Here’s why an open brief doesn’t work

Halfway through my first Masterclass ‘Achieve more with Gen AI’ with Ethan Mollick and Allie K. Miller, I was struck by this statement from Miller: restrictions boost creativity. She was saying the tighter the restrictions the better the outputs from Gen AI; that putting things in a box makes GenAI more creative. The same can 100% be said of creative teams, who need to know what box they’re in, to push the boundaries and get out of it. This all reminded me of an exhibition I organised a few years back with artist and designer Zoltan Marfy. It’s title was One Word Brief. Graphic designers, photographers and artists anywhere could select a One Word Brief from the options we provided and develop a response. We thought this kind of open brief would them to demonstrate their talent at full pelt. The reality was lots of people struggled and most responses were lack lustre. The better responses were from people who added restrictions to the brief – they took the One Word Brief and put it in a box of their own.