Michael Wolff on keeping ideas disposable

Exercise your idea-creating capacity by throwing away good ideas. Michael Wolff explains how this works.

Branding expert and co-founder of Wolff-Olins, Michael Wolff explains how to exercise your idea-creating capacity by first getting rid of your ideas, in this talk from Design Indaba 2011.

Great ideas start with throwing away good ideas, says Wolff. The enemy of all ideas is the idea that you’re currently with.

Wolff has advice of how to avoid creative crimes, understanding the importance of language in design and knowing when to save something people want to change. 

He also discusses the idea behind some of the projects he has done, going as far back as 1964. He also touches on the importance of language in design, his early work with a paint company and lecturing in Brazil, India, Mexico, Norway, Singapore and the USA.

Watch the Interview with Robert Wong, Michael Wolff, Dana Arnett, David Butler