Creative Spark
Reignite your creative spark and ingenuity to burn brighter than ever. Don’t burn the midnight oil on this one. Stay focused by understanding your own creative process. Look across the compass to Creative Success for the balance to this section.
Bright ideas for creative ingenuity
Creative expression is where the best business ideas come from, but how do we find it and how do we turn it into something real that relates to our own way of doing things?
“Suddenly I see why the hell it means so much to me.”
KT Tunstall
Focus on your abilities to help you uncover a new career, business, or idea. Uncovering your own abilities requires research. Learn to research yourself through methods developed throughout my 28-year career in branding and design.
If you’re feeling challenged in your career or business idea, now is the time to start. Right now, as Van Halen sings. So stop what you’re doing and find your own abilities to be on target. It can be as simple as circling a few words on a list and thinking about your own home.
Sound too easy? Yes, and that’s the point. For more information and what words to circle, find my method right here and in my book, Creativity for Soul Healing.
Understand your creative endeavor from the ground up. Find the guided process in my Creative Life Concept for Business method.
This pdf download walks you through my process to help you get the best out of your own creative abilities with four learning modules, each with its own worksheet.
creating unique brands
Most people approach brand development through ‘story,’ but I have a different take because we all have our stories and sometimes we stretch the truth. Instead, approach your brand through the metaphor that it brings up for you culturally. We know that companies and culture bend and shift over time, so aligning it with one story puts you in a box. (And we all, apparently, hate boxes.) Look at iconic brands such as Apple that have maintained the logo, but the product ‘story’ has changed drastically. How do you become timeless as a brand? You won’t know until you get to the end, but you can always change your approach like Florence Knoll and other iconic designers whose brands have stood the test of time.
Product Mix and Demographics
Imagining how people will engage with your product or service helps, but remove the story.
Instead, base the demographics on the product itself.
Product differentiation is one way to say it, but there are so many products of the same type and caliber, especially on Amazon, Ali Baba, Temu and other places that really, there is nothing new under the sun. My point is, they all get the job done, but we know when to go to one over the other and that includes all the ways we engage with their product mix or service.
For example, I go to one hardware store to get a specific product because they have it in the size I like. Other hardware stores have the same product and service, but they don’t cut it down so I can easily move it into my car and get it home without delivery.
The product mix does matter, but it’s how the mix works for you as an individual.
Product or Service Demographics
Price point: basic, luxury, middle of the road, or sliding scale
Type: Necessity item, nice to have, or royalty
Features: stripped down (basic), up-and-coming, full of bling
Look and Feel: high art/ design, some cool ideas, just get ‘er done functional
Origin of Process: hand made, machine made, a combo of the 2
Some people go through this list innately, but writing it down helps to uncover some things you may not have thought of or sends you on a new path to explore options — and we all enjoy options… just not too many like sifting through the market places above. It gets to be mind numbing or disorienting. “Didn’t I just look at that item? Is it the color, the price point? I don’t get it.” So you move away from it because it’s too much or you purchase it anyway because you just need something.
Once you have selected from this list, the final product or service can be wrapped in any number of styles that help you feel good about what you’re offering to the world.
Branding fun - $20.00 us
This audio-visual presentation will help you develop your own business idea, product, or service. Great for small start-ups or people looking for branding advice from an industry expert. I worked with national and boutique brands and also developed three of my own! Worksheets included for all who want to develop their own. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for logo inspiration.
spark a light for yourself and others
South is the direction of the sun (in the northern hemisphere) and is aligned with the element of fire. It’s the most auspicious direction because it’s our ability to ignite a spark and bring in the new. Feel the sun’s warmth on your shoulders, lifting you from a heavy burden and believing in your axis of truth.
For more relating adventures, move back to the compass here.
