Ask most people whether they are creative and the answer is usually no — frequently followed, moments later, by an account of an ingenious solution they found to a real problem. The word has been defined so narrowly that the majority of people have quietly excluded themselves from it. If they are not painters, poets or designers, they assume creativity is not theirs.
That assumption is both mistaken and expensive.
Creativity without a paintbrush
A career spent among "creatives" has demonstrated the opposite repeatedly. On any large project, some of the most creative contributors never handle the artwork at all. The producer who devises a way to stage the impossible within the available budget. The engineer who resolves a problem no one had resolved before. The financial lead who restructures a project so its most ambitious form can realistically be built. Each is an act of creativity — original thinking applied to a genuine constraint — arriving without a paintbrush anywhere in sight.
The pattern scales far beyond live events. The digital transformation of the past decades was not, for the most part, the work of artists in the traditional sense. It was the work of creative people applying a creative process to business, technology and problems that had not yet been named. The instruments were code and spreadsheets; the underlying act was identical to the designer's — perceive the problem differently, then make the different version real.
A self-imposed limit
This matters because the belief "I am not creative" functions as a self-imposed limit, and a great many capable people operate inside it. Creativity is not a fixed personality trait. It is a method of approaching problems, available to an accountant, a founder, an educator or a parent — to anyone prepared to practise it. One need not be an artist; one need only be willing to think like one.
About Patrick Larsen
Patrick Larsen is an Emmy Award–winning production designer and the founder of Studio Bound, a Singapore studio working across immersive experiences, themed attractions, live shows, ceremonies and broadcast design. Over more than two decades he has designed for the Expo 2020 Dubai ceremonies, Olympic broadcasts, Las Vegas residencies, and resident shows across Asia and the Middle East.