Today I had the same thought twice so it has occurred to me that now would be a good time to resurrect my blog and share my thought with the world: creative people don’t care so much about time, money or opportunity cost, and neither should they.
You may already know this, and to a degree I did too, but it’s worth being reminded of.
When you work with talented creative people they don’t think about what’s “practical” or “how long things take” or “how much something costs to build” – their eyes are fixed firmly on realizing their creative vision. And so it should be. While I’m not advocating ignoring financial or practical realities, sometimes it’s best to leave those worries to someone else and let the creatives run free.
I was reminded of this today when I was working with a designer on some web pages. As always, I was excited and pumped to see our ideas come alive on the screen, but I had deadlines and dollar figures running through my head, thinking of the cost both in time and money. It’s a tricky balance; I wanted it to be good, but I also wanted it “done” so we could move onto the next thing. You have to draw a line somewhere, but to an extent design is “done when it’s done” – the magic is in the little touches that always occur at the very end.
Tonight I also saw Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” (which as a side note, you should go and see) where the point I’m trying to make hit me hard. As you probably know, the film is based on footage of MJ’s sell out (50x over) come-back show that obviously (and sadly) never happened – and it was epic. As I watched it I saw things over, and over, and over again that were massively expensive and time consuming to pull off. Sets like you wouldn’t believe, animations and footage (for the stage) that must have cost a bomb. Costumers, dancers, fireworks – no expense was spared. But it easily could have been. A less creative person might have said “you know what, we could cut this and we could cut that and we’d save a couple of million bucks and you know what, we’d still sell out 50 times over.” And they’d be right. But that’s not what made MJ special. Despite his (apparently) less than ideal financial position, no expense was spared when creating the show for his fans.
Good design, good creativity, the “Apple Factor”, comes at a price both in dollars and time. But in my opinion it’s a price worth paying. It’s what people remember, and it’s what makes great people/companies/products/whatever great.
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