As a self-proclaimed ‘creative’, I’ve always been selective about what I share-only letting the good stuff make the cut, writes Jack Williams senior creative, studio lead, One Green Bean.
But if AWARD School taught me one thing (and don’t get me wrong, many a lesson was learnt), it was this: don’t kill ideas too soon. And when I say “ideas”, I mean loose ones. Scrappy ones. The 2:30am, half-awake, half-dreamt fragments you type into your phone and almost delete the next morning wondering if it was the four-cheese pizza the night before that made you come up with it.
In the haze of briefs, deadlines, and the mental fog of a 12-week creative sprint, the real challenge wasn’t coming up with ideas-it was recognising when the “bad” ones were actually good in disguise.
That’s where the value of putting yourself back in a learning environment really comes into focus. At AWARD School, weekly presentations encourage you to share everything—your best thinking, yes—but also the half-baked, the weird, the uncertain. And often, it’s the weird that holds the gold.
Time and again, someone in our tutor group would talk through their polished concepts. Neatly laid out, logically structured. And finally, almost apologetically, they’d say, “Oh, and I’ve also got these random scribbles at the back.” That’s when the group would perk up. Tutors would lean forward. Because those scribbles? More often than not, they were the magic.
There’s something special about that environment—an open forum where ideas are seen not just for what they are, but for what they could become. Where even the faintest speck of a thought can be picked apart, reshaped, and turned into something unexpected. That’s rare in the real world. Too often, due to a number of factors including quick timelines and client demands, the workplace conditions us to present only the final, finished, bulletproof idea. And in doing so, we lose the wild, messy, potentially brilliant stuff along the way.
It’s especially important now, in the age of AI. When every second line sounds like it was written by the same bot. When sameness is the default, and anything a little odd gets smoothed over by algorithms. It’s tempting to shortcut the chaos-to reach for a neat, pre-packaged solution. But those tools tend to surface the expected. The real edge lies in what can’t be templated: human instinct, strange leaps, off-kilter logic. That’s what brands are paying for-and that’s what we risk losing if we don’t protect space for rough, unformed, beautifully odd ideas.
So why do we kill them off so quickly?
Perfectionism, mostly. Whether it’s shaped by years in the industry, the pressure of client presentations, or just our own inner critic, we’re conditioned to seek brilliance from the outset. To arrive with answers, not questions. And striving for excellence is a good thing. But it can also blind us to the unpolished, the unusual, the imperfectly perfect beginnings of something better.
It took me a few weeks into the course to let go of that mindset. To stop trying to present fully formed, ‘award-winning’ ideas each week. Instead, I began bringing thoughts, scribbles and wonderings. And through discussion, debate, and honest feedback, those thoughts often developed into stronger, more original work than what I might’ve landed on alone.
This way of thinking, of allowing ideas to be rough, unresolved, even a little embarrassing, feels uncomfortable at first. Especially when you’re trained to equate creativity with perfection. But there’s something powerful in saying: “This isn’t there yet… but there’s something in it.” It invites collaboration. It invites possibility.
And that’s what creativity needs more of—not just in AWARD School, but in the industry at large.
So here’s what I’ve learned: the best ideas rarely arrive dressed for the occasion. They’re usually late. They’re weird. They’re mumbled through half-closed eyes at 2am. But they’re worth saving, and importantly, sharing. Because with a bit of time, work, and willingness to be uncomfortable, they often become the thing that cuts through.
Let the weird win. Let the rough breathe. And next time you think an idea’s too strange, too loose, or too unpolished to share—say it out loud anyway.
It might just be the best one you’ve got.
