Secret Creativity

What does creativity look like when it's left unmanaged and free of ulterior forces? I think it looks a lot like these postcards designed by ordinary folks (see above). Anyone is invited to send their anonymous postcard to PostSecret containing a secret that can be "a regret, hope, experience, unseen kindness, belief, fear, betrayal, desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything—as long as it is true, and you have never shared it with anyone before." Here's the creative brief for this interesting project: "Create your own 4-inch by 6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. But please only put one secret on a card. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards. Please put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard. You may mail your postcard inside an envelope if you prefer. Be brief—the fewer words used the better. Be legible—use big, clear and bold lettering. Be creative—let the postcard be your canvas."

And the variety, clarity and honesty displayed in their design is startlingly refreshing.

It seems like much of design is a closed system either at an individual, team or company level. We work in our closets, our cubes or our huddles to create the goods and then hand them to our clients. Sure, we ask for input from the client and get our in-house design groupies together, but this process is still fairly limiting. What if we approached design the way programmers approach application coding? Call it open source design. I wonder what would happen if we could post a creative brief for a client on the Internet and invite others to develop, modify and produce the design work? Would it be better than what we do huddled in our secret creative societies? Would it be ethical to be paid for someone else doing the work? Would we contribute to others projects knowing we won't be paid? How would we enter our favorite design competitions? Would our clients be happy or sad?

My guess is that open design would unleash creativity beyond our wildest dreams. Designers would be able to do what is really in their hearts to do—design, share, communicate, help and serve others. A serious blow would be dealt to profit, competition, management and power structures. Think about Linux versus Windows or the World Wide Web versus your corporate intranet. I suspect that if we quit trying to keep creativity a secret to be guarded behind the walls of Castle Agency/Corporation/Studio, we might see the heart and soul of design grow bigger and more compassionate.