443. Get Creative 🤿

How I use my list of 100 creative sources to liven up projects, meetings, and more

Oct 16, 2023

Hellooo 👋 So happy to have you here. I’m Kevan. I have spent 15+ years as a head of marketing for some cool tech startups. Now I’m co-founding a brand storytelling business called Bonfire. We do coaching, advisory, and content, and we’d love to hear from you, anytime. Come say hello.

If you’re in need of creative inspiration for your work (or your leisure), then I’ve got you covered.

This week I wrote a list of 100 sources of creative inspiration.

It honestly might be too much.

Kumbaya Moments

5. 100 (Yes, 100!) Sources of Creative Inspiration

Imagine going to the doctor for creative block. (Imagine having insurance that would cover this!) The diagnosis might actually be a lot simpler than you think. You are not a failure, you are not idea-less, you are certainly not uncreative. You are simply empty. “The word ‘block’ suggests that you are stuck, when the truth is that you're empty,” says auth…

2 years ago · 4 likes · 3 comments · Kevan Lee

The list comes in multiple categories to get you unstuck when you’re in a creative rut and to provide ideas for how to bring fresh thinking to your next project, campaign, or strategy. But rather than keep it as theory, I thought I’d share a couple ways that I have used these creative sources in my day-to-day role as a creator, marketer, and leader.

Get creative with a homepage

A homepage is never finished, or at least it seems that way. It’s one of the most important pieces of real estate you have as a marketer. It only makes sense to give it constant TLC and routine fiddling.

When I’m undertaking a homepage re-do project, I’ll go to my creative inspiration list. Here’s what I might find:

From Harry Dry’s Marketing Examples:

Here’s a website where all you have to do is press the letter “B” on your keyboard to go straight to the order page.

And rather than a traditional “Get stared” CTA, look at all these options we could try instead:

From Copywriting Course’s Swipe File.

Rather than write a traditional headline like Now Hiring, use something more dramatic like ✨ Dream Job Alert ✨.

Use rhyming to be catchy, like in an old-school wilderness safety ad about bears: "If it’s brown, lie down. If it’s black, fight back.” (Fight back??? really???)

While browsing some cool snacks…

I’m inspired by the way that food brands are differentiating with style, copy, and UX on their websites. Check out the adult cereal space: Magic Spoon and Off Limits.

From Tina Roth Eisenberg’s Swiss-Miss blog to this website of spinning sandwiches …

I’m not sure a spinning sandwich makes sense on a homepage redesign, but I will say that spinning anythings would be eye-catching!

Get creative with team meetings

My team meetings are rarely boring — they’re not always informative or useful or a good use of everyone’s time, but at least they’re not a slog. Partially this is because I pull in a host of disparate ideas from my creative inspiration list, ideas that don’t typically belong in a marketing meeting for a tech startup.

Here are some ways I’ve used the list to come up with fresh meeting ideas:

Build icebergs together.

Everyone shares the name of their local newspaper / favorite magazine growing up.

Inspired by Notion templates …

Share how I keep my day organized online. Invite others to share.

Writing a six-word story. This has me thinking about constraints and how to use them with other team activities. Come up with the best two-word subject line. Tell us about your high school highlights using only emoji. Share how you feel about company performance but you must use Barbie movie lines.

What if we came up with our own internal team reading challenge. Read a newsletter about fashion. Read a children’s book. Read a tweetstorm by a person who identifies differently than you. Read a billboard. And then report back on what you felt!

Get creative with how I present an idea

As leaders, one of our most important jobs is communicating with others, especially when it comes to communicating ideas about what we believe, what we’re doing, and what we’re advocating for.

Communicating in creative ways has come in handy for me because it builds trust, anticipation, and engagement with an audience (my team, the C-level, the company, the webinar crowds, etc) that has come to expect something worth their time and attention.

Here are some ways the creative inspiration list helps:

Maybe I could use more memes.

Like this meme I saw in Ari Murray’s Go To Millions newsletter. Perfect for your next budget talk.

From Austin Kleon’s blog …

Wes Anderson recreated author Roald Dahl’s writing shed for one of Anderson’s movies. I wonder if I could recreate famous presentation moments (Apple’s 1984 sledgehammer slash? Elon Musk throwing a brick into a cybertruck?).

Themed collections are a thing …

Could I do an entire presentation with a certain theme? Like Travis Kelce & Taylor Swift? Like 90s cartoons?

About this newsletter …

Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I previously built brands at Oyster, Buffer, and Vox. Now I am cofounder at Bonfire, a brand storytelling company.

Come say hi!

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