Stuck for that creatve idea to push the project forward? Has the muse flown the nest and taken your imagination with it? Are you struggling to find the idea to hang your assignment on? Well have a kiss.

KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid is a maxim creative people need to keep close by. Creative people often exist in one of two spaces. The scenario I outlined above or letting our ideas run away to end up with something so complicated you need a study guide to explain it. In both examples it can be helpful to rely on a KISS.

Simplicity may be the solution your client is looking for, or perhaps the idea you need to convey needs to be blatantly obvious. Clever campaigns are fine, but are useless if only those in the know understand them.

One KISS approach I have found useful in the past is to look for something else that does what I am trying to achieve and then adapt it for the media I am useing or current project. Take for example web design. You need to design a news page for a client. One way that news has been delivered in the past, that everyone knows about is a newspaper. Therefore why not use the newspaper as your starting point? What about designing your links page? Again one way that people recognise the concept of linking is on train maps, so why not use this as your creative starting point?

The point is to start simply and at square one. The muse may be gone but you can kick start your imagination by doing a little thinking and making some very basic connections. Fancy a KISS?