James Trezona, MD of Mason Zimbler suggests that if you’re looking to create awesome ideas in 2012, you should borrow some lessons from Leonardo Da Vinci.
The Ideas Economy is going to be more important than ever in 2012. We all need ideas to make better products, to tell better stories, to stand out from the crowd. At Mason Zimbler we rely on the generation of fresh ideas to communicate a client’s products, brands and business.
So how can you create even better ideas in 2012? You could start by mixing two essential ingredients: art and science. Art provides: ideas that wow, genius creative treatments, smart innovations, great stories, words and pictures. The Science gives the critical data, metrics and analytics. In our industry the art creates the message that will engage with the audience; the science provides tools to track, measure and evaluate campaign effectiveness.
Mixing Art and Science is not so new; Leonardo Da Vinci was an early advocate. Da Vinci was designer, innovator, architect and technician: his technical drawings on the possibility of human flight still form the basis of helicopter design today. He considered himself primarily an artist; yet all his work was underpinned by scientific knowledge, and this knowledge formed the very essence of his concept of the world. He could communicate his technical and scientific know-how clearly through his art.
Our brain has two distinct hemispheres for processing information – the left brain for verbal and rational ability, the right side non-verbal and intuitive; Da Vinci’s genius was a result of his talent in using elements from both to enhance the overall picture. Blending art and science is about collaborating in ideas generation: the inter-relationship is critical, you can’t have one thing without the other. A bunch of code or data is just a bunch of numbers without the art.
In 2012 those who can bridge art and science will be powerful – the interesting ideas lie at that intersection. So if your ideas are going to change hearts and minds, try blending them together.
Here are five simple tips to get you started:
- Use art to make the user-experience elegant.
- Use art to communicate your idea – give it some emotion: that’s what will engage with your audience.
- Use science to prototype, to experiment and test your ideas.
- Use science to gather data about your audience, to know what makes them tick.
- Remember, instinct still rules. Do not replace human decision making with an algorithm!
If you’re interested in finding out more, check out James’ free manifesto: Blending Art & Science To Create More Effective Ideas.
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