Sharpening Creativity Through Play

Have you ever started cutting ingredients for a meal, only to realize your knife is dull? After hundreds of uses, it takes a little extra force to cut through your peppers—and you’ve just made a wreck of a nice tomato. You can still get things done, but not as quickly, and not as well. 

That’s how it feels when your creativity is dull, too. Deadlines keep rushing in, and if you haven’t taken the time to keep yourself sharp, you eventually get a little worn down. You struggle to cut to the core of an idea, and the execution gets a little ragged. Over the course of decades in the creative world, I’ve spent my fair share of days feeling like a warped plastic knife trying to cut through a diamond. So I wanted to share what it takes to keep creatively sharp: what’s worked for me, and the culture we try to create here at DCG ONE. 

Starting With Mindset 

To a certain degree, being a professional creative requires you to perform incredible feats of imagination with efficiency and on demand, no doubt about it. When done well, your work has the potential to spark understanding, laughter, and connection. It has been an honor to turn that superpower into a career and be surrounded by people doing the same. However, it didn’t always feel easy. 

Early in my career, I thought that creativity was something I had to prove with every project. The end result—and people’s reactions to it—defined how I saw myself. So when the results fell short, I doubled down, not seeing when my creative edge was too dull to perform the way I wanted it to. I kept going, even when I was burned out. It was a recipe for high highs and low lows. 

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I see how common it is to fall into that trap. It’s easy to believe that success is defined by good feedback or virality. In reality, there’s a level of mastery we can only achieve when we focus on the process instead of the outcome. 

So how do we do that? 

Play in the World 

Observation is the honing steel of creativity. Looking without judgment can help you see the world in a whole new way. Getting out in the world lets us enjoy the inspiration all around us and be present in the moment. We all need a little less screen time and a little more free time, don’t we? 

So surf through that book that’s been collecting dust on the bookshelf—you don’t even need to read it cover to cover. Just crack it open and see what insights are waiting for you on a random page. Head to the museum and scan the rooms until you find an art piece that speaks to you, then sit down for a while. Walk around your neighborhood and try to name the flowers in bloom. When you’re short on energy and time, a couple of minutes looking out the window will do. 

Whenever I’m feeling stuck, I change my surroundings. New sights lead to new ideas. One of my favorite places to go is Seattle Second Use, a sprawling shop full of reclaimed objects. Some of them are so random, I have no idea what their function is. But that’s half the fun: I start to imagine what it could be next. Even if I don’t buy anything, I’m going home feeling recharged. 

Play In the Sandbox 

The most important way to sharpen your creativity is to be creative. Do the thing you love, whether that’s design, writing, oil painting, knitting, dancing, or latte art. Even if it’s different from the work we do from 9-5, all of our creative outlets can make us better as professionals. But there’s one important caveat: 

You need risk-free creative time. A sandbox, if you will. 

Your creative sandbox isn’t for anyone but you. No clients are weighing in. There’s no algorithm to optimize for. The only expectation is that you show up and practice. Personally, I dedicate space and time just for playing around: sketching, playing with typefaces, and worlds of ideas that no one will ever see but me. When there’s no expectation to show your work or earn anyone’s approval, suddenly your mind is free to explore outside the expected. 

When the pressure is off, we can reconnect with the joy of what we do. 

Play in Community 

We work in teams, so why not play in teams, too? If art and creativity is about evoking emotion, it makes sense that being in community with each other would keep us sharp. More perspectives mean more possibilities. No matter how good the tools get, people will always be our main source of inspiration. 

I was so impressed with how our teams learned to collaborate virtually during the pandemic, but coming back to the office was a catalyst for so much creative energy. We hyped each other up, brainstormed together, and collaborated in ways that felt fresh and exciting. 

That’s part of the reason we create open sandboxes inside of DCG ONE too. There’s an area inside our offices that we call The Lab, full of interesting equipment and one-off experiments. We also have an AI team affectionately known as Skunk Works (based on the team that developed the first spy plane) that’s testing new hypotheses every day. Plus, a couple of times each year, we host our own internal Art Walk, where our team members can share photography, paintings, and an unexpected array of creations that never fail to inspire new collaborations. 

Having a personal creative practice is deeply gratifying. But having a community where you can share those experiments and works in progress will sharpen your creativity faster and more joyfully. 

If you’d like to see what we’re experimenting with in The Lab, contact us! We love hosting visitors and sharing a peek at the cutting edge of our capabilities.