How and when do you create your best work?

Think about it, is it when you have loads of time, a blank canvas and an open brief? Or is it when the brief is ridiculously tight and you creatively bend it just before the deadline? In truth, most of us work best under one constraint or another, why is that?

We went along to the launch of John Simmons’ latest book, “Twenty-six ways of looking at a Blackberry” to understand a bit more about how he imposed constraints to create some truly imaginative and original writing. In an age where clients often ask us to ‘do an Innocent’, Dan Germain, head of creative at Innocent gives praise to the author:

“John Simmons is the patron saint of business writers everywhere. I’ve learned plenty from his books in the past and will learn plenty from this one too.”

So what’s the book about? John wrote the opening page of a fictional technology company’s annual report. It is typical of bad business writing, dry, jargon and just plain uninspiring. John’s challenge to himself was to rewrite it 26 times under different constraints to produce surprising and engaging writing for business. The constraints include writing without the letter ‘e’, in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet, writing in the colour blue (?!) and writing for an 8 year old on a Blackberry. There’s an intriguing site that accompanies the book launch, want to know how a blueberry bank would write? It’s in the Blogberry.

Is John poking fun at business writers everywhere? We certainly hope so, because in the process he’s also raising the bar on just how we should write and communicate with each other in business or elsewhere. We should use our language better, harder, smarter but mostly creatively. The last thing we need is another client whose tone of voice is ‘clear, warm and fresh’.

Be inspired, get inside a small box, the book is available to buy now.

Image credit Saul Steinberg c/o Johnson Banks