Eye of newt may be the first thing that springs to mind when we think of a spell’s ingredients, but using the same recipe over and over only dulls the magic.
Creativity works the same way. It thrives on fresh perspectives – yet too often our industry recycles the same voices and calls it revolutionary. Rebrands blur into one another, design trends loop endlessly, and there’s a spell of sameness in the air.
If we want to make work that is distinctive, resilient, and impactful, we need to invoke wider sources of inspiration.
That means stepping outside the circle of advertising and design, and looking instead to the messy, unpredictable, and diverse world beyond it.
Breaking the spell of sameness
Creatives have always drawn from a wide well of inspiration – music, fashion, architecture, literature and nature and more. The strongest ideas come not from staring harder into the void within our own industry, but from exploring unexpected places. Fresh perspectives spark connections that our own echo chambers can’t.
That’s why SheSays created Night School, a free, month-long online learning programme designed to upskill and uplift the creative community.
A key part of its curation was to bring in unconventional teachers – from a dominatrix to a Samurai Deshi to a British Museum curator and a real-life mermaid – inviting them to share their lived career advice with a creative audience.
The point wasn’t smoke and mirrors style novelty. It was to show that by widening the input, we open up new ways of thinking about communication, leadership, resilience, and storytelling. Real magic.
Widening our design inputs
The same principle guided the design team behind the campaign.
The identity was built on a tension between the familiar and the fantastical. The inspiration came from both everyday school structures and the otherworldly aesthetics of Tarot and witchcraft.
The result felt both familiar and intriguing: a reminder that identity work doesn’t have to be locked to design trends. By combining cultural references, opposites met in the middle to create something new.
The Night School identity
For Night School’s senior motion designer, Den Salazar, bringing the visuals to life meant embracing imperfection. His inspiration came not from other brand films but from sketchbooks, chalk marks, folklore, and nature. In this particular project, it’s the unpredictable flight of moths that breathed life into the campaign mascot, Nyx.
The lesson is clear – looking beyond polished references grounds creative work in something more human and resonant.
The video lessons of Night School were shaped by video editor Faye Wessely, whose aim was to ensure the content didn’t just look good, but be inclusive and engaging too. Subtitles, graphics, and careful pacing made the content accessible for different learning styles.
Accessibility itself became a creative influence – a reminder that design isn’t only about aesthetics, but about who gets to be part of the conversation.
Collaboration as alchemy
Working in silos limits us. Collaboration across disciplines, backgrounds, and perspectives multiplies creative possibilities. When writers, designers, editors, and motion artists brought their skills together, they didn’t just produce assets – they built something bigger than the sum of its parts.
That’s true for any creative project. Diversity of thought and practice is what fuels originality.
Curiosity is one of the strongest spells in the creative toolkit. Widening inspiration sources – whether that’s looking to other cultures, disciplines, or lived experiences – does more than add variety.
It makes work more resilient to sameness, more inclusive of audiences, and more relevant to a fast-changing world.
It also makes creativity more sustainable. In an era of AI disruption and rising burnout, human creativity must be grounded in curiosity, collaboration, and accessibility. Narrow inputs risk making us obsolete – wide inputs keep us inventive and adaptive.
The temptation is always to stick to what we know – to scroll the same platforms, look at the same case studies, replicate the same trends. But sameness is safe, not creative. Real breakthroughs happen when we lean into difference – voices that unsettle, ideas that challenge, disciplines that collide.
The future of our industry depends on it. If we want to tell our own fortunes as creatives, we must be open to listening, learning, and evolving with diverse perspectives. That is where the real magic is.
Terri Witherden is senior brand designer for Night School by SheSays .