Attempt To Explain: Art + Science (The Creative Act)
We're still gonna email you, but now, we're explaining stuff.
As we move into this new quarter, we're changing tack a bit on the old content strategy. Knock knock. Who's there? Not the fourth wall, that’s for sure.
This quarter we’re Attempting to Explain our own nomenclature. Call it LAM-branded-corporate-slang, if we can say what we mean here and mean it, you can parrot it back elsewhere. Sounds like a meme, no?
We've accumulated plenty of LAM-isms with varying etymology. Ideas that have come our way via reading or rogue knowledge from strangers we'll never meet online. Some have stuck, many are central to our practice and now we're breaking them down starting with this, Art + Science: The Creative Act.
Strategy
People often talk about creativity as black hole. Something *out there* somewhere, something that only certain *types* of people can harness, something that your parents just don't understand. I don't know a lot about black holes, but as a business of *professional creative types*, we should be able to describe 'the creative act' a little more effectively. The title of this post suggests the answer is in Art + Science, in brand strategy that's the entire schtick.
Strategy requires science in research, hypotheses, testing and provocation. There should be more substantiation for what a concept becomes than just a couple of hot reckons. But stacking research and insights into the world's most meaningless dissertation isn't of any use to anyone, nor does it make for particularly interesting workplace conversation.
That's where the Art comes in. When you've done all the work to gather materials and really understand a topic (whatever flavour), the real art (and privilege) comes when you can invite as many people into the world of the idea shaped object, being succinct first and then interesting, turning deep work into easy work for your team, your clients and their customers to pick up. As an adult I fucking hate musical theatre, but here's an analogy that I think best describes what happens next.
In musicals the increase in drama increases the need for a higher level of fidelity expression. When the drama is too big for dialogue it becomes song, when the drama exceeds song it becomes dance and so on until I cry from second hand embarrassment.
In strategy your job is to set the premise, boil everything down into a single thought, one thats so powerful it needs to be expressed at a higher fidelity. An idea turns into a word, a word turns into a graphic design, a graphic design into motion, and motion into interaction and so on until the Metaverse or something. The creative act is the result of Art + Science.
Delivery
Okay so the #delivery-team aren’t the creatives, but we’re not fully ‘not creative’ - you know? We do know some things.
At a first pass, project management feels like the antithesis of creativity. It sounds like spreadsheets and rules, with its robotic je ne sais quo. There’s a lot of process. A lot of repetition. A lot of asking people to do things in a certain way.
The repetition serves a purpose though. It Mak(es) Room for Magic’™, and in that sense the Delivery team are the scientific enablers of creativity at LAM. We might not be the creatives, but we do have a part to play. We do know, like, five things about colour - okay? We’re just trying to maximise the art. We’re trying to strip away the cognitive load… stopping designers, and strategists, and developers, wasting time on the things we already know. And so while we might not be the ones selecting the Pantones, we do need to know how they’re chosen. We are the ones who set the bounds for this creative act to take place.
They need a painting? You’ve got the skills. We provide the canvas, the brushes and the prompt. We are your host at the Paint and Sip, inspiring your cheugy attempt at a still life. (Admittedly you probably have a few more skills than that if you got the job).
There is a scientific method to the madness, and this team needs to know it. Inside and out. No two clients are the same, nor two briefs. But our process remains consistent. If we are the meme machine, how do we take so many varied inputs and translate them into one format the machine can read? Interpretation. Translation. Hunches sometimes. We need to know when we should follow rules, and when we can break them. In fact, that requires a little creativity of its own.
Development Team
To attempt to explain programming as anything but dry is, in these times, dry. A designer does their job, and a developer does theirs: they do the art, then we do the science.
Being in the midst of a sort of disciplinary neuroplasticity - bolstered by the terror of tools that can speak - we find the categorisation of responsibilities as they pertain to art versus science creatively restrictive. We’re watching disciplines blend together at a pace never before seen, to an end not yet in view. Optimising code is as artful as reducing the weight of a Formula 1 car, but the need for metaphor betrays the attempt to “explain”, and tethers the talk to tired tropes.
The gulf that separates “bad” from “fine” dwarfs the one found between “good” and “great”. Proficiency plateaus as we approach mastery, and we yield diminishing returns on the time we spend. This idea is salient and ubiquitous, and rings true for both the agent and the craft itself.
The polish is in my view the most artful part of this particular science: all the myriad minutiae of digital mastery that goes unnoticed upon first impression is a deft calculation designed to move the needle of your attention, and it’s that harmony of the micro that separates wheat from chaff.
Design Team
Dr. Edwin Land, the genius who founded Polaroid (and FWIW, also had a huge influence on Steve Jobs), was absolutely all about this one. “Industry at its best,” he reckoned, “is the intersection of science and art.”
Why did he think that? He understood that artists are able to bring a unique perspective to the scientific process by approaching problems with an eye for aesthetics and creative expression, just as scientists can bring rigorous methodology and technical expertise to the artistic process. But it’s when these two disciplines work together that you get the good stuff. You can’t really argue with the results here. By positioning Polaroid at the intersection of Art + Science, Dr. Land unleashed decades of work from the 50s through to the late 80s that was both technologically innovative and culturally relevant.
All very well. But how do we think about what Art + Science means to us as a design team at LAM? Naturally, it’s partly about the importance of collaboration in the creation of innovative work. Rather than operating in digital-or-graphic-design silos, we collaborate with our in-house 3D artists, strategists and developers. They introduce new perspectives, technologies and ideas to the work.
Mainly though, it’s about applying a scientific rigour to the act of Being Creative. We usually call this Maximising Room for Magic™. When a new designer starts at LAM they often remark on the processes. We’re continuously designing processes that mean we don’t need to constantly rethink things from first principles. These processes allow us to channel our energy toward things that will really make an impact. And it’s in that intersection – between art and science – where we’re able to create our best and most innovative work.
Attempt To Explain
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