Create Space
The Hidden Dimension of Creative Work
In the realm between what we're asked to make and what we aspire to create lies a concept: space.
This concept of space isn't just theoretical—it's the foundation of a philosophy that defines my approach to creative work. The image accompanying this post embodies this idea visually. Embedded within is a manifesto about how we should approach creative work in a content-saturated world.
Beyond Content Creation
As professional creatives, we often work with raw materials that aren't of our making. Corporate messaging, brand values, products, campaign directives—these form the content we're tasked with shaping. But our true value isn't in content creation; it's in the creative perspective we bring to that content.
What are we really doing when we design, write, shoot, or conceptualize? Beyond the obvious deliverables, we're creating space.
If content is the filler, then the creative makes the space in which that content is placed. And it is the space itself that creates the difference and the image. For media, perhaps McLuhan was right that the medium is the message. But for creative work, space is the message.
The Dimensions of Space
This space I'm referring to extends far beyond pixels, inches, or runtime. It encompasses the physical and mental room that creative work occupies in the world.
The best ideas live a non-combative spatial existence. They coexist alongside others without competitive negation. They mature into contemporary expressions that expand in virtual fields. They remain open to personalization and optimization, inviting engagement rather than commanding attention.
The imperial approach to ideation results in the billboard or TV spot—assertive and commanding. But spatial ideation creates work that can live anywhere, transmedia even sans-media, articulating with a voice and frequency that is uniquely its own.
Even when such work must take up space, it creates space anew.
Creating Space with Constraints
We can't always control the content, and masterpieces aren't typically what we're asked to deliver. Our reality is more pragmatic: driving ideas into people's minds to sell products, deliver messages, and prompt action.
But within these constraints lies our creative challenge. We aspire to create space with the creative approach we bring to the content we're given. Like adding an ADU in your backyard for creative projects, we expand possibilities within defined boundaries.
Every design decision, no matter how subtle, carries weight. Like a sculptor working with stone, we must consider how our work exists in space—both physical and psychological. Even in two dimensions, design has implications that ripple outward, changing ideas and affecting behavior.
A Manifesto for Creative Space
This philosophy stands as a manifesto for how we approach creative work. Our professional endeavors should create movement and balance, carving paths through the crowded landscape of content. Our creative practice must be directed and purposeful, yet always moving through an open field of possibility rather than forcing its way through.
Creative work at its best evokes expansiveness—the sensation of limitless sky, the ultimate open space. When given content to work with—natural, formless, in constant flux—we don't seek to destroy or overpower it. Instead, we reshape it, creating new formations, new contexts, and ultimately, new spaces for meaning to emerge. The best creative work doesn't dominate; it transforms.
Creating space is the highest criteria we can apply to our professional creative work. It's not just about what we make, but what our work makes possible—the new avenues it opens in the mind, the residence it takes in imagination, the possibilities it expands.
When we create space, we don't just deliver on a brief—we create room for what creative work can be, for what ideas can be built, for how surprising these products, messages, and actions can become.
In a world crowded with content, space is the true luxury. And creating it is our most valuable contribution.