Why You Should Think “Inside the Box” (Creative Constraints)

In 2001, two film students challenged themselves to create a film.

But there was a catch.

Australians James Wan and Leigh Whannell neither had a star cast nor a big budget to achieve their creative vision.

So they forced themselves to get the entire project done in just one room with a handful of characters.

The result?

They ended up giving birth to one of the most recognized & talked about horror franchises in the history of the genre.

It was the movie “SAW.”

Similarly, another British director, Steven Knight (from the Peaky Blinders fame), decided to shoot an entire story using just one man driving around his car.

That was literally the whole cast, setting, and story.

The resulting feature film, Locke (2013), won several awards & critical praise for the solo actor Tom Hardy.

Now, why am I talking about these examples?

It’s because we’re often misguided about the way creativity really works, and I’d like to set the record straight for young content creators.

Business gurus often preach the need to think outside the box, the box being a set of traditional or established ideas. The motive is to encourage you to go wild & crazy without restrictions.

But freedom often has the opposite effect on many artists – it creates “choice paralysis” as we can’t decide where to go.

When we start with a completely blank piece of paper, it has endless possibilities, so we often end up not writing anything.

Think of what would happen if you visited an ice cream store with 10,000 flavors, each one being free to try.

You'd soon go into a sugar coma after tasting hundreds of scoops, and probably face trouble deciding between "golden chocolate mint chip & cookies" or "strawberry cheesecake & orange zest pudding."

But if they only had chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, maybe you’d be able to make the choice faster.

Choice paralysis is the reason why we spend hours browsing Netflix’s catalog to pick a show, and the same amount of time scrolling through Zomato in a quest to decide what to order for lunch.

In both cases, there’s too much liberty, which hampers quick decision-making.

The solution?

Start getting specific by using creative constraints.

“Just create a nice logo for our startup” … is such a vague goal.

Instead, try this brief: “Let’s make this logo in three hours using only two colors. It should have “nature” & "forest" elements. And it must contain the letter M because the founder's name is Mike.”

When taking briefs, push your client/boss for details & exact visual references to get specific answers for driving your creation.

Some basic points you can cover are:

• Who is our target audience?
• Which brands are we competing with?
• Which platforms are we going to publish this piece on?
• What’s our singular objective?
• By when do we need this done? (ETA)
• Can you show us similar designs, ads, or websites that are close to what you want to achieve? (for inspirational)

On the other hand, if you’re creating something independently without supervision or instructions from third parties, use prompts & challenges to get yourself out of nasty creative blocks.

Here’s what these prompts should look like:

• Explain your business plan in 10 slides, no more
• Make a recipe with just 3 ingredients
• Write an ad using only 5 words
• Sell this pen to me in 30 seconds
• Create a campaign with a $15 budget

Remember, scarcity is the mother of innovation. Actually, Sundar Pichai of Google said something similar, “Scarcity breeds clarity.”

Addressing his employees after the blowback from the COVID-19 pandemic, he wrote in a memo “Scarcity … drives focus and creativity that ultimately leads to better products that help people all over the world ... That’s the opportunity in front of us today, and I’m excited for us to rise to the moment again.”

Minda Zetlin commented in Inc. on Pichai’s outlook on tough times. She said, “And just like that [sic: because of the memo], the unhappy news that Google is facing economic uncertainty and must hire fewer people than planned is transformed into a call to action meant to inspire employees to greater innovation.”

Coming back to our discussion, here’s your key takeaway.

When you think inside a “small box,” you’re forcing your mind muscles to solve problems with limited time & resources – this will actually speed things up!

Creativity isn’t about waiting for random ideas to fall into your head. It requires actively defining problems/boundaries well and using available resources to come up with solutions.

This is why I tell my clients to NOT give me 100% freedom. I ask specific questions & request 3-5 references. This helps me consistently deliver work that gets approved in a couple of rounds.

Remember, people often don’t know what they want, so it’s our job as marketers & content creators to push them for more details.

So the next time someone asks you to “think outside the box,” start by defining it.

P.S: Do watch this lovely video by TEDEd, which inspired me to write this piece.