A CREATIVE MANIFESTO
Creativity is a strangely slippery concept to define. At Echo, we like to think of it more as a mindset, an overarching approach, and a way of living and thinking that can - should you wish it to - infiltrate every area of your life. It might manifest in the way you arrange the food on your breakfast plate, your daily appreciation of the unusual tiling on the metro, the strange notes you write on your phone, or the photos you take of cigarette stubs on street corners. In other words, creativity presents itself in myriad, multifaceted ways. It can be found in the small fragments of a slightly different way of viewing the world.
It takes a certain courage to perceive yourself as a creative person – to give yourself the right to this coveted title. As creativity is often gatekept, we often find ourselves falling into the trap of viewing it in a standardised way. We’re led to believe that creativity should look like x, and belong to x type of person. But by reframing creativity and who gets to claim it, we find an enriching and inclusive type of artfulness.
You might not be a practising artist, but you can still approach life in an artful way. You can learn to build up your creativity and find the joy it brings with it. In lieu, we’ve drawn up our creative manifesto – a set of loose creative principles to remember and live by.
1. FOLLOW YOUR CURIOSITY
2. EMBRACE PLAY
3. LET YOUR INTUITION GUIDE YOU
4. KEEP LEARNING, ALWAYS
5. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE PROCESS, NOT THE IMAGINED RESULT
6. DON’T WAIT FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU PERMISSION
7. MAKE YOUR ART FOR YOU
8. CHALLENGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE
9. CONNECT WITH YOUR CREATIVE COMMUNITY
10. YOUR ENVIRONMENT ENHANCES YOUR OUTLOOK, SO MAKE IT A GOOD ONE
