insight

Creative freedom is a term that gets thrown around more than you’d realise within the artistic and advertising worlds. People tend to speak about creativity and freedom like the words are more or less interchangeable, but what do they actually mean? 

The word creative means having the quality of creating and the word freedom means the state of being free. Together, they form the idea that once we have the freedom to do what we want, we become creative.

Creativity requires a lot of hard work which can be mentally and physically taxing. Having to constantly be on your toes creatively does take a toll, and somehow we feel having creative freedom would help us reduce that work load. However, there is the notion that having creative freedom makes us ‘less’ creative simply because that sense of freedom does not put our creativity in drive. To some extent that may be true, because most of our creativity is driven based on timelines and restraints. That’s the irony of the ideology, as creatives often complain about the lack of creative freedom.

Here’s an example. Speaking from a copywriter’s perspective, writer’s block is more common than we’d like to admit. We have worked on projects where the client has given us full creative freedom to author whatever we want. So why should we have writer’s block when there are no actual blocks physically, mentally or metaphorically? It’s like pulling something out of thin air, when in reality having some form of outline or list of criteria could easily remove that block.

Let’s use another example with photography. If a photographer was on assignment in a place where they only had one particular lens to use, this apparent constraint actually creates freedom because they would have to be forced into thinking how to craft this photograph creatively. That’s the paradox, as more constraints lead to more freedom.

So how do we millennials feel about creative freedom? In short, we feel compelled to create. Millennials love a challenge and love to challenge. We see beyond the immediate problem and don’t necessarily follow the standard design approach as we create our own world be it a real one or a virtual one. This is possibly one explanation as to why we’re the foremost creative generation: we’re ubiquitous due to the technology that permits us to interact and be exposed to the entire world, present and past, at any time. The lack of fear is apparent and it is also what drives us to push the creative boundaries further and further.

Technology has not only democratised information, but it has allowed this generation to behave similarly in spite of being geographically distant or belonging to different cultures. We were born in a borderless digital world and that does not obstruct us from pursuing our creative dreams. 

It’s no surprise that the majority of the successful and innovative businesses are powered by millennials such as Google, Facebook and TikTok among others. The culture of these companies is to possess a workforce of millennials who constantly welcome creative ideas regardless of how big or small they may be. The very fact that Millennials are the foremost creative generation mustn’t discourage others, generation Xers or baby boomers as many of the good creatives in fact weren’t millennials.

In the end, employers need to trust millennials and give us the flexibility to perform in a way that optimises our skills and gives us the creative space to get the job done on our own terms. Creative freedom is important as millennials seek job environments where we are trusted and given the creative freedom and flexibility to make decisions and find our own path to success. We have bursts of creative energy at the strangest of times, especially when no one is looking. Whether it’s at the crack of dawn or into the late hours of the night, millennials need an environment that encourages brilliant work at any time.