HISTB? (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 280)
A few days ago I had the pleasure of having designer/animator/illustrator/and-just-creative-person Leopold Baranowska on my island.
We talked about everything from pitching movie ideas to how AI will change the creative process.
One thing that stuck with me from the conversation was how Leopold would check pitches for creative projects against one sentence: HISTB?
HISTB? stands for “Have I Seen This Before?”
If your first reaction to someone else’s ideas (or even your own) is “Oh, that reminds me of X” then your idea is lacking the magic “X factor” that is the difference between a “good idea” and a “great idea”.
But if your first reaction to a new idea is “Ah, this is original!”, then you are on to something.
Be honest with yourself. If your idea is just reminding you of something else, then twist, tweak, dig deeper, pivot or change something until your first reaction is “wow!” Not “I have seen this before”.
A nice reminder to thrive for originality in your creativity.
IDEAS ISLAND 2
Since I closed down “Ideas Island” (the island where, for 10+ years, I let people stay for free to work on a creative project), I have decided to, instead, invite more creative people to my own island, Svanholmen, where I live with my family (see pic above).
One Ideas Island died, another Ideas Island is born.
Welcome to ‘Ideas Island 2’.
On this island I do not let creatives stay for a week (since this is the island I live on myself)
:-).
But instead, I want to have more creative people over for interviews, discussions, conversations etc.
Ideas Island 2 will be more about ‘creative discussions’ where I learn about the creative process from creative people.
For 25 years I have been exploring the world to learn about creativity from all kinds of people.
And I will continue to do so, of course.
But now I also want to open up my own home (and island) so that creative people can come to me, and not just me coming to them.
If you are visiting Stockholm, please do reach out to me and you might just get an invite to come to the island so that we can discuss creativity together.
CREATIVE INSPIRATION
2026 has started wonderfully. As always, I aim to spread creative inspiration around the world.
This year I have already been to:
Thailand
Singapore
Belgium
Korea
India
Denmark
And, of course, Sweden
And many more countries are in the pipeline for the rest of the year.
It is a privilege and an honour to travel the world to study, learn – and teach – the topic of creativity.
If you know of anyone, in any country or industry, that is keen on getting some creativity inspiration, then please do let them know about me.
🙂
22
Apr