We’ve all been there: you’re under the gun, with a project that needs to blow someone away and only a sliver of time to complete it. We all respond to this situation differently: some of us stress out and push everything else away, some of us berate ourselves and procrastinate to avoid the work, some of us just sit down and muscle through it, and some of us simply rush to get some kind of finished product.
Each of these approaches has its advantages and disadvantages, but they all have one thing in common: none of them will yield a final product as good as one that was cultivated with ample time. This applies to many realms, including financial reports, bid submissions, and various applications, but none so significant as creative projects.
Artistry and Logistics
Creative design, photography, and writing are all forms of art, and should be considered separate from logistical processes. In logistics, a rush simply means executing a function faster, executing only the most important functions, or spending extra hours executing functions in order to meet a goal. But the arts do not carry the same potential action. Creativity cannot be forced, cannot be rushed, and cannot be simplified… at least not without deteriorating the quality of the finished piece.
The Deadline Squeeze
Give your creative team a tight deadline, and that’s all they’ll be focusing on. They won’t be thinking about the best colors, the best words, or a radical, industry-bending new approach… they’re just going to be scrambling around, pulling old pieces of broken ideas together to try and have something tangible to present. In some cases, this rush can inspire fresh thinking, but in most cases, the pressure of a deadline flat-out KILLS the creative process.
The Power of Time
The creative process is evolution, a constant survival-of-the-fittest landscape in which new ideas emerge, old ideas grow, and thousands of bad ideas get scrapped while a handful of brilliant ones shine through. In a true evolutionary sense, time can mean the difference between a group of unintelligible Neanderthals and a technologically advanced civilization, and time for a Creative mind can mean the difference between a so-so finished product and a revolutionary new idea.
The more time you give your creative team (internal or external), the better product you’re going to receive—it’s that simple. At Quez Media, we’re always happy to try and meet your deadlines even in the tightest rushes. But if you’re after the best creative product possible, the more advance notice you can afford to give us, the better.
