Creativity, the talent myth and craft

Firstly, what are the definitions of both creativity and talent? The two are often interchanged, but sometimes are not used correctly.

Michael Mumford suggested "“Over the course of the last decade, however, we seem to have reached a general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products”. This means that creativity is making things or solutions that are original and useful. Talent is a little different than creativity. It’s defined as a natural born ability, which is above average. Talent is really useful, but personally I also think it requires a lot of work to get to what most people call talented. 

A lot of ancient cultures, such as ancient Greece, China and India didn’t have the concept of creativity. Art was considered more discovery than creative. Plato did not believe in creativity, replying to the question "Will we say, of a painter, that he makes something?” with “Certainly not, he merely imitates."

The modern day idea of creativity is thought to have originated from western culture, during the renaissance. During this time there was a big art movement.

Creativity is often associated with the fields of art and literature, although it is there in other fields. However, in art and literature, it often considered enough to have only the originality, and not the usefulness. This can lead to some confusion in the term creativity. A person who works in an office (say in logistics) can be creative, thinking up creative solutions to the problems presented to them.

Creativity is a very useful skill to have in the game art industry. It is considered a ‘creative industry’. However, I would argue that the creativity that is needed for these jobs is more the type that needs to produce things that are both useful and original. Were as in different jobs, such as fine art, originality might be celebrated more. For example, Henri Matisse’s work has a very good use of colour, but his paintings can sometimes be a little abstract. This is not a criticism, is just that it’s aiming in a different direction.

Let me put it this way. Children often have lots of creativity, especially when drawing. They will draw whatever comes into their heads. But it’s not really something that you can take and present to an art director. Drawings that we need to make have to be founded in reality. This adds a lot of rules, but being creative often means that you can work round constrictions and still produce something that is original.

On a slightly tangent note, there is an artist, Dave Devries, who takes children’s drawing and repaints them. The result is slightly disturbing, but shows off their crazy ideas really well. 

In the games industry, I think creativity can be shown in different way. It could be an original art style. Or it could be a new gameplay mechanic. It could even be a fantastic score. Best of course would be a combination of things. Sometimes the bigger AAA titles can get a bit samey, sticking to formula because it is guaranteed to make profit. But taking risks and producing something a bit more creative can make something new, innovative and fresh. This is something that, in my opinion, the industry needs.