Everything Has already Been Done
I'm went to the Garden in Boston earlier this year to see the Celtics. Big fan of ball, and the Celtics overall.
Getting back into NBA reminded me of the Celtic's social media account from last year . It was awesome. Like many there sports accounts they post highlights, behind the scenes footage, and general player shots. The editing. Storytelling. The visuals. All set this account apart from others. Nothing short of phenomenal.
Here's an example
the most popular is one with the caption "nonstop buckets 🔥"
What I love about it is it's still the same rough idea as most accounts. Posting highlights. The way it's editing however, taps into the concept of 'nonstop buckets'.
This was from a game where the C's were so dominate - going into halftime with a 44 point lead. Literally nonstop buckets. That’s what the story and editing tapped into.
It's a fresh look on something that's been done a million times. Every team posts highlights of key plays. But how can you remix that approach to create something that is fresh, new, and innovative. That's what the Celtics did here.
It's a great reminder that even though something's been done a certain way, there's always ways to push it forward. Tap into the essence of storytelling and design to create something that is comfortably familiar but refreshingly new at the same time.
Your Job Is To Find The New Way
It reminds me of this interview with Rick Rubin and Rick Beato. Beato asks Rubin if it’s hard to be original when so much music has already been written. Rubin’s answer says no and adds:
“Everything has already been done and your job is to find the new way to do it. And it happens all the time. One of the magic pieces of the formula is when things that are not normally put together are put together. ”
One of the pieces of the “formula” to find new ideas is to put things that are normally not together, together. Rubin gives the example of the 1986 collaboration song “Walk This Way” by Run DMC and Aerosmith. A rock meets rap collaboration that was a first of its kind. It was unusual at the time, but it worked.
The Formula
So often design isn’t necessarily coming up with something new, it’s finding a new way to represent something. One ways we’ve seen this is through inverting assumptions.
Inverting Assumptions in Design
With the Celtics “non-stop buckets” example, it’s still a highlight video, just in a new way. It challenges an assumption that highlight videos are made up of clips strung together.
The Celtics clips aren’t strung together - they seamlessly blend into one clip.
The first video above, “Moments In Between” - it inverts the assumption of audio. In typical highlight videos, music, announcers, the crowd, and the players are typically front and center. And with a bump in volume.
“Moments In Between” inverts it in a way where the music is quite simple, and foley takes front and center.
Rock and rap - though with so much in common underneath - were always separate. Rock is over here, rap is over there. Inverting that assumption puts them together for “Walk This Way” and it becomes something new and interesting.
If you’re a product and UX designer than you know often times you’re creating a “new”experience that at the same time if familiar.
If done well, users don’t always even notice it.
It’s taken something familiar, and remixing it to fit the specific problem you are solving.
When I was a younger design I felt this need to create ground breaking new designs. Even at times pressured from bosses to do so.
But as I got more seasoned I realized a lot of design is remxing what’s out there. Taking what’s been done and finding the new angle.
It may not mean creating social videos that get millions of views, or the next smash song, but doesn’t mean it’s any less of great design.
//Coleman
