Creativity Squared: Trusting Your Gut with Stefan Witteman

Stefan is a multidisciplinary creative director living Amsterdam. Despite being Swiss and German he is often awfully late, but his excuse will be set in beautiful letters with perfect spacing.

Person

LBB> How would you describe your personality? 

Stefan> Politely overexcited.

LBB> How do you like to see the world? 

Stefan> A funny cosmos of coincidences – throw something in there and see what happens.

LBB> Do you think creativity is something that’s innate or something that you learn – why?

Stefan> I believe that everyone can be creative – it’s more a combination of learning the tools to facilitate your creativity and a willingness to jump on a mental rollercoaster ride.

LBB> Would you consider yourself and introvert or extravert – or something else? Why?

Stefan> Both – it really alternates depending on the situation. I can be a shy observer. But see me singing in a car with fake lyrics and a cranked up radio. The performance is up there with Freddie Mercury’s greatest moments.

LBB> How do you feel about routine? 

Stefan> Send your routines on a holiday, see if you still like them when they’re coming back.

LBB> When it comes to creative ‘stuff’ that you enjoy, do you like things that are similar to the work you do or do you enjoy exploring? 

Stefan> I am very interested in things similar to my own work, knowing the limitations this can create I embrace working with different people.  

Product 

LBB> How do you assess whether an idea or a piece of work is truly creative? What are your criteria? 

Stefan> A goldfish in a goldfish bowl is boring. A goldfish out of the bowl is a fight for life and death. For me it is very much about the friction a piece of work embodies.

LBB> Has that criteria shifted or evolved over the years? 

Stefan> It has shifted with experiencing more of the parameters you can tweak to make a piece of work special. Can be a simple element such as the music for a film you choose. Speed-metal for a cancer awareness campaign – why not?  

LBB> What creative campaigns are your proudest of and why? 

Stefan> Together with Kenzi Benabdallah and Florian Tscharf we created an awareness campaign against the water pollution caused by the destroyed nuclear power plant in Fukushima. To read about our project in TheGuardian and other international press made me proudly believe that budget can never replace creativity. Also working on HORNBACH with great people we had the constant challenge to create something new for a brand that makes great advertising for more than a decade.

LBB> Overall, what do you make of the industry’s creative output right now? What’s exciting you about it or frustrating you?

Stefan> I just walked in a non-NFT-garden, seeing a non-NFT-cat chasing a non-NFT-mouse. In that regard a commercial persuading people to go for a vegan butter does more to change the world than another sneaker-drop on Fortnite.

Process

LBB> How do you like to start a campaign or creative project? 

Stefan> With something that became a bit rare: A clear brief from the client.

LBB> Are there any tools or platforms (analogue or digital) that you find particularly helpful for gathering or iterating ideas? 

Stefan> Nothing beats pen and paper, because you can make others part of your thinking without technical barriers.

LBB> Are there any techniques that you’ve tried that just didn’t gel with you, why? 

Stefan> Workshops with big groups. Too little toe-stepping. Most of the time you need to break a toe or two over a project.

LBB> Do you like to start every project as a blank sheet or are you constantly collecting possible inspiration or references for future projects? 

Stefan> A combination of both. I start with a blank sheet, and as soon as the first thoughts manifest, I throw my collected inspiration at it and see what sticks. 

LBB> DO you prefer to work collaboratively or alone? 

Stefan> I think there is a big relief for creatives to admit that their own abilities are limited and only can be enhanced by others – so definitely collaborative.

LBB> When it comes to the hard bits of a project, when you’re stumped, do you have a process or something you like to do to get past those tricky bits? 

Stefan> Most of the time your gut will find the answer – till then keep your head busy by doing the opposite of what you think is right.

LBB> When you’re working with a group, where you might be helping someone else with their process, how do you know when a piece of work is ‘done’?

Stefan> It sounds cheesy – but when you look at it feels very far from the brief, but it is spot on at the same time. Something that never would have happened in your own head.

Press

LBB> Where did you grow up and what early experiences do you think sowed the seeds of your creativity? 

Stefan> Growing up in a tiny village at the German-Swiss border with cycling as a hobby – an uber boring situation where your brain has more than enough time to think about weird ideas.

LBB> How did you hone your craft? 

Stefan> I studied at a university where the design course was quite broad. You could do basically everything – from film to illustration. It strengthened my belief that execution is useless if you don’t have an idea what you want to tell.

LBB> When it comes to your own creativity, what external factors can really help you fly, and what do you find frustrates it? (for example, do you thrive on stress or does it spur you on? Does clutter trigger ideas or does it distract you?)

Stefan> I like a tight deadline – it kills the time for overthinking and tinkering something to the point where it becomes boring. 

LBB> What advice would you give to clients looking to get the best out of the teams and agencies they worked with? 

Stefan> You chose your agency for a reason, maybe you want work like they did for other clients – or you like the people and trust their abilities. Write it down on a piece of paper and take a look at it in the middle of the project – and hold you and your agency accountable for what is written on that paper.

LBB> How do you think agencies can best facilitate creativity in terms of culture and design?

Stefan> Be open to the thought that you might be the dumbest person in the room. Or as the Swiss author Max Frisch says: “Are you convinced by your own self-criticism?”