Tag Archives: Creativity

What’s your question?

in Creativity, Innovation

If you’re planning on designing your own wedding, we’ve got a treat for you for you today! Bronte Dwyer, a stellar wedding stylist at Foreva Events in Australia, is sharing her secrets—everything it takes to make the wedding day magical. Paired with ethereal photos by Ivy Road Photography from a recent styled editorial, we’re certain you’ll walk away inspired and prepared to tackle your wedding design with newfound knowledge in your pocket! GWS out…over to Bronte!

Designing a wedding is not a small job. It takes creativity, boldness and an eye for detail. The truth is, every single detail of your wedding will contribute to the overall look and feel of your wedding. Details such as the colour of your plates, the texture of your flowers and the shape of your chairs are all important pieces of a puzzle which together will create the overall picture of your wedding.

So how do you make sure all of your wedding elements work together? We have a few tips and tricks we want to share with you, to make styling your wedding easy. We hope that by the time you finish reading you will feel confident to get started designing the wedding of your dreams, but before that, you better check out these bachelorette experiences.

Choose the Right Colour Palette

 

Your colour palette is one of the most defining decisions your will make when it comes to designing your wedding. Start by thinking about what colours you and your partner love. Look at your wardrobe, what colours do you like to wear? Look at your furniture and home styling, which colours stand out? Look at the pictures you’ve saved of weddings you love and notice the colours. Do you prefer lighter, soft colours or darker, strong colours?

Choosing the right colour palette for your wedding will determine the overall look and style of your wedding. Sometimes it’s easier to to choose one colour you love, then pair it with complementary colours. When pairing colours, make sure you don’t go overboard. You might be thinking, “But I love pink, purple, orange, green and blue”. Great, but let’s try to narrow that down for your wedding. Try starting with one central colour and two to three complementary colours to pair with it.

Remember, it’s not just the obvious elements like flowers and stationery that bring colour into your wedding. Elements such as the background of your venue and the furniture materials used will also contribute to your colour palette. For example, if your wedding is in an outdoor York Maine wedding venue you’ll have green or blue with trees and the sky, and if it’s inside the colour of the walls will become a part of your colour palette as well. It’s also important to think about the tones of materials you would like to use. What colour metal, what type of stone, what colour wood will you use? Where possible, try to incorporate only one tone of wood, metal and stone and stick with that material throughout your wedding design.

Remember to consider the contrast of tones in your colour palette. Unless you’re going for a completely light look, we’d recommend having at least one dark or medium tone colour in your palette in order to have contrast. This will bring the lighter elements to life.

Finally, it’s important to let your colour palette guide your decision making. Before deciding on any element of your wedding, put it through the filter of your colour palette to ensure it will work with your overall style. If you really want to have an eye for detail, don’t include any element that doesn’t fit with your colour palette. You’ll be amazed at how applying this one simple step will help your wedding design stand out.

5 toxic assumptions businesses make about people

in Innovation

undertstanding human behaviorThough business leaders say they want innovation, the vast majority hate the concept of creativity.

But as much as us innovators are fed up with this, the truth is that it isn’t the executives fault because people are wired to reject uncertainty; no matter how smart they appear to be. Fears and biases stand in the way of a boss that talks a good talk, but doesn’t walk.

But, there is a flip side to all of this: business-as-usual, no matter how predictable it may feel, is littered with biases too. …

Are all innovators alike?

in Innovation, Question-To-Innovate, Questions

Are all innovators alike?

Nuances and details are lost in the sea of bullshit that is media and human irrationality, and an outcome is one of the most dangerous things humans do: build people up to more than they probably are.

Sure, the world needs heroes that carry a positive narrative that others can latch on to and get inspired to make a story of their own. My heroes are Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. You have your own, for your own personal reasons.

And just like you and I have our own motivations for why we do something, what we do and how we do it; so do other potential innovators.

Truth is, that in a world where people are fitted into boxes, everyone has their own creative style. Some people are more systematic than others, and some of us are more intuitive. I believe that failing to understand this distinction between people is a huge innovation obstacle!…

How to filter me-too ideas and leave small thinking behind

in Innovation

innovation evaluating between big ideas and small This is a three part post on how to leave small thinking behind. In the first post, I showed you a simple technique for coming up with radical ideas. Here I talk about how to evaluate ideas so they don’t fit into the “me-too” territory. On the third post I’ll tell you how to determine which ideas might work.

We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view. – Mao Tse-tung

I know a handful of people that work in the “innovation/entrepreneurship space” who talk a good talk but when it’s time to put the wheels on the road, more times than not, they revert to small thinking. Heck, I’ve even heard people outright say they think big but when challenged further they are shocked to their bones.

This isn’t an isolated scenario, most everyone is like this. Heck, how many companies plaster their physical and digital (Facebook) walls with inspirational quotes, but when you look inside you see that their actions don’t reflect their wishful thinking.

When you’re looking for innovative ideas that will truly differentiate your company and have major market impact, you must set the yardstick high and keep it high. You may think you’ve left small thinking behind, but often, even if you are benchmarking outside your industry, challenging the status quo of your business, or radicalizing your current strategy, small thinking will creep in. It most always does.

Why?…

For innovation: Uncommon insights come from uncommon places

in Creativity, Innovation, Marketing

how to differentiate your businessThis is part one of the series on how to leave small thinking behind. In this first post, I’ll show you a simple technique for coming up with radical ideas. In the second part,  you’ll learn how to evaluate ideas so they don’t fit into “me-too” territory. In part three, I’ll tell you how to determine which ideas might work.

Perception separates the innovator from the imitator. So, a shift in perspective is all that is needed to see opportunities for new offerings. Here is one creative approach to do that…

One of the challenges of coming up with unconventional ideas is the weight of past ideas. Not just the ones you’ve applied, but also the ones you’ve seen, heard, tasted, smelled and felt, all of these are in your memory. You see, what we have stored in our heads is just as much a blocker of uncommon ideas as is your boss not giving you permission to go wild.

This is why the first 15 – 30 you come up with are always going to be very obvious. They are stuff you’ve already seen before. To get to the good stuff you have force your brain to come up with more. But this is quite hard  and takes some time for many to do…

But let’s suppose you don’t have the time to sit down and make a list of 50 – 100 different ideas on how to solve a pressing challenge. What’s a quick way to shake things up?…

The Big Bang approach to problem definition

in Innovation

The way a problem is defined guides the way people think about it.

You can never have/experiment with enough tools. I like to experiment with various “problem definition” approaches, as I believe this is the most important step in the innovation process. While there are various ways to define a problem, I think there isn’t a more intuitive way to do it.

This is important because it is a very common innovation issue to jump in before taking time to define the problem/challenge. As Michael Michalko, author of the creative thinking book Thinkertoys, says, “The more time you devote to perfecting the wording of your challenge, the closer you will be to a solution.”…

10 Change your course questions CEO’s need to ask themselves

in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

question everything

Questioning, one of my favorite activities. I’ve been spotting a lot of it lately, and that’s good. Whether it’s because we are entering the last month of the year or because people are feeling the need to reflect, we need to be constantly questioning the obvious.

The obvious, if you’re succeeding, should also include this “change your course question” by Rosabeth Kanter: What is going to destroy our business, and are you taking steps to do it yourself before others do it to you?…