Thanks for checking out the first blog post on the Toronto Creatives Blog. I presume this is way, way in the future and you’re here because you slipped though a hole in the google-spacebar-continuum, got super into our work and looked though the whole thing only to find this post… Awesome. Or this is tomorrow afternoon and we’ve just launched this thing… In that case this is the only post. Sorry about that. Check back soon and stuff.

Moving things right along, now that I’ve sufficiently overthought that whole situation… Let’s talk a bit more about overthinking stuff. Overthinking doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s actually something I think we do a lot of around here. We overthink stuff because it’s important. It’s important to us; it’s important to our clients; and it helps us see the thing, or finish the detail that no one else has looked at. Yet.

Another reason overthinking is underrated? It helps us see all sides of a problem and inevitably leads to a solution. Overthinking stuff is kind-of a lot of what we do, and the reason our stuff looks great. We think about every detail. As I’m typing this it’s on a white content management screen that looks nothing like what you’re seeing now, but I’m more than confident whether you’re seeing this on a desktop or on a phone, it looks great. It’s dark and grey with big bold title fonts and a minimalistic feel, and (fingers crossed) as a result you think it’s pretty swank. We spent a fair bit of time thinking about it, setting it up, testing it on different phones and tablets. We will keep testing it too, I’ll test it on an XBox later tonight after writing this. The point is we overthink because we’re paid to overthink. We’re also paid to know when to stop overthinking.

Stopping is a bit trickier. When you overthink anything, there is bound to be runaway lateral thoughts; some unmeasurable and unpredictable variables – and usually these unknowns or apprehensions are only overcome or ‘solved’ by just going forward. We use our experience to make what we think are the best choices, but ultimately when we design something, a website, a mail campaign or an experience we hit those walls. What will people think? How will they react? Will they want more or less? Best practice at that point, in my opinion, is try it out. Show it to people. Test and get reactions and adjust accordingly moving forward. Overthinking can only take you so far before you actually have to try something.

So we’re putting it out there I guess. We’ll try and give you some insights in how we think, how we work, techniques we use, and the toys we play with. We’re trying this because we asked ‘what if we did a blog?’ and we couldn’t come up with a finite answer. Will people like it? One way to find out.

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