'It slows everything down and I find stillness inspiring'
Cephas Williams
Photographer and founder, 56 Black Men
If the previous Drummer Boy Studios space still existed, that would be my inspirational space. I had walked away from my masters in architecture to develop and run a photographic studio full time. I had taken a derelict shop on Peckham High Street and turned it into something special, a space I felt best represented me. This is where the 56 Black Men campaign was born. The idea came to me on a blow-up bed on the studio floor when I was at risk of being unjustly evicted. After all the work I had put into transforming the space – and how well it had been received by creatives in the community – the council and a landlord had their claws on my neck. It was as though everything slowed down.
When 56 Black Men took off, I spent most of last year travelling from one meeting to another, speaking at events, securing partnerships and more. I would often find myself underground with no contact with the outside world. In these moments I would write down ideas and strategies. I still take time to sit on the Tube sometimes, to be still for a moment and think. Watching humanity also has a way of inspiring me.
Putting everyone in a confined space underground, with limits on where you can and can’t go, has a way of speeding things up for some people but, for me, it slows everything down and I find stillness inspiring. Perhaps the same could be said about the blow-up bed in my Peckham studio. I was stuck in one place while a busy high street continued to flow around me. It slowed me down enough to give birth to an idea that would change my life and set a new trajectory for many people around the country.
'You rarely see angry people on the beach'
Dayoung Yun
Creative director, R/GA London
I’m lucky to live in Whitstable, where the beach is only a 10-minute walk away.
It’s one of my favourite places to go to be inspired. Sometimes I sit down on the pebbles with a notepad and doodle or just let my mind wander to boredom, which helps clear my head. Our industry, well, the whole world, has become increasingly complicated. So many things clamour for our attention, it’s rather inspiring to watch the ocean waves come and go and to realise how no two waves are ever the same.
The fresh sea air helps, too. You rarely see angry, grumpy people on the beach, even on a blustery day. But it’s not just the beach, it’s the people and the place itself.
Sometimes I feel I get a more varied perspective of how people view the world here, which is ironic considering Whitstable is a small town with a population that is more than 97% white British. I’m part of a tiny Asian minority and probably the only Korean in town. It’s like I’ve popped out of the London bubble. Although 50% of people in Whitstable are actually London transplants, known as DFLs (down from Londoners).
Don’t get me wrong, I still love London and I commute at least three days a week, which can be challenging. But for the moment, I’m enjoying the dynamics of the two worlds.
'I prefer atmosphere to solitude'
Gideon Cudjoe
Freelance creative director
All ideas begin "thoughtified". Stuck within our minds as growing thoughts, until we finally find a way to bring them into existence. If you’re anything like me, creating the nation’s next big out-of-home campaign requires the right headspace, which sometimes requires you to be literally "out of home" and in a space that cultivates creativity.
Naturally, as a "curious creative", I prefer atmosphere to solitude. Inspiration takes various shapes – the skewed loop earring on the lady who served me my coffee, the colour palette of the Art Deco painting hanging above the head of the man shouting loudly across the room, the design of the illustrated sticker on the MacBook opposite me. These things spark unsolicited thoughts that, many a time, have inspired my creative direction.
I’d personally consider myself a modern-day nomad. I enjoy searching for exciting spaces to keep my creativity original and fresh. I look for environments where I’m able to observe art, watch people and meet like-minded creatives. Being an ambivert, I also appreciate the option of loosely grasping my introversion by escaping to a quieter corner of the room for a mental recharge.
In an era of hot-desking, coffee-shop etiquette and free wi-fi hotspots, spacial recognition is becoming a pivotal part of the creative process. Ace Hotel in Shoreditch facilitates both sides of my social spectrum. It allows me to kick back and relax in the lobby or move into the restaurant, Hoi Polloi. It feels like a scene from an old movie, with Shazamable tunes and a casino-like ambience that can help you lose time in your creative mind. We are the product of our environments and so are our creations, which is why Ace Hotel is my creative hotspot.
'It’s a specific type of energy that stimulates me'
Leila Fataar
Founder, Platform 13
Culture is the stuff of life. The fabric of our reality. A global connector of communities. It’s how we all communicate, what we wear, eat, see and listen to. It’s how we behave and it’s what influences us. It’s living and breathing and changing all the time, with young minds (no, it’s not an age thing) already experimenting with trends that are only seen by big brands once the data hits the mainstream. I am inspired by culture.
I read and analyse the signs as culture shifts. Places and people in the big cities of the world drive my creativity. It’s a specific type of energy that stimulates me every single day. Global metropolitan melting pots champion a DIY mindset, driving creative risk, possibility and progression by questioning everything, being curious and experimenting with what you have in front of you to create something new and fresh.
'I love the juxtaposition of familiarity with the excitement of new things'
Nene Parsotam
Founder and executive creative director, Vine Creatives
I’m a huge nerd. Comic books, games, films, sci-fi, fantasy, manga and anime. Some of my favourite places in London for finding creative inspiration are comic book shops. I started reading comic books at 15, purchasing my first one in a small newsagent near my secondary school in Hackney. I looked through the Yellow Pages (remember that?) to find out where I could buy more comic books on a regular basis. Once I found the shops, dotted across London, that was it. I’ve been visiting them for the past 26 years.
The main draw for me is the fact they house stories. I love stories but I am also very visual. Comics, games and manga are storytelling media that go beyond books.
I always feel relaxed, de-stressed, calm and focused in one of these comic book shops. The familiarity of knowing that I am surrounded by things I know and understand is comforting and cosy. And yet I love the juxtaposition of familiarity with the excitement of discovering new things.
But I don’t just go in there to relax or escape. Much of "nerd culture" drives my aesthetic and the way I come up with ideas, even if they seem unrelated to the brief. The way characters, worlds and stories are built in this medium are often the techniques I use.
These include the poses of Play Arts character models, which I weave into my art direction for photography; interesting storyboard methods that come from manga and can be put into a customer journey; and user interface from games, which can communicate information quickly without overwhelming a user.
It’s also the way I discover new things about the real world. I’m a bit of a polymath and so like to be surrounded by knowledge in a way that I can connect with and assimilate quickly. Finding something in a comic book story or a film art book has often led me to research it in real life.
Visiting these places reminds me to focus on how I come up with new concepts for a brief, which is to blend unrelated things together, subvert them or take a different perspective to create something new. Because as Stan Lee demonstrated, the best stories, ideas and concepts always start with: "What if…?"
'Every sip leads you to the next level of dreamland'
Gundeep Anand
Freelance creative and founder, The Last Stand
When you are a kid there is no judgment, you just do stuff. I feel like that when I am in the Golden Tea cafe [formerly Bee Bae] in Bethnal Green. Sipping some bubble tea, my mind just goes to a place and comes back with some mad ideas. Every sip leads you to the next level of dreamland.
Most of the impactful work I have done with The Last Stand has come partly because of the bubble tea from the cafe. I’m currently working on something really exciting around street football for this summer; it will unite young people across London and inspire them to follow their dreams. If you catch me sipping bubble tea, you know something dope is about to happen.