COLLIDE: Does Every New Creative Idea Come From a Conflict?

When Guan Hin Tay released his book COLLIDE: Embracing Conflict to Boost Creativity last month, he didn’t necessarily think he was sitting on an instant bestseller. 

The book's title gives away that its author has a unique perspective on creativity, and if you ask Guan Hin, that’s down to 30 years in the advertising industry.

“Obviously, things have changed a lot,” Guan Hin says. “ One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that young talent coming in are tech-centred, skilled in that way. But I realised that the art of creating really good creative ideas is lacking.”

Guan Hin is careful to stress that many young creatives’ ideas, which tend to revolve around social media trends, are not wrong. But what Guan Hin noticed, and what COLLIDE focuses on, is the secret ingredient that makes a good idea great. Tension.

“The concept of COLLIDE is embracing conflict to boost creativity,” Guan Hin says. One of the things about colliding is that there is a smashing up of different things, seemingly completely disparate ideas coming together to make something new.”

To Guan Hin, collision and tension have negative connotations that they don’t deserve. Tension, which, according to Guan Hin, comes from conflict, is a necessary part of ideation.

“Obviously, there's good conflict and bad conflict,” he says. “Conflict is very uncomfortable. Conflict is an argument with two or more sides contrasting, but nothing exciting or engaging is created without it. From movies to inventions, it's happening, having a conflict within the storytelling – like a character or a situation – allows a concept to innovate.”

As its cover indicates, COLLIDE is replete with illustration and engaging imagery, keeping its creative readers in mind. Not wanting to create a short book, Guan Hin still wanted COLLIDE to be something people could pick up and become interested in.

“I wanted to create a book that’s more of a business book that people will pick up and take seriously,” Guan Hin says. “So it’s not only for students with startup businesses but also clients.”

On its back cover is the inscription, ‘It's a dangerous journey into the violent world of creative conflict. Safety not guaranteed.’ 

“The book, in general, is a quick guide to coming up with creative ideas,” Guan Hin says. The book focuses on a specific framework for successfully creating creative tension:

C- Conflict

O- Opportunity

L- Learning

L- Leverage

I- Idea

D- Develop

E- Execute

“Having said that, there are many ways of creating and coming up with creative ideas,” Guan Hin says. “But I took the route to disrupt the world of books. There are so many books written about creativity, and so the tone of this book is energetic and engaging from the get go.”

Each page of COLLIDE was created to present a contrast. Juxtaposed images and illustrations might have nothing to do with a section's written content, composed predominantly of business anecdotes and advice. This is entirely deliberate, according to Guan Hin, who emphasises how many new creative concepts derive from stealing pieces of different ideas.

He likens this juxtaposition to a campaign he worked on, in which the Singapore Ministry of Health Holdings created a Fortnite Battle Royale game in which killing was replaced with healing.

"The Ministry of Health Holdings Singapore faced a challenge in attracting Gen Z to healthcare careers. To tackle this, we innovatively approached the popular game Fortnite, a platform known for its battle-centric gameplay. We developed a unique Fortnite Creative map, set in a virtual Marina of Singapore, where the gameplay was centred around healing rather than combat."

A powerful campaign about the power of healing may never have come about were it not for the seemingly disparate concepts of a battle royale video game and the Ministry of health Holdings. But it did because a creative team embraced tension and conflict to create something new.

This kind of seemingly incompatible tension is a rich vein for creatives to mine, and Guan Hin’s COLLIDE is a blueprint for precisely that. As far as he is concerned, ideas that leave us uncomfortable, with some kind of creative conflict, can only be a good thing.

Find a copy of COLLIDE, here.