About the author
Roy Sharples is the Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer of Unknown Origins on a mission to unlock everyones creative potential.
Manifesto
Manifesto
Situation
Creativity is the ability to make the invisible visible by taking what is not to create what is. It manifests what is inside you and around you by transcending the obvious, ordinary, and routine—embracing originality and making unique connections between disparate universes past and present to light the way into the future in new ways. Have confidence in your ideas and never give up on bringing them to fruition, leading without frontiers by seeing around the corners and fearlessly navigating into the future.
This transformation infuses imagination, taste, style, and inherent messiness with inner desperation and persistence, along with a desire to succeed that results in having the skill and practical know-how. To be creative, you must swim courageously against the tide, searching for the authentic and new while staving off false promises of easy gratification and immediate success in a world saturated with consumer-led celebrity culture, where everyone looks the same and everything is for sale. This is the reality we live in, and it is counter-intuitive to nurturing creativity.
However, curiously, hardship, melancholy, and adversity often inspire creativity. People who survive alienation, oppression, poverty, and other life challenges realize that it fuels their genius when they can focus on it. This primal desire to slay the odds with extraordinary intellectual ability, mental toughness, grit, and creative productivity fuels an insatiable drive for self-actualization. This, in turn, inspires creativity.
When you know how to channel your passion and energy into creativity and create meaningful outcomes, your outputs will be the next generation's inputs by lighting the way to the future and passing on the baton, leaving the world a better place. If you aspire to be as influential as the things that influence you—not to imitate them but to influence others in your creative way— you can recreate the world.
The defining question is a stalemate: should you be acceptable to others or yourself?
Manifesto
1
Knowing that ridicule is nothing to be scared of
If your efforts are met with ridicule, all you have to do is find your inner conviction that you are doing the right thing, navigating toward invisible horizons by anticipating future trends inspired by culture and aesthetics to drive sustained discovery, invention, and innovation. It's a sure sign that what you do is bold and innovative if you're dancing to your own drumbeat. Pay no mind to ridicule.
2
Never be "Another Brick in the Wall"
Dream, make, and do. Be in the moment. Push forward for the greater good with true grit. Conformity never leads to progress. If you have something authentically different to offer, you'll excite and inspire others and ultimately thrive by lighting the way to the future.
3
Lead without frontiers
Fearlessly lead by example and win the crowd by navigating territory where no one else has ventured. Avoid the mainstream and work to develop a deeper relationship between yourself and your audience. Be authentic, live in the moment with conviction and confidence, and always stay true to yourself.
4
Provoking actions that change minds
Reject conventions, constantly analyze, and question and challenge the status quo in your everyday life. Provide an alternative and bring it to life. People who achieve greatness do not fit a formula or follow a structure. They break the mold by following their own path.
5
Keeping true to the dreams of your youth and create outside the boundaries
Pablo Picasso believed all children are artists, but they lose their creativity when they grow up. Grow into, not out of, creativity. Don't give up the dreams of your childhood and your approach to the world through a child's eyes. Learn, innovate, and never waste a second on anything that seems to restrict you.
Purpose
Unknown Origins are on a mission to save the world from unoriginality by helping people unleash the power of creativity.
We are a creative studio that provides creative strategy, brand creation, storytelling production, and envisioning solutions for artists, businesses, educators, and entrepreneurs—applying creative practices to drive breakthrough impact by blending the art and science of aesthetics with excellence in craftsmanship, inspired by industry developments and culture, connecting emotions and imagination to create elegantly composed brand-positioned solutions.
Roy Sharples
Creative actions change minds. It means transcending the status quo by leading without frontiers and seeing around the corners to build a better future through the products, services, experiences you make, and the businesses you run.
Founder and CEO