CREATIVITY AND WORK
About many people’s cherished dream – to “turn a creative hobby into a job”.
I have been working in the creative field for 20 years now. In three of its forms at once:
1. The so-called creative professions. In my case – mostly with designers and photographers.
2. Authors who want to earn money from their creative work.
3. People who do creative work to develop themselves as individuals, including developing skills and qualities for their non-creative jobs.
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1. Every creative person who comes into a “creative profession” quickly realises that there is no creativity in it at all. In B2B there is no room whatsoever for “creative flight”. Everything is decided by metrics and conversions. That is, you have to please your client’s customers, not express your vision of the world. In B2C, and when a business client for some reason does not go by metrics, you have to satisfy the client’s taste. And here is an important paradox: the more a designer or photographer has developed, the less likely they are to match what the client wants. Simply because few clients develop their taste.
2. Authors who try to sell their creative work also quickly realise how little the truth about the art market matches the common myth. The buying power for creative products is so small and speculative that there is no point in talking about it seriously. A very small group of people buys. Most buy either works proven over centuries, or even just prints, or trends (which is the same show business), or as investments, keeping the works sealed in a warehouse. Just like shares. But for that, too, the author will have to work on promoting themselves more than on creating. And again, that is more about show business than about creativity.
So points 1–2 are called creative work only for the sake of appearances. What is worse, it is extremely destructive to the minds of creative people who came there with romantic hopes. Working with designers in advertising agencies, I have seen many who suffered. The best designers are those who understood as early as possible that their task is to solve the client’s problems, not to show their own vision of the world. With commercial photographers the situation is even worse. Because more clients consider themselves competent in this field and, accordingly, want to influence the result as authors more. And as already mentioned in point 1, few clients develop their taste.
There is another important nuance – AI. Only the lazy do not write about it here. Still, when a client evaluates even a “creative” product that costs money, they evaluate it in the context of the price. The client always wants to pay less and get more, faster. The idea that people buy creative work for the human soul that AI cannot convey only works if clients can tell where there is a soul and where there is not. And as already mentioned in point 1, few clients develop their taste.
The result: creative work is either very rarely creative or very rarely work.
But there is nothing strange or bad about it. Because creativity is not a job, not a service and not a product. Creativity is a very personal matter. For yourself. It is a personal search, the development of qualities and skills. It is a way to develop thinking and the ability to feel.
Creativity is an attempt to understand yourself, others and the world, and to set up reference points. Creativity is as personal as hygiene. When we do sport for ourselves, we do not sell our trips to the gym. When we read fiction, philosophy or religious literature, we do not sell our reading, or even our conclusions. We build a self that lives better, understands themselves and others better, communicates better, sees patterns better and organises space better. As a result, they also handle work tasks and everyday and social matters better.
I would put it even more radically.
Creativity is not self-expression but self-development. Creativity is not about “expressing yourself” but about “making yourself”. More precisely, creativity is the creation of oneself.