How Are Ideas Born?

A business student once asked me as she worked on a school project, how do you get your ideas? With shiny, excited eyes, she asked me, and I wanted to be honest -
 "Research, lots of research. But also time, and some courage." It was not the response expected so she urged - "Really, that's it?"

There is no recipe for success, but these words define my process. And mind you, this process is guided by my well-trained eye for aesthetics.

Research is an exciting part for me. It makes me feel more akin to an explorer, a discoverer, and I love it.
I remind myself of the brand's core values and personality (we define that in the brand strategy) - they are my guiding stars as I always come back to them. They skew my vision, and help me see through the right perspective. Next, I start searching and my thinking goes like that:

Let's see what the industry is doing?
How about the direct competitors?
Let's see what other industries I can draw a parallel from.
And what do people think when ___ (this word) is visualized?

Thank goodness for Google images and Pinterest. As I do this, I sketch ideas and thoughts that come into my head. Nothing glamorous - just quick visuals and sketches.
My initial dump of ideas is done then and I am not dreading to start. I know what's out there, how this new brand needs to be positioned. Now, I need time.

Let's talk about time. The sooner I get thinking about the work, the better. I call this process "keeping it on the back burner".  Now that I have done all this research, I will restrain myself from jumping to a single, final solution. As humans, we want to quickly solve a problem and get it out of the way, but, in reality, that would give us the most obvious solution, the most typical one. It will not be a smart, inspiring, imaginative one, not likely to form a memory. There are many ideas that will jump into my head after, so I write them down, keep my urge under control and drive on.
At this point, it is important to submerge into the world and not stay isolated (like some creative genius from a film). I go to a cafe and see their wallpaper, hold a new coffee cup, I see a movie's closing credits, I read an ad, an article and something resonates with me. I write it down, I keep up my open mind for exploration with no defined solution. Some thoughts like to bombard me in that sweet time right before I am ready to fall asleep - a time when reason is almost let go of and imagination comes in. So I keep a notebook nearby and, to be honest, I have gotten better at writing and drawing in the dark.

Only with fresh eyes in a few days, I remind myself of those guiding stars - the brand's core values and personality. With them in mind, I take a more critical look at some silly and some intelligent ideas I have had. My guiding stars help me make these decisions as I stay objective. I flesh some ideas out - make them more precise and then take off to the digital world.

Imagine, all this needs to happen, and so I know that I need a minimum of 2 weeks between visual identities to give them the space and attention. Also, scheduling is the key to success as rushing through this process will not give ideas space to grow. 

So get going on your genius ideas early, give them space and time. And when you have them to a state you are proud of, have the courage to present them and ask the right people (your target audience) for feedback.

Now, go out there and be a creative problem solver!