The courage to craft: navigating creative crossroads

“Mistakes are as valuable as the finely crafted ideas. There’s something tangible in them that could often be elevated and be the main idea.”
Alex Normanton

In this episode you’ll hear about

• Establishing strategic foundations for creativity: Grounding creative ideas in strategy to ensure a solid basis for the creative process and alignment to objectives, prior insights and the broader brief.
• Overcoming creative blocks: Strategies for maintaining optimal mental spaces, getting through blocks of creativity & balancing left and right brain functionalities.
• Being a design-led organisation: Why being design-led is significant and what centring design can do to convey brand values, create meaningful customer experiences and remain flexible and cutting-edge.
• Design for connection & communication: How design goes beyond aesthetics and its powerful role in communicating and connecting with customers.
• Democratisation of design: Ways to involve every part of the company in the design process and why it’s important to do so.

https://youtu.be/Q7ZNYx4g5IME25 Alex Normanton

Key links

Alex’s website
Reckitt
DOPA
Saatchi & Saatchi 
Clios
Cannes Lions
D&AD
Proximity
MassiveMusic

About our guest

Alex Normanton is Global Brand Experience Lead at Reckitt. In this role, Alex drives category growth by translating design into meaningful brand experiences and sustainable innovations.

Prior to this, Alex worked for some of the world’s leading agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi and Design Bridge. He’s directed the likes of Sony Music, Johnnie Walker and Mercedes-Benz, and been recognised by a number of awards such as the Clios, Cannes Lions, D&AD and the One Show.

A big advocate for the power of sonic branding, he believes that audio language should be considered by designers and marketers in the same way that visual and verbal language is. It’s no surprise then that he chose a podcast as the medium for his passion project, DOPA, which fuels conversations around creative wellness.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Every team approaches transformation in their own way, also bringing in their own partners to help. And while they’re working towards the same organisational goal, it’s this over-fragmentation that stunts rapid progress at a company-wide level.

Having worked as a marketer, transformation leader, teacher and practitioner of design thinking for over 20 years, both here in Australia and internationally, Chris brings a unique, deep and ‘blended’ skillset that will cohere and enable your teams to deliver ambitious and complex change programs.

Transcript

Hey everyone and welcome to another exciting episode of the Company Road podcast, where we look at what it takes for us as mere individuals, intrapreneurs, just people really to change a company. And in today’s episode, I wanted to go deeper into the role of design but not how you know it probably.

We’re also going to be looking at audio and visual language and the role they can play in influencing culture and change. My very special guest today is Alex Normanton, and Alex, your global brand experience lead at Rekitt. But also founder, creator, and host of DOPA, which is the department of proactiveness of podcasts.

And that fuels conversations around creative wellness. You’ve worked for some of the leading creative agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi, Design Bridge. And you’ve done a lot of work with some amazing businesses and brands, Sony Music, Johnny Walker, Mercedes Benz, and a load of others. And you’ve won a ton of awards, through the Clios, Cannes Lions, D&AD, and the One Show you say.

I believe you’re joining us from Amsterdam. We know each other from the London days originally. We worked in advertising and design. We found ourselves really working together on how to bring differentiation about looking at greater expression and impact into communications through some carefully crafted words and art.

Obviously there’s a bit of a process behind that. And I’m delighted to have you on the show so welcome very much to the Company Road podcast. Lovely to have you here as a guest.

[00:01:18] Alex Normanton: Thanks for having me. It’s been a while, Chris, I have to be honest, back in the day, I think it was at Proximity, London,

[00:01:24] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:01:24] Alex Normanton: circa what? 2005? Something around that?

[00:01:28] Chris Hudson: Maybe even earlier than that. You’d come over from Saatchi & Saatchi and you were doing a lot of cool stuff. I remember this is when I first kind of, well, not when I first remember us meeting, were looking at some of the work that we’d done before you arrived.

And I remember some of those conversations and thinking, okay what’s he going to think? And this is where maybe the distinction between an uppercase D and a lowercase D for design. And my starting perspective on you was beginning to form. We would’ve showed you all the work and I remember you having a think about it and you weren’t jumping with joy.

I put it that way. You would say well, no, there were things that could be done. And I remember you saying that overall, it could just look a lot more premium. And I knew from that point that you had I guess an understanding of design and appreciation of design, that was entrenched in your very being. You knew how to take something, evolve it. You already saw possibilities and what was in front of you. You may not remember that time, but

[00:02:19] Alex Normanton: You’ve got, you’ve certainly got a better memory than me, Chris, to be honest.

[00:02:22] Chris Hudson: Yeah fair enough. Another job is another job, but I remember that moment pretty clearly.

[00:02:26] Alex Normanton: I think as older I get my memory starts to fade a little bit. I do remember the time where into proximity leaving Saatchi, which has honestly been the foundation for everything I’ve done since.

And it’s the agency I spent the most time at in my career. I think it’s interesting when we talk about the look of something. Design very much sometimes is potentially viewed as an aesthetical element within an agency, certainly with an integrated agency. We could argue within an advertising agency.

But it’s so much more than that.

What is the heart of the strategy? How are we bringing that to life? How does it attach to value, purpose, personality traits, and then how do we bring that story to life and an aesthetic is part of it, but I’m reminded of a quote and I think it was from David Carson but nothing dates quicker than an aesthetic. But what truly resonates and leaves a legacy is the idea. I think it’s just that balance of all those different components coming together to effectively mean something to someone and communicate to someone. I’d like to start thinking really and changing the narrative around design and aesthetic to ladder up to branding and brand experience.

And what is it when someone leaves the room? What is the temperature and what is the sort of what are they leaving behind? What have you taken from that conversation and what is left in that room when they leave? Is how I like to think about brand and brand expression. What are we doing here? What are we communicating? What really is our message and how are people connecting to the heart of that brand, that DNA, that strategy and design is a role within that. But I think it’s also a lot broader and richer and more in depth, I think than ever used to be one could argue, but I think the world of brands and designers almost become quite complex. I think that the heart of it is what’s the strategy?

What’s the idea and how we’re going to bring that to life that resonates across all touch points?

[00:04:24] Chris Hudson: Is that something that was instilled within you from a young age or did you pick it up from, your time in study or through professional times? What triggered it

for you?

[00:04:33] Alex Normanton: I think it’s a mixture of reading, studying education, different experiences, different companies different conversations with people, learning lots, reading lots interviewing people, watching TED stuff engaging in articles. And I think also to a certain degree, a maturity and I’m sounding like an old I like to term it as a veteran of the industry rather than an older person, but I think it’s just that experience in the industry, which gives you that richer tapestry to draw on, which is based upon experience, but also just making something bigger than what it is.

It’s not just a logo. It kind of used to annoy me sometimes in advertising where we just need a logo. Can you just knock one up in a few hours? Cause we’ve got a picture. It’s not that. It’s not that simplistic sometimes. I think we have to get behind that ask and ask really key questions on what we’re trying to communicate here and why and what is the purpose and how is it coming back to brand and what’s our foundation.

If you don’t crack those foundation strategic questions. You can often just get wrapped up in subjectivity often, and there’s no guiding light to really direct your thinking. The parameters are so wide, you almost don’t know where to start. I think it comes from experience. I think it comes from seeing what works and what doesn’t. And also just being in those conversations when you can see it going very, off piste very quickly. So I think it’s all of that. I don’t think it was instilled in me at a young age. I don’t think I was having brand conversations when I was growing up, but my mom was definitely an advocate for you have something creative within you and I’d like to galvanise that.

And maybe you want to be a graphic designer. And I think that’s where it started at the time. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I was drawing a lot. I was experimenting visually mark making. And actually that happened later for me. I did full education, did sixth form, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Then I went to college, then I went to university. So I did five years of studying graphic design. And then ironically, I go into advertising. It’s just experience and all those experiences stack together in order to inform how you like to think, how you like to ideate, how you like to direct and how you like to work alongside people whilst bearing in mind what are we trying to do for this brand or this project or maintaining something or establishing something and creating something.

[00:06:57] Chris Hudson: It’s interesting, isn’t it how things play out from those early stages and then all the way through and obviously the conditions in which you’re expected to work now. The work environment is very different to back then. And particularly where craft is concerned, I believe I think that you could be quite right.

Yeah. In a very fortunate position, put it this way, as a specialist, coming into the world of advertising, the world of marketing or if you had a skill, if you were a copywriter, or if you knew typography or whatever it was, you could bring that, and that would be legitimate for a long time. You’d be brought in for your subject matter expertise and there were illustrators and the great thing about advertising marketing from my memory as well is that we were surrounded by these amazing talents all of the time.

They were coming in, if they weren’t employed, they were coming in to help you out, from a piece of film or if it was an illustration style of photographer, whatever it was, you’d get to meet with these amazing talented people.

[00:07:47] Alex Normanton: I think that’s an important one the more that you’re exposed to specialist skills and talented people through an everyday interaction, very much in an agency mentality often. There’s an energy that’s going on. There’s a drink after work where someone’s doing a private view or that someone coming in to do a talk or someone coming in on. I remember again, it’s actually someone coming in from Aardman quite early on in their development as a company. But the work was unbelievable, and it just blew your mind. And those things inspired you and they unlock things. But it also puts a little seed in the back of your mind for working on this.

Oh, actually, that connects back to that meeting. I had all that inspiration or that photographer’s book that I saw. This might be really relevant for that. So inspiration can come from anywhere. And I like to liken it to be a sponge, soak everything up, be a sponge of useful and useless information, because you never know when you’re really gonna draw on that.

And that comes outside of design as well as in design. But look at References that not everybody’s looking at because, otherwise it just becomes homogenised and very much vanilla if everyone’s looking in the same place.

[00:08:56] Chris Hudson: Yeah sure. I mean, you’ve seen plenty of that, presumably, in your time as well. And I think the role of design now is slightly different. It feels democratised to a degree. Everyone has a conversation about it now, certainly in my world, if it’s experience design, we’re looking at business design, organisational design, there’s obviously, brand design, user experience, there’s lots of different tentacles and arms and legs.

It feels like in around different areas. And the fact that everyone wants to talk about customer experience, for the first time, it’s everyone’s role to understand the customer to do something about it. It feels like that kind of sharing a conversation has meant that there is a shared understanding and awareness of what needs to be done but at the same time, really deep experience and deeper thinkers, deeper crafts people in those areas probably thinking about what’s going on. So what’s your take on all of that?

[00:09:42] Alex Normanton: I think the role of craft is still valid and still important. I guess the challenge is that in a fast moving process, often time for craft is not necessarily guarded. But it needs to be from a creative perspective, from an agency perspective, because having an idea and bringing it to life and pushing go without that craft phase often is where it takes it from an 85 to 100.

So I think those craft skills to a certain degree you could argue have been lost in certain places, but they’re still very much alive. I think it’s just in the hands of a new generation. And I think those skills need to be almost passed on or made people aware of that development and that craft phase is equally as important sometimes as the idea but it shouldn’t be superseded by the idea. It should be adding to the overall portrayal of an idea and a picture that you’re trying to create or a message that you’re trying to craft,

But it shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t be aesthetic first. It should be what is the core idea and how we bring into that to life and does it resonate?

And then we can add that level of aesthetic and craft to make it more compelling or to really make it on point. So I think it’s still worth having a period within a project where that is recognised. And it’s often conversations I’ve had in agencies previously where, okay, the client’s asking, can we release, are we good to go?

Are we ready to release high risk files or digital pixel perfect files yet? And most of the time it would be, yeah, but we’ve not crafted it yet. There’s this detail and finesse that we want to lean into. And I don’t think we should lose sight of that. We’re craftspeople at the heart of it.

We’re creative led individuals and the nature of that means that we want to visually and verbally and sonically even craft the things that we’re making to make them compelling and resonate with the people we’re designing for. And I think that’s the beautiful thing about creativity. We want to sharpen it.

Beethoven didn’t write a beautiful symphony and said, yeah, it’s good enough. But just that little trill of a note or how that resolves in the end could take it from something quite mediocre to something that just resonates with people emotionally. So I think it’s super important.

[00:11:51] Chris Hudson: Yeah, definitely important. I’m just thinking about how, when you have the conversations. And it’s probably a conversation you’ve had many times, I’m thinking, in your career. But how and when to make sure that the points are made at the right time I think you can look back on your own work and say this is how this happens.

There’s justification of value in that in itself. But I think a lot of the time it feels like anyway, we’re trying to justify the value of design and the extra increment. The, you know, what it would lead to, was it worth it, basically. Have you found that?

[00:12:17] Alex Normanton: Yeah, look, I think there’s two things on that. I think the first thing is sometimes we just have to be super pragmatic on there’s not always the opportunity to craft something and take it to that next level because the reality of the moving parts of a project maybe doesn’t allow it, or the budget doesn’t allow it.

But I think that in terms of the value of design, I think to some degree you’re right saying the value that’s attributed to design has increased over the last few years, but I don’t think it’s not been there in the past. I think it’s just been recognised as a valid seat at the table in terms of commerciality business and how it can transform companies and play a really valid role in the transformation of that.

So I think it’s been elevated rightly to be part of that conversation, but also drawing alongside commercial business and tapping into strategic intent and using design as a tool to unlock those things, I think is very powerful. It surprises me in a lot of instances where it’s not given the sort of presence that it should have.

But I think within certain companies throughout history, they were all based upon a design, strategic intent and creativity. And they sometimes then aligned to business goals and KPIs. Everyone quotes Apple, but Apple was a design led business.

Nike, the design creative led business, but it’s working in combination with product design, R&D, innovation, strategic business.

So it’s a component is how I like to see it, but it’s often overlooked or not tapped into fully enough. That’s what kind of my role is at the moment is championing the value of design, creativity, strategic experience, but also drawing alongside the other facets of commercial business, R&D, innovation.

And I think it’s a powerful force. I think if you get the balance of those things right and working in equilibrium, it’s a much more powerful outcome rather than saying, okay, the business needs this. Therefore we go execute. And there you go. That’s just a different strand and a lot of companies operate that, but I think then maybe companies see design as a service and it is a service, but it’s also so much more than that.

It’s not just an executional arm within a company, it’s actually playing a really valued, valuable role and it should be viewed in the same terms as strategy or R&D innovations. It’s an equal seat at the table and a valid one. And just observing what’s going on my side right now.

I see that being very tangible. A lot of good work going on internally, a lot of good work going on with our agency partners and the value of design being seen as instrumentally guiding and funnelling back into the business, but also driving more business, fundamentally more profit, more above that is people resonating with those brands because of design led creative brand marketing led thinking.

And I think that’s the rich playing grounds where we’re trying to be memorable for people. What are people are taking away from a brand interaction they may have on a daily basis. And there’s thoughts, the strategy, this creativity all behind that and it’s intentional.

[00:15:21] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I love it. I love the way you describe it, being so deliberate and actually it feels refreshing to hear that, particularly as you say, it can be a little bit executional, a little bit ad hoc sometimes when people are asked to do something because it’s been framed as a design need or an output even and it’s not really at the core of what the business is trying to stand for be, do, whatever it is. Yeah I feel like the discussions around, Chief Design Officer and Chief Design Officer having a seat at the boardroom table, C suite and so on, those will be going on for a long time, it feels anyway, for years, maybe, but it’s still a fresh discussion and a relevant one for now, because I think that some organisations are wondering whether they can or should be a design led organisation.

They’re obviously big blanket statements made about the fact that everyone’s a tech company these days as well But from a design point of view, that’s really about connection, isn’t it? It’s communication, it’s connection with your entity, your organisation, what it stands for, what it values and then the people that it’s trying to serve. Yeah, I’d love your point of view on whether every organisation can be a design led organisation

[00:16:19] Alex Normanton: That’s a good question. I think, yes, I think every organisation has the opportunity to be a design led organisation. I think it’s just as they’re the openness and tenacity and do they intrinsically see the power of design and what it can do for your business and brand. That’s the heart of the question. I think we can look back and point to case examples where that has been the case, clearly. It’s the same conversation of I think that everybody is creative. Not everybody can draw, but drawing can be taught. What you can draw out of people is what are they looking at? And how can we educate people to look better?

And that’s a training. It’s kind of a muscle that you need to flex. But I do think at the heart of that comment is, I do think that everybody has a creative muscle within their body. It’s just they’re executing it or not tapping into it effectively. And I’ve likened that to the business world. It is there and can be there and play a powerful role there. And it should be at the centre really, amongst a group of other things. So yes, I do think brands have the power to tap into design, but they also have to recognise the power of what that can do before they lean into it. There’s a lot of businesses. There’s a lot of brands, that you could probably reel off who are the design centric based companies, brands and organisations. And what is it that makes them that? What’s been in their DNA to make them who they are today? What has led them to this powerful combination? That’s almost like a whole podcast in itself.

But I think it comes from where are you leaning into the most foundationally? And if the foundations are laid with the right components, then you’re going to have a very strong house. We talk about a brand house. We talk about lots of different brand strategic models. But the foundation of that, your foundations need to be laid well in order to deliver a design that looks functions and caters towards a need, but also fundamentally solves a problem, and that’s at the heart of what design led strategic brand thinking is about and building brands which I believe is clients on the corporate side. We’re doing on a day to day basis for the benefit of the people who are interacting with those brands.

Yes, I don’t think it should be overlooked. I think it should be part of every conversation. And it can lead on to powerful results, as we know.

[00:18:39] Chris Hudson: Yeah, great answer. I think there’s a lot as you were talking there that was making me think about what would bring about, me knowing that it was a right fit if I was a designer and I was coming into an organisation or if I was entertaining the thought of leaving an organisation to go and work at another one, some of these organisations, very mature.

And we talk about design maturity, but very aware of what they’re doing and quite structured in the realm of design. Others may be on the up and it’s a hard one to navigate, particularly when for some of the listeners on the show, they’ll be emerging talent, right?

They’re looking for the next big thing. And, I went to another talk. I think it was Johnny Hornby’s talk in London one day a few years back. And he was giving out advice and he had two pieces of advice. And one of the things he said was around the fact that, you should never work for a brand that is at the top of its game.

You should always work for one that’s on the way up so that you can show. That you’re, you’re doing something. And I wonder whether the same is true within design. Do you come in with your aspirations and share that wholeheartedly with the hope that they will take that on and it’ll be a natural fit.

And you’ll be able to help them grow as a brand and help them grow in their capability. What would be your advice to younger designers out there that may not be sure about the fit and what are the things to consider really in making some of those moves?

[00:19:51] Alex Normanton: That’s a big question, Chris. Let me try and break it down to simple parts. I think the first thing I would say is what are your personal values and ambitions and dreams for your career?

Where do you see yourself in five years? And can you plot a course towards that by maybe taking a role that wouldn’t necessarily be your first option in order to learn something?

Now I’m not saying take a role just because there’s a role, you should take a role that you feel connected to and you identify with the company’s work, the ethos, the culture, but sometimes what is presented on the external through a website and perceived in the world for that company is not how it is in reality.

So are you willing to take a chance? Now, if you’re not happy in your job, leave. It’s pretty simple. But by leaving, are you missing out on the learning opportunity? And this has always been a tension in my career. I’d studied five years as a graphic designer. I went straight into advertising.

Why? Because I spotted an opportunity where I wanted to learn about design in an advertising context. Now, it wouldn’t have been my first choice. I got picked up at DNAD student show back in 1999 and Saatchi came knocking on the door out of hundreds of companies in London.

And you’re flattered. This could be amazing, but that experience took me in a different direction fundamentally to where I really wanted to be.

Now there’s no right or wrong answer here. It’s just how do you see your career plotting out and what do you want to be doing? For me, my career is, I liken it to a pick and mix career, which has been in advertising and integrated and digital, I run my own company, in a branding agency, freelanced, worked in sonic branding, then worked in design consultancy.

So for me, my career is literally plotted a circular pot of experiences that collectively infused together that now are super relevant for what I’m doing right now, which is brand experience, which touches all of those experiences that I’ve done within my career. So for me, it’s super relevant. For other people, they want to be in, puristic design led boutique, sometimes graphic design studios. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s some amazing work going on in those sort of agencies, as well as the big agencies. So I think, fundamentally, do what makes you happy, but also be aware of, is there something I can learn in those times where I’m not so happy, that could be really powerful to unlock later on in my career. But I think it’s personal for everybody. What are your values? Where you are in your life? What do you want to be doing fundamentally? I think people move around a lot quicker than they used to maybe after a couple of years. And that’s to get a kind of richer experience of creative and creative thinking.

Different design studios have different methodologies. But yeah, I think it comes back to where do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you see your career going? And don’t be afraid to have a pick and mix approach. Sometimes that’s actually really valuable. But for other people, they want to stay the course and they actually want to have a long term investment into a company.

And there’s nothing wrong with that either. So it’s different for everybody.

[00:22:56] Chris Hudson: There’s obviously so many options that are available now to everybody. And I think the opportunity for self learning and development is probably far greater than it was when we were learning how to do what we did for work as well. You could always start something up.

You can be doing something like this in the evenings just to teach yourself or the learning and development opportunities seem, seem huge.

[00:23:15] Alex Normanton: And also just the fact that you could be working anywhere in the world. There’s platforms out there that literally are nomad creatives. Work from anywhere, experience something, fly into a city, go to Barcelona for six weeks for a freelance gig, then on to Sao Paolo, like you choose how you want to do what it is that fuels your life and makes you come alive creatively.

That’s cool. That’s fine. For other people with different responsibilities and further on in the career, they just want steady. regular work, but they’re still fulfilled in what they’re doing. I think there’s merits in both. I think sometimes it’s good to play the long game. Sometimes it’s good to have the flexibility.

You’re learning through all those things. And I think that’s the fundamental heart of this is don’t stop learning. And if you feel stagnant that maybe you need to change things up. I’ve spoken to a few people about this on the podcast I run, and most people would say if you’re unhappy in your job, leave.

But I know that’s a very dry thing to say because that’s sometimes not an option for people. So what are you going to do within that role to try and change it up to get re-inspired or what are you going to do along the side, as you say, on the weekends or evenings, if you have the time to energise yourself, to take that energy back into your day to day, which you might not be loving, or what are you doing to change your mindset in that challenging role where you’re really hating going into work every day?

But what are you getting as inspiration to change your mindset in order to be tenacious? I’ve done a couple of those roles. It’s not like I’m speaking from just, it’d be great if you could do that. I’ve been in a couple of roles that I really did not enjoy. But I’m very tenacious in how I like to proceed with things.

But at a certain point, sometimes too much is enough and I’ve not afraid to say that I’ve walked into HR department a couple of times and go and there’s my resignation. Enough’s enough this and this needs to change. And if you don’t, then, there’s some serious problems.

And sometimes that’s been from a personal relationship perspective in terms of championing the people you’re working with and defending them because you see some injustice and sometimes it’s just about. the level of exposure or the platform that’s given to design and creativity is just not matching where you think it should be.

And you can stay the course and work into that to change that, or you can actually see the writing on the wall that it will never really tip over into that space holistically because it’s all about profit. So I think there’s those challenges that I think we’re all. wrestling with on a day to day basis, but I also like to feel that I have a responsibility to invest in something and sometimes that’s for the short term and sometimes that’s for the long term.

So I think there’s merit in staying the course. There’s also merit in enough’s enough. But yeah it’s a big question. You can’t answer it in a super punchy one line, it’s different for everybody, isn’t it?

[00:26:04] Chris Hudson: Yeah, the context is always different for people. Even if you’re catching up with somebody and they’re having one of these chats with you, it’s harder to really know what they’re going through unless it’s very bad or very good, it’s very kind of black or white.

[00:26:16] Alex Normanton: I think the other thing is people are bringing themselves to work, often certainly within creative, that the whole day could be thrown off by an argument in the morning with your other half or person that you’re in a relationship with, or something happened on the way to work really hacked you off.

Now, if you’re working in ideation and creative, there’s just something within the nature of that makeup that just puts you in a bad mood and it almost throws off your thinking for a few hours which is super annoying because you get up as a creative person going, I need to be in the optimum mental space today in order to do my best work, but life doesn’t work like that. So you learn to adjust that muscle and break through it in a different way or find a strategy to get back to that happy place, which is where we produce the best work, but sometimes there needs to be a discipline to get into that best work by breaking through the pain barrier, which is often a daily reality.

[00:27:13] Chris Hudson: Is that brought about through a set of rituals that you gradually teach yourself how to do through your career? \ What’s your structured approach to that if there is one? I don’t know if there’s a work around but obviously if you’re having a bad day, you’re having a bad day. But what do you find to do in the meantime while you’re waiting for your peak performance?

[00:27:28] Alex Normanton: I don’t think I naturally hit my peak performance through doing a certain ritual, but I think there’s a few things you can do just to mentally adjust. Go and grab a coffee, go for a walk outside, just look up sometimes, just look at nature, look at, hear the birds, close your eyes, just have a moment to decompress, grab a friend, have a chat, go, I’m really just about to hit the wall right now.

And I think those interactions really help. I often find just talking to people at work a couple of individuals specifically that just, you really feel like you’ve been heard, but also you’re walking away from that interaction feeling better about your day because you’ve just had an opportunity to vent or just talk or just decompress.

And then you get back up and go, let’s go again. But that’s just my makeup. I’ll be down in a moment and then I’ll talk or walk and then come back and go let’s go. There’s something within me that drives me to do that. Probably from my parents. But also we don’t give up, we keep going.

And I think that’s a good principle to have actually, because the topsy turvy world of rollercoaster creativity is not a straight line. So you need to have some muscles for resilience, tenacity, and then, and just stay in the course.

[00:28:37] Chris Hudson: Yeah. I think so. You reflect on your own practice. And so I don’t like to waste time either. So I always try and find something that I can do in that time. If I’m even not creating, it’s not high intensity ideas coming out or it’s something that I know is going to just be a total drain from a creative standpoint, but I’ll just tackle something one day and just get that out of the way. At least you’ve achieved something.

[00:28:59] Alex Normanton: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think we all do that. You know, I don’t jump into my day going, okay let’s smash out 25 ideas I often start with. Okay. Let me just catch up on a couple of emails or read an article or just do a bit of admin and after 20, 30 minutes and go, okay, let’s get, let’s get into it. I think it’s just that toggle between a ref left brain admin side and the right brain, like creative side, how you kind of pivot between those two things.

[00:29:24] Chris Hudson: Yeah.

[00:29:24] Alex Normanton: There’s got to be a balance I think. You can’t always be on. That’s the problem. Sometimes you just need to decompress or just have some time out because you can overthink it and then you’re overthinking it and then you get wrapped up into a whole nother wormhole and then before you know it, you don’t want to climb back out.

You just need to be in tune with yourself, I think, and what really helps you do your best work. And what can we do to facilitate that? Certainly from a company perspective or a team perspective, we’re lucky to have that record. We have a really good culture where you work how you want to work as long as the work gets done.

Because we recognise that creativity and being creative and brand leaders requires a certain level of performance, but you can’t always be at peak performance. So what can you do to maintain what you do, but within the boundaries of how you do it and what works for you. And I think that’s really healthy.

Promotes a good culture and also trust from the business leaders above me. That’s really actually quite compelling and one of the reasons why I actually took the role.

[00:30:22] Chris Hudson: Yeah, brilliant. I think if you know about those barriers and you can discuss those things openly, particularly, even through an interview process or through the onboarding you’re prepared for it. You can get your head around it. Those things are expected. Are there any more unexpected barriers that you still come up against in the work that you do?

How would you describe some of those?

[00:30:39] Alex Normanton: Yes, there are many barriers. But I don’t necessarily see them as restrictions.

I think, again, just been a little bit more wiser in my years now. I think the younger me would have been like, oh forget the barriers, break down the walls, take a sledgehammer at it.

I’m going through. And I’ve seen agencies describe themselves as we do break through behaviour changing ideas where the showreel is some, dude, muscle bound with a massive sledgehammer smashing through the walls of solving the problem and breaking down any expectations. But I think the older I get, I think you become more nuanced and more savvy to how can we get from point A to B whilst bringing people along the journey in order to unlock that wall, which by the way, has a gate in it that’s just locked. There is a barrier, but there’s a possibility to go through. If not, we’ll go under or around or over the top. But I think you just become more tenacious, more savvy and business minded for how to navigate to where you want to get to just within a commercial context.

So you’re a bit like a business influencer, an innovator, a persuader and a negotiator all at the same time, but for getting to where your vision is which sometimes takes the long way around, which you have to be tenacious. And sometimes it’s a simple unlock, but I think, it’s just staying the course.

Having a strategy, getting your key stakeholder alignment, bring people on the journey and having a compelling strategy, and often it’s certainly in our context backed up with data and strong rationale for why and if you think about it, that’s not really that different to trying to sell an idea to a client anyway, what’s the rationale for why and what’s it backed up with?

It’s just the same on the client side.

[00:32:24] Chris Hudson: I was going to ask about that because I think, having worked in the creative industry and now I do experience design myself, you can rationalise most things. I think the main problem with creativity is usually the people that you’re having to present it to in one way or another.

And you’re thinking about subjectivity, opinion, really that you’re having to get around a lot of the time. So persuasion is incredibly important. What are some of the things you’re using in any of those areas in presenting work, persuading people. Justification, evidencing, what are some of the things that you think really work?

[00:32:54] Alex Normanton: Let’s say for us at Rekit, we’re very much an organisation that’s backing things up by data and consumer led insights and so you’d be surprised just even to make simple changes that the request or ask would be, have we got any consumer data to back that decision up? And so I think that’s part of it.

I think also part of it is knowing where your key strategic champions are within the business and building relationships with those people, not just because you want them to sign off on something, but you genuinely want to connect with them in order for you to thrive at work. But also it’s benefiting them fundamentally as well.

A change on something is benefiting the business as well as those key people in certain markets, but fundamentally our consumers or the people who buy our products or interact with the brand. But yeah, I think within the corporate context, it’s often a can be a bit of a game play all the politics of it, I think what I try to do is just remain true to myself authentically and be who I am in those interactions, which I think is often overlooked, your personal values and how you bring yourself to work and show up at work are often as equally as powerful as those strategic alignments or political conversations. So for me, it’s a mixture between IQ, EQ and SQ. So those three things working in combination and SQ being spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence. I think that’s a powerful combination.

But then yourself in that as well is also quite tangible in those conversations.

[00:34:29] Chris Hudson: I think if you’re presenting your work, you’ve got to think about how that’s going to be received without your creator’s hat on, really, a lot of the time. So you know, particularly, when I’m doing something creative, I think I’m going to spend the time doing it, but then I’ve got to spend the time not only doing it, but thinking about whether it’s any good and really cutting it to pieces and finessing it.

And you become your own worst critic. You overthink a lot, your thoughts are just everywhere and then eventually you might get to the point where you’re presenting it to somebody. At that point, you’ve already thought about what everyone’s going to think, and I don’t know how healthy or unhealthy that is, but what’s your view there?

[00:35:01] Alex Normanton: I think you can often tie yourself up and not about what other people are going to think.

And

I think it’s good to bear your audience in mind if you’re designing for, a particular demographic or a target audience, for sure.

[00:35:15] Chris Hudson: Hmm.

[00:35:15] Alex Normanton: But worrying about what your peers may think on a decision you’re making. Of course you care about what people think within your sort of sphere of influence or within the department you work in.

But fundamentally, what do you think? We shouldn’t be basing our approval of our ideas on what other thing people think we should be basing up on what our opinion is. So don’t forget that, don’t get lost in that, because it’s a myriad, it’s another wormhole. Be confident as long as you’ve walked through the reasons for why, and it makes sense, you can sense check it with other people and get other people’s opinions, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to take those opinions on board.

It’s just an opinion. What do you think is valid within those opinions? That might, shape something. But it doesn’t mean you have to take all the opinions on board in order to implement those changes. Or flex the idea to attribute to all those opinions. Because you can’t, it’s impossible.

Otherwise you just become this kind of creative person, in the wind, getting blown here and blown there and everywhere. Whereas actually you’re in the control seat, it’s your vision. Yeah, be careful, it’s easy to get distracted and pulled away, so far away from what the original idea was.

That it’s actually become watered down because of all those opinions. Again it’s another thing to be mindful of, but also something that you need to balance in day to day reality.

[00:36:31] Chris Hudson: You’re in a position in a position of not only responsibility, but therefore power. If you are the maker of the work, then you can be confident by the time you do present it it’s there for a reason. It’s showing in whichever form it is for a reason. I think that said it again, but I’ve heard through probably two or three managers that I’ve had in the years that you shouldn’t actually say I think before you say anything when you’re trying to present or trying to convince somebody because it just undermines the work you know it is what it is you know you have to just talk about it being rather than you thinking it that’s not your opinion it’s actually there so I don’t know you can be assertive

in your language as well.

[00:37:06] Alex Normanton: That’s a good one. I think sometimes when we’ve invested ourselves into something creative wise and done ideation and worked it all the way through to a presentation, again, you’ve invested part of yourself in that. But sometimes we need to take the personal out of it and present it matter of factly as this is, this was the challenge.

This was the problem. This is what we hung. the creative intent from. This was the insight. This is the big idea. This is how we brought it to life. But by the way, we’ve also validated that idea or we’ve got some consumer research, certainly within my context, day to day wise, that’s lent into a lot more rather than within a creative agency.

It may be like, okay, so we’ve taken the brief we’ve designed and strategically worked this idea through. This is where we stand. Let’s have a discussion. There’s three territories. That’s one way it can happen. But I think as long as the strategic foundation is there and the brief was signed off and the insights for what has been creative is backed, coming back to that foundation, then to a degree it becomes subjective and you can have a discussion around that, but the more subjective we get within validating or judging creative work, often we forget the original brief to start with. So we have to be very careful of do I like this? And does it mean something to me? Or is it more relevant to say, whatever you think about this, we need to view this through the context of brand and the people we’re designing things for.

Oh, and by the way, we’ve asked those people, we’re designing things for, and this is what they came back with. So that kind of rationale for moving forwards with something is a lot more solid than just, this is what we think or this is our opinion. That’s just how we operate as a business for creative agencies, what we’re giving them as inputs we’re measuring back to.

So we’re validating the approach and the creative based on the information that was fed into that process. So there’s different ways of navigating that model and different ways of navigating the creative, but I would certainly say don’t judge it from a position of, do I like this?

Certainly from a client perspective or who we’re designing for, our audience should be kept in mind. And that’s something that came up a lot when we were talking about designing the sound of a brand. Often we’d present when I was at Massive to clients and it’d be really easy to score things based on a like basis. What we used to say is, was everyone’s got a subjective view on music or a piece of music that just resonates within somebody, but it doesn’t mean that it’s\ relevant for your brand. So we just need to be careful there. Cause sometimes we love the idea and it looks amazing and it delivers strategic intent, but sometimes it doesn’t resonate with consumers or the people who buy products and engage with our brand.

So yeah, it can get complex, but I think we just need to bear in mind we’re not creating things for ourselves. We’re creating things for people.

[00:40:01] Chris Hudson: It leads me on to the point I was gonna make around breakthrough thinking, or breakthrough ideas. And whether, you’re obviously gonna have the spark of a thought that leads to something that’s very groundbreaking and then you can find a way to justify it. If you have got the data or the evidence base, then you can obviously do that.

Sometimes it’s the other way around. Post rationalisation. Yeah, love it or you could say that all the information was there in the brief in the first place. And we had all this stuff, we were inspired by it. And here’s the breakthrough idea, bring the two together. But it’s that harmony isn’t it?

Of, I guess idea, which is, but in its definition probably a little bit unexpected. People having to think about how they would receive it and people in jobs and companies and organisations are paid to have a point of view and sit around critiquing things that other people do the work that they make.

So there’s all of that flying around it feels but if you think about some of the most amazing work that you feel you’ve done in your career what was behind some of that in the recipe?

[00:40:53] Alex Normanton: There’s been a few things in that area. I’m reminded of a session we had, I think it was last year. There was a colleague who went to camp and came back and presented some of the biggest breakthrough behaviour changing ideas for certain brands that we know and love.

And I remember I was reviewing as a brand experience community and it was a couple of points raised, which was, I’d love to see the data and insight behind what drove that idea. And I’d love to see how people interacted with that and how it performs through research and all good questions. I think I raised at the time, guys whilst that’s really true and valid, sometimes what’s really required in order to break through to that level of creative ideation is that it’s navigated in a completely different way and maybe an old school way to a degree, which is we’ve had this incredible idea.

We should just do it. It’s compelling for these reasons. It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It’s completely different to anything else that you’ll have seen. And I think it takes almost a renegade attitude A disruptive attitude. I know that a word that’s floating around again currently disruption, but really leaning into that for what it really means.

And that’s when you get the bold creative work. But in its essence, it’s super simple. It’s not become complex. It’s the heart of a great idea is it’s a great idea and it cuts through all the noise. and it resonates with people for all the right reasons. So I think it just requires a different attitude and sometimes not researched within an inch of its life.

So yeah it’s a kind of a different headspace, let’s say, creativity, the amount of it out in the world, there’s a lot of things that are vanilla. So how do you really cut through the noise? Fundamentally, that’s what we’re trying to do, right? Certainly with those big ideas is break through that noise because it’s clutter. A lot of it anyway.

[00:42:42] Chris Hudson: The platforms for creativity are many, right? And people talk about TikTok and it’s a force for creativity in itself, obviously, but in the hands of everybody. Not everyone is equal, right? You can still put content out. You and I are both content creators.

There are amazing content creators out there as well. And you’re in there with a clutter. You’re trying to stand out. So it can be to your detriment if you base your benchmarks on that. And I think to your point, it can be very. I don’t know if it’s almost visceral.

It feels like you can you know when it’s right and if it’s right you go with it. It takes a degree of courage. You’ve got to back yourself. Stop shooting holes at something you think

[00:43:16] Alex Normanton: and often a lot of people need to stand behind the idea and champion it and really go for it. I would say one of the projects I worked in for Sony Music when I was freelancing actually at Trailer Park in London, I think it’s now part of Enjin Group, amazing projects was to relaunch the George Michael Listen Without Prejudice album.

And there was a documentary done about his life, I think it’s on Channel 4. I was in designing a campaign with a creative director, working in partnership with a team sort of working on this campaign, how are we going to launch this and what’s it going to be and how can we do it in a really simple cut through kind of way.

And we did a TVC television commercial and it was in the ad break of the documentary.

[00:43:59] Chris Hudson: Hmm.

[00:44:00] Alex Normanton: All it was, was black and white words about him, his life and pronouns and superlatives. Positive and negative words, simple one words animated. And there was no soundtrack. There was nothing audible. So in the middle of this ad break.

We heard that people were going to the TVs turning them up or on the remote going what’s happened to the sound it’s not working And there was a conscious decision It was I think the only silent TV ad or certainly the first silent TV ad where there was just nothing and it was an intentional decision to be silent to let the words and the narrative be the powerful idea and cut through all that clutter. And the only sonic and sound at the end of the TVC was the intro to Listen Without Prejudice, which is so iconic.

You only need three seconds. And that was it. And it was just so punchy and powerful and people on social going crazy on it. But it’s just that opposite approach often to what the norm is doing, which denotes breakthrough behaviour, changing ideas or just flipping something on its head or finding a different way or elevating a mistake. Mistakes are as valuable as the finely crafted ideas. Something tangible in them that could often be elevated and be the main idea.

So there’s various ways to crack this, and I think there’s a ton of ideas out there hitting the streets or hitting all the channels that do that very well.

[00:45:20] Chris Hudson: And is that sort of thinking behind your podcast, the Department of Practicalness and the sense of creative wellness that you’re exploring through that? Is it a link to, what’s the state of creativity today and how are we playing a role in that? What are people feeling in response to that?

And what should we, as a creative community or aspiring creative community be doing about it? Is it very much in that vein?

[00:45:42] Alex Normanton: And I wouldn’t say it’s more attributed to what’s going on in the world of creativity and what’s our role within it. I think it’s about the individual and what’s potentially or actually going on within their mind or what’s their headspace doing. I think, DOPA was originated out of a time in my career where actI actually was out of work.

Unforeseen circumstances made that happen to me, if that’s the right description, that allowed me to have a pause in my life. But I’d had the idea for DOPA during the time of work. I just hadn’t had the time to really lean into it. But effectively I’d had this thought bumbling around my head, which was what’s going on in people’s minds when they’re working in the creative industry or the creative industry in various guises, how are people navigating through these challenges, which happens in everyday life within that career, I had this very young in my career there’s a pitch tomorrow morning, 9am with the team, there’s no ideas. It’s 6pm the night before. We’re presenting the next day, what are we doing and

[00:46:43] Chris Hudson: Yep.

[00:46:43] Alex Normanton: Are we presenting and we’ve got nothing. We’d often, early days at Saatchi, work through the night, pizza, beers, work through to that deadline and present. But there’s a certain mental hurdle, which you’re trying to get over in your mind, which is how do we pivot from fear and anxiety to fun and unlocking a new expression. And so those pivots in your mind, fear to fun or self doubt to self belief, I just wanted to unpack. I just wanted to talk to people, experienced seasoned veteran, creative people young in their careers famous designers, up and coming designers across the board.

What connects these mental hurdles in our minds and can we bring some experience to those issues for people to feel like, oh it’s not just me. We’ve not really talked about this. People are very articulate and quick to jump to this is what the work is. This is what I’ve done in my career.

And these are the awards I’ve won. But we don’t really talk about how you doing really mentally in day to day creative life. Have you hit a wall? How do you break down those walls mentally? How do you move forwards? How do you move from, doubting yourself to having belief in yourself? And so I just wanted to understand that conversation.

So that’s where DOPA was set up for really. And it was a lot of recordings in a short space of time whilst I had the time available to do that. But I think from having those conversations, you don’t feel like you’re alone in that because I think sometimes creative people can feel a bit isolated.

And I think it just encourages that we need to talk more about these things because actually your mental health is intrinsically linked to your creative health. So yeah, I set up the podcast and released quite a few episodes, but not as many as I would like recently.

[00:48:28] Chris Hudson: I’ll pop the link into the show notes and people should check it out because it’s really cool. And it’s just hearing those stories as you say, you’ve got to hear it to believe it sometimes. It’s like that feeling of, you’ve got a hunch that you wouldn’t be alone, but actually to hear it back from somebody else, I think it just puts it into words that you wouldn’t usually use, in some cases it gives that relatability and probably just a different perspective. So yeah, I definitely recommend that.

[00:48:50] Alex Normanton: Yeah, thank you. I think also it’s techniques and tools that people use to help them through navigating through those challenges as well, which is really important. So it’s not just talking about a topic and going, yeah, okay, great. Let’s hear your experience on that. I think it’s also trying to give some practical tools for people to utilise on how to navigate through those things which I think are really helpful.

[00:49:12] Chris Hudson: Yeah, probably coming back to what we were saying at the start, it’s not just an idea. It’s what you’re leaving somebody with. So I was paying attention when you said that right at the beginning.

[00:49:20] Alex Normanton: I think to add on that, just, it’s not the idea of what you leave people with. I think it’s also the personality. What is the personality that you leave in the room when you depart? And that’s like a brand, what do you leave in people’s minds when they’ve interacted with your brand on any omni channel activity, that’s the heart of it. You invite a few people around, you have a bit of a drink and a party and some food, but you can pinpoint what is unique about that person and their personality when they’ve left. And you start talking about, the evening with your partner or someone you have a relationship or even if you’re just self reflecting, it’s not the legacy they’ve left.

It’s just the temperature in the room and their presence, and I think that’s a really nice way to think about what we leave behind when we are producing brand led experiential work. It’s that resonance, it’s what people take home with them from those interactions.

[00:50:13] Chris Hudson: Yeah eloquently put. Thanks so much, Alex. I think we might wrap there and just say a massive thank you to you and I know that the audience listening to this show will be incredibly grateful for the time and the wisdom that you’ve shared today and the resonance from this interview will carry forward I’m sure as well.

So thank you so much.

[00:50:31] Alex Normanton: Thank you for having me and for those who made it to the end, thank you for watching it all and listening. This is not my usual voice, I sound a lot deeper than normal, but I’m just getting over a bout of cold and flu. But I quite like it actually, this sort of ditch, deep, rich sound.,

Maybe I should do some radio after this.

[00:50:49] Chris Hudson: Yeah that’s it or do your next season on DOPA while you’ve got the flu.

[00:50:53] Alex Normanton: I might just try and take the nuances of my voice and try and establish a preset there and then just put that on every future episode,

[00:51:02] Chris Hudson: AI can do that for you, I reckon.

[00:51:04] Alex Normanton: But yeah, no, it’s really good to, to chat with you and really good to see you again. And thanks for having me.

[00:51:10] Chris Hudson: That’s alright. And where can people connect with you if they want to say hi or ask a question and see work.

[00:51:15] Alex Normanton: Yeah, well, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m also Instagram, but if you want to DM me if you want to email me, I think my email addresses are on my LinkedIn profile. So feel free to do that. And I’ll try and respond.

[00:51:25] Chris Hudson: Brilliant. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much. And I’ll leave you to your day in sunny Amsterdam. And yeah we’ll see you soon.

[00:51:30] Alex Normanton: Not quite sunny, but at least it’s not raining. Yet anyway.

[00:51:34] Chris Hudson: Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it’ll make a difference.

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