Creative voice is the distinctive quality that makes your organisation’s content immediately recognisable as yours. It’s not ‘voice’ in the literal sense, but rather your way of producing content.
It’s the combination of your visual style, your tone of voice, your perspective, and the kinds of ideas you’re drawn to – expressed consistently across everything you make. Again, remember you won’t nail this right away, in fact just starting is a necessary part of finding your creative voice, but thinking it out first gets you there faster.
Organisations with a strong creative voice are memorable. Organisations without one blend into the feed.
The elements of creative voice
Perspective: The lens through which your organisation see and interpret the world. Maybe you are very optimistic, so your content is all about celebrating what is awesome in your world. Maybe your perspective is that happiness is all that matters, or true independence. Each of these will influence your creative voice and sensibilities.
Tone: How you sound. Warm or direct? Serious or playful? Expert or accessible? If you’re tackling serious issues, maybe juvenile humour isn’t the right tone. Subsequently, if you work with young people, talking like a corporate grandpa would be equally ill-fitting.
Visual sensibility: Don’t underestimate this part. We are visual creatures and make positive associations with things that are nice to look at, and assign trust to consistency – both of which can be achieved through visuals. Ensure the colours, shapes, photography style, and design aesthetic feel authentically yours.
Reference points: The cultural touchstones, influences and inspirations that shape your creative thinking. A reference point for me is Stella Young’s infamous TED Talk about inspiration porn in the media. If you haven’t seen it please leave this course immediately and watch it. It’s something I come back regularly and it reminds me to ensure that any imgery I put forward isn’t one of pity or inspiration.
The thing you always come back to: Every strong creative voice has a recurring theme or obsession. This is about core messaging and your organisation’s ‘one thing’.
Creative voice is built, not discovered
You don’t find your creative voice by waiting for it to reveal itself. You build it by making things consistently, paying attention to what resonates, and gradually editing toward a clearer expression of who you are. Just start. Start this week. Doesn’t matter what it is, just start and don’t be scared to experiment. Some things will be easier to make, resonate with the audience more, or bring you more joy. Won’t know unless you start. So start.
Exercise
Collect 10 examples of content from any brand, any sector, that you genuinely admire. Look at them as a group. What do they have in common? What does that tell you about your own creative sensibility?