We all love shortcuts. From dishwashers to washing machines, from cars to planes, from texting to email, from Google to apps for anything you can imagine, the modern world is all about convenience and finding the easiest and fastest way to do something.
But that’s not how creativity usually works.
It was tough convincing students of this. Especially because they got caught up in the final product. And the final grade.
Typical student questions:
“Is this good enough to hand in?”
“Can I just skip that step?”
“Will I get an A on this?”
Or “How come I didn’t get an A?”
Typical teacher answers:
“The process is more important than the product.”
And . . .
“The grade doesn’t matter as much as what you’ve learned.”
Typical student response: “Huh?”
I wanted students to embrace the process and enjoy the full journey. That’s why I graded the steps and effort along the way. Not just the end-product.
I hung a motivational sign on the art room bulletin board, a variation on a theme:
Creating a Product without the Process
is like having the Sizzle without the Steak
In marketing, it’s been said to “sell the sizzle, not the steak.” That is, focus on presenting the benefits to the customer, not just the features.
In other words, go for the emotional impact. Not just the facts.
It can be summarized in the axiom: “Features tell, benefits sell.”
In marketing, the steak is the product info: features, materials, technique, specifications, and various attributes.
The sizzle is the benefits. The customer wants to know “How will this product make me feel? What experience does this provide? Does it reflect my feelings or beliefs?”
Perfect examples of this are recent Super Bowl ads.
- Image of a baby born with stumps for legs. Odds of winning a Gold Medal? 1 in 977,500,000. The numbers go down as this child grows up with prosthetics, skis, ballet, work-outs, and more. Until the number is reduced to 1 in 1. Lauren Woolstencroft. The voice over: “When we’re free to move, anything is possible.” Powerful! So touching. The product? No car was shown, but it was Toyota.
- We hear Martin Luther King, Jr. making his speech from exactly 40 years earlier, Feb. 4, 1968. If you want to be great, be a servant. Anybody can be great. Images galore show people of all ages working and serving. The product? The Dodge Ram, shown working, too. “Built to Serve.”
Though some viewers were angry about using MLK’s speech to sell cars, these ads touch your heart. And the company knows it. They’re reaching you with the Sizzle.
- Budweiser featured no beer or Clydesdales, but showed their plant producing 3 million cans of water for disaster relief.
- Verizon played recorded phone calls of previous disaster victims later calling their first responders to thank them.
- Hyundai showed car buyers meeting survivors of pediatric cancer whom the company had supported for years. But no car appeared.
So how does this relate to creating art?
I’ve actually turned this Steak-Sizzle concept upside down. I marketed a different idea in my classroom. Again, my sign:
“Creating a Product without the Process
is like having the Sizzle without the Steak.”
You might disagree, but this analogy works for me and for what I wanted to convey to students.
In my sign, I liken the Sizzle to the finished work of art—the Product. This Product is what we want to see. (Yes, I know, even though sizzle is a sound word.) This is what the student is proud of at the end. This is what they take home and show off. This is what parents see, too.
But I consider that the Process is actually the Steak. Because the process is crucial to learning and problem-solving while creating. The steak is the Substance. Like the process. In fact, I cared more about that than what the final product looked like.
The Process—the Steak in my illustration—is where the real nourishment is. Without the Process, we have nothing but a Sizzle left. The smell and the sound, but nothing substantial to eat.
Think of what blueprints mean to a house under construction.
I expected students to make thumbnail sketches, consider placement of positive and negative space, relationships of shapes, and the impact of color combinations. For starters. It depended on the project.
Any decent art student with the ability to draw could whip out a product, even copy someone else’s work, and have everyone ooh and ah over it.
But I wanted my students to embrace the steps throughout the creative process. To experiment, to explore, to integrate the criteria and do problem solving before deciding on the final product’s appearance. Therein lies the thinking and learning.
This is also why art instruction in the school curriculum is not just fluff.
Here’s another way to put it.
“He who has imagination without learning
has wings and no feet.”
French essayist & philosopher, 1754-1824
So . . .
Imagination=Product & vision=Wings=the Sizzle of an Idea
Learning=Process=Feet & hard work=Steak=the Substance
In other words, the Process (Steak) is the substance, where the rubber meets the road. The end is the Product. The tangible result of our Imagination/vision. Sizzling with the pride of a job well done (no pun intended).
But whether you call something Sizzle or Steak doesn’t matter.
The main thing is . . . the learning process is the way to give our imagination hands and feet. So it can take flight.
What shortcuts do you take when you shouldn’t? Where can you benefit by focusing more on the process than the product?
I’d love to hear from you!
P.S. Next time: a journalist/food columnist/crafter/Mom who creates and captures memories for friends and family . . . She says YES to Mess & Mayhem, and engages her kids in the PROCESS . . .