This film essay video below is brilliant. If you haven’t got 18mins to watch it, all you need to know is — making things is hard, you have your own perception on what you’ve made and what it’s communicating. Then comes along someone else and they see it differently. And again, and so on. You need these people.
Star Wars was a mess in its first screening and idea. It took a lot of effort and humility to address the less than perfect to make it somewhere—some might say—close to perfect.
- How often do you let someone edit your work?
- How happy are you to admit it isn’t ready?
- Are you building this process and mindset into your work or are you being caught out by others peoples last minute feedback?
I keep thinking about workflow and processes that allow you to get an idea down but keep it moving around. Onto Milton Glaser. In this interview he says:
“I move things around till they look right”
There’s something in this comfortableness of changing things. I like this idea.I keep editing these posts I’ve been publishing. I’m aiming to get ideas down that are in my head. I know the words are not great, they are just ok. Giving myself that space to edit and learn feels right though.
For my work output and ideas I keep coming to:
- Write it like you’re saying it to your friend
- Then re-write it for my Director to read
- Now re-write it for our customer to hear
Finally, this jogged another useful process — Upworthy had a guide to content that went around a lot in 2012, the bit I often cite is the “write 25 headlines”
The idea is that you keep going with that edit, keep refining to get the rubbish and the half good out the way.
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