The subtle art of stepping into an idea — Martin Weigel

Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness - conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.... What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more

We say that the most powerful work operates through evoking visceral, emotional responses, yet we’ve been seemingly conditioned to believe that critiquing and evaluating is the professional necessary first step. But the fact is that we can’t truly feel an idea, we can’t truly live an idea if we’re standing on the outside and looking in being clever... See more

the first task is not to feedback or critique. The first task is to fully step into the idea. Yet far too often, nascent, half-baked, vaguely sketched out ideas find themselves in the dock, alone. Surrounded not by accomplices, but by judges.

If we don’t know the creative intent, we shouldn’t speculate.

Questions like why are the team excited about the idea? How will it work? What will it look/sound/feel like? How reliant is is on technique? What cultural and aesthetic traditions and tropes does it steal from, borrow, or remix? What emergent cultural language does is channel? What are the most important parts? How will it unroll? How will it scale... See more

. If we can do that - if we can actually create the space, take the time, and exercise the discipline to properly step into an idea - I’d contend that the chances of us actually being able to then contribute to the development and improvement of it will be vastly improved.

TL;DR: Just sit with it for a while.

Without even mentioning the words ‘Gestalt theory’, Bill Bernbach spoke of ideas working as aesthetic wholes:

Most readers come away from their reading not with a clear, precise, detailed registration of its contents on their minds, but rather with a vague, misty idea which was formed as much by the pace, the proportions, the music of the writings a

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The art of stepping into an idea continues with seeking to understand. To spend the time to ensure that we have correctly understood the creative intent. For the fact of the matter is that until work is fully produced much of that intent resides in creative minds - not on the page or on the screen. Found imagery and footage, Midjourney renders, sto... See more