a garden

3 May 2023 · 1 min

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1:01

A six-step framework for creative work using gardening as a metaphor: release judgment, plant a clear idea, tend it through the messy middle, design the conditions for growth, release the outcome, and let it stand alone. The speaker maps each step to graphic design workflows.

Chapters

about the creative process is like growing a garden. Could you talk a little bit about that?
The first step in the creative process is to release judgment. So I need to release the judgment that I am not a good gardener and I cannot grow plants. If you take that idea, I'm someone who can grow sunflowers, and I have the seedling of the idea. I have the clear concept. I want to grow sunflowers, right? I've brainstormed this idea. I've got the future vision of what it is. And then imagine I go out into my backyard and I'm like, throw that out there. Okay, I'm gonna back in 3 months, see how you're doing, and then you go and leave. That's the messy middle where I now need to tend to my clear concept that I intend to be someone who can grow sunflowers. I need to keep that vision in mind, and then I need to actually design that space, design that life. At the end of the creative process, I gotta release the outcome too. Then the 6th step in the creative process, particularly like for graphic design,