What’s the big idea?

At the beginning of this year, I was very lucky.

I had about ten creative ideas. About five of these ideas were quite good. About three of these quite good ideas turned into things. Pitches and proposals, websites, portfolio pieces. One of these things became 26 Treasures.

In January, when I pitched 26 Treasures to John Simmons in the National Gallery’s café, overlooking Trafalgar Square, we didn’t know if it would take off. For it to work, it needed backing from 26, the London Design Festival and, later, the V&A.

Thankfully, everyone supported it.

And here we are, just three weeks away from the Festival, looking back nine months and wondering where the time has gone.

Ideas always amaze me. We don’t plan for them, they just arrive. We can’t control them, they either take off or they don’t.

But I do believe we can prepare for them. We can create the environment they need.

In the last few months, I’ve been very busy. As a consequence, I haven’t had much time to enjoy sitting and doing very little. I haven’t read much or walked enough. And I haven’t had another idea like 26 Treasures. My mind needs to relax for ideas to come along. If I’m lucky, they pop into my head when I’m reading a paper, driving, walking along the river. Or staring at a wall.

I like the story of Paul McCartney and ‘Yesterday’. Paul says he woke one morning with the melody in his head. He rushed to the piano, got it down on paper. He shared it with his band mates, telling them he’d woken with this tune. But, he said, he was sure it was an old folk song, something his mum had sung to him years before. John, George and Ringo didn’t recognise it. So Paul worked hard at the lyrics. From ‘Scrambled Eggs’, he found ‘Yesterday’.

Ideas can come from anywhere to anyone. The best often arrive when we’re least expecting them.


- Rob Self-Pierson