Swans On a Train
A few weeks back I spent several days at a conference called Flash In The Can, for web-developers/designers. The conference itself is heavily geared towards the actionscripting crowd but most of the speakers have a background in visual design.
A few of the presentations stood out as being in their own class (pun-intended for those familiar with actionscripting). Namely, Brendan Dawes, author of Drag Slide Fade, and Creative Director at Magnetic North in Manchester, England. His presentation, entitled Swans on a Train (not to be confused with the ever-popular film Snakes on a Plane) was about finding inspiration in the everyday world. His presentation was highly experiential in nature and quite inspiring—not to mention the fact that he is an extremely charismatic and entertaining speaker if for no other reason than his english accent.
At any rate, this presentation largely encapsulated a lot of my own philosophies about life and the human experience and what we can bring to our own craft. It’s about the little things. It’s the seemingly minute details of each and every day we live that make us who we are and shape our personality and our views about life and each other and the world (sorry for the run-on just then).
Dawes spoke about getting from point A to point B and how, in many cases, what is much more meaningful than getting to where you were going was how you went about it. It was about the journey, the experience. He told the story of how he rode the train home one day, as he always did and always had a habit of falling asleep on. At the beginning of the ride the train was full but soon after boarding he fell asleep. When he awoke a while later he noticed that the train had all but emptied, save for a few scraps of paper on the seat opposite him that the woman who sat their had obviously discarded as refuse.
He noted how he reached across from his seat to the opposite having noticed one scrap of paper with the letters “P.T.O.” inscribed on it. Apparently, in Manchester, this acronym means “Please Turn Over” (rather than my understanding of it which is “Paid Time Off”—a very important acronym to myself). He then turned over the scrap of paper; it read “Plese take these swones” with an arrow pointing to two other neighboring scraps of paper. He realized, based on the spelling, that English was probably not this woman’s native language and that those neighboring pieces of garbage were actually two carefully folded origami swans. Beautiful swans. And this woman had added this extra step—PTO—which added to a level of anticipation Dawes felt.
I think an event such as this is fairly miraculous. How many people take time out of their day to do something that will place a smile on the face and mind of a complete stranger, knowing full well they will never have the satisfaction of seeing that reaction or being able to speak to that person and knowing how they impacted their life, if at all.
His presentation showed me, through this story and many others, that it is not just within our own field of study we should be focused and always looking for inspiration, but we should always be tuned in to our surroundings. As memorable professor of mine, Jerry Allan, once stated: “Creativity comes in unguarded moments.” And he’s right. It’s time to let our guard down. It’s not just creativity that comes to us in unguarded moments, but it’s humanity and empathy and caring.
It’s not about getting from point A to point B, it’s about the journey that occurs in between.
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