Ask ilk: What’s the Future for Creativity?

Creativity. It’s difficult to pin down. But it’s at the heart of everything we do as an integrated agency. Pin sharp rebrands that tick every client box? Creativity. Off the wall social ideas that find new audiences? Creativity. Clever re-angling of stories that hit the headlines? Creativity. Mixing lemon and ginger with peppermint to create lemon-ging-mint tea? Maybe not that one. Sometimes you just left both herbal tea bags in by accident.

How that creativity takes form is a complex intersection between people, tools and tech. Ideas only work if there’s a platform to carry them, and an audience who know how to interpret them. And it’s clear that those platforms and tools are changing faster than ever. It took us a century to go from vinyl records to CDs, but they did roughly the same thing. Suddenly an algorithm is choosing our streaming habits. Sketching out a logo by hand or in Illustrator is mostly a matter of time and precision. Asking an AI to do it is… different.

So where do our ilksters think creativity is headed? That’s the future for the ways we turn ideas into real, breathing brands and campaigns?

Patsy – Senior Creative Account Executive

Our job as Account Managers touches on all kinds of creative executions, and there’s definitely a wave of 3D design and video work coming through the door. Print isn’t dead – clients still come to us for physical, printed collateral – but we’re living in a digital world. 

We’re also working across channels in a way we never used to. That’s the great thing about an integrated agency! Where once we might show rebrands on billboards or ads, we’re now thinking about how things will look on TikTok, or sync with paid campaigns.

It’s more important than ever to source ideas from a wide range of people. We can’t work in silos anymore, even if we wanted to. We collaborate, share inspiration and all feed in to how creative or brand work might work across all our channels and platforms. It’s exciting!

Shauna – Social & Paid Director

It feels like social is often at the forefront of new ways to create. The rise of interactive experiences has been a perfect example. Every single platform has invested in them, and now you’re even able to play games on them. It means we can think more creatively about how to engage audiences. We’re much less bound by platform limitations.

We’ve also seen a switch from overly-produced ‘slick’ creative to meme and native style content. Gen Z want authenticity, so their brands need to mirror how they themselves creative. Loose, fast and (often) fun.

Fashion’s cycles are mirrored on social too, and that looks to become even more impactful in the future. So we’re seeing grunge ‘stickers’, butterflies, glitches, pixels, scrapbooks… loads of brands using creative elements they probably abandoned in Y2K! The future mirroring the past.

Beth – Head of PR

It feels like the era of big ‘hero’ creative campaign ideas is over, in PR at least. The budget just isn’t there any more. So we need to be savvier with our money and work out how to the best ROI for our clients. That means pivoting to smaller releases, case studies and expert comment, and being creative with how we shoehorn in brand touchpoints and USPs.

Just like our creative studio, we’re also always thinking cross-channel. We’ve already moved through the ego of Google-led stories, and now it’s often about TikTok as a data source. 

We’ve really taken on board shareability from social too. We don’t just think about why a journalist might cover a story, we put creative effort into why readers and users would want to share it – that’s where the real value lies. Getting people talking and offering them tips and insight that can have an impact on their lives.

Mike – Creative Lead

Honestly I’ve no idea! But that’s exciting, right?

The technological and societal changes that happen in the world around us are what truly make being a designer interesting. Our industry is a living thing, constantly evolving and providing us with new challenges and opportunities. It’s a constant quest to be innovative (and stay relevant), if you like.

Give me the same brief from 10 years ago, and I guarantee the response will be very different today. Not only will it impact the way we work, but we also need to be flexible and act as part of the wider picture of services offered to our clients.

I really expect the landscape of creativity to be almost unrecognisable versus when I started my career. But our creative journey through it will still be very much the same.