The truth about creative mistakes (for people who don’t like making mistakes)

23^rd January 2026 story_admin

Our Creative Director Olivia Donaldson was invited to speak on the subject of ‘creative mistakes’ at KIN002, the second KIN event held for the creative community in Edinburgh. Here’s what she had to say, in case her story is helpful to anyone who couldn’t make it on the night.

TL;DR

Mistakes can force you to try something different. Which can end up better.
Creativity is subjective. Who says it’s a mistake anyway?
Mistakes make you vulnerable. Vulnerability can provide the tension and emotion you need to dig deeper into your wells of creativity.
A lot of mistakes don’t actually matter very much.
Making creative mistakes is often a sign of taking creative risks. (A good thing.)
It’s easier to catch mistakes when you’re working with other people.
Make sure you’re in an environment where you feel safe making mistakes on the way to creating wonderful, courageous things.

The long read

Hello. My name is Olivia, and I HATE making mistakes.

There, admitted it.

I thought this might disqualify me from speaking at this event. But on reflection I decided, no, it means I might have something to say to or on behalf of anyone who feels the same way.

A lot of people imagine that “creative people” have to be inherently wild, rebellious and disruptive by nature. And it’s a trait you can spot when they’re kids – they’re the ones that wilfully colour outside the lines and refuse to eat sitting down and are happy to recklessly deface their Barbie dolls.

That was not me. I would look at those other children with a sort of stupefied awe. How could they not care?!

If I gave the wrong answer in school, I’d retreat shame-faced into my seat for the rest of class. If I did something wrong – threw a bad pass in netball, tripped over a tree root – I’d be mortified, turning it over in my mind for HOURS afterwards. It was as if making any kind of error was a blot on my entire character.

Honestly, you’d have liked me, I was a real laugh.

Actually no, I’m being unfair on myself. At times I was a touch earnest and risk averse, but I was essentially a fun-loving child, with a vivid imagination, who loved pretty things and preferred order to chaos.

Looking back, those personality traits showed up in my early creativity. As we now know, I was destined to spend my career as a copywriter, but back then writing wasn’t really my strongest creative impulse. I was mostly into drama and art.

And I was the kid who took pride in colouring inside the lines. I sat for hours working on intricate ink drawings and my handwriting. Careful, meticulous, precise.

When I did decide to get creative with my Sindy doll and cut her hair into a chic bob, only to discover the nylon bounced up and showed a massive bald patch at the back, I was devastated.

So yes, of course, despite my fears, I did make plenty of mistakes.

My GCSE art exam for instance. Over about 7 and a half hours, I’d painstakingly mapped out, drawn and painted a detailed historic townscape. And right at the end I messed up the sky, going for a pinky orange sunset effect which just looked like the whole place was on fire. So with about 5 minutes to the bell, I went into a panic, daubing it with a weird blue-black colour that no sky has ever been, and having to cut about 10 cm off the top to hide the whole disaster.

But here’s the thing. The painting actually ended up better for that mistake. The odd sky sets off the scene so much better than I’d planned for it. Don’t get me wrong, I was horrified at the time, and went home absolutely convinced I’d failed my art GCSE. But then – much to my surprise – the headteacher selected it to hang above her desk in her office, pride of place. So what did I know?

Well, not much clearly, but I was starting to learn some valuable lessons.

Lesson one: Mistakes can force you to try something different.

Which can end up so much better.

Lesson two: Creativity is subjective. Who says it’s a mistake anyway?

People will see what they see, not what you think they’ll see. What they won’t see – unless you tell them – is what was in your head before it ended up on the page. So keep schtum and pretend it’s what you intended all along.

As for drama, I had my fair share of clangers there too.

I made my acting debut on the professional stage aged 13 years and 364 days, in an Agatha Christie play called Spider’s Web.

First night, got the first entrance over. Standing in the wings chatting (flirting?) with some male cast members, I missed my next cue. The first I knew of this cock up was the actress playing my stepmother calling my character’s name – and I’m thinking ‘uh oh, that’s not in the script’. She came off stage, grabbed my hand and dragged me stumbling onto the set and fed me some lines to pick up and keep the scene going. So we got through that, sort of.

Shortly afterwards, I had to come back on and confess to murder, collapsing into uncontrollable hysterics. I’ll admit that was proving a bit beyond my acting skills until that point, but I was so upset by the mistake I’d just made, I was shaking and trembling and sobbing real tears throughout the scene. It was my best performance of the entire 3 week run.

Lesson three: Mistakes make you vulnerable. Vulnerability can provide the tension and emotion you need to dig deeper into your wells of creativity.

Where the really good stuff is.

Another time, during a school play in front of pupils, teachers and parents, I completely forgot my lines, so I had to get creative and make some up. I single-handedly managed to turn Arthur Miller’s The Crucible into a comedy.

Lesson four: Give up acting.

I didn’t pursue a career on the stage, thank goodness. But there’s a serious point there. Mistakes can help you spot your weaknesses, and maybe the things you should spend less effort on. Useful to know.

Also, despite being one of the most hideously embarrassing episodes of my school career, I got over it. Nobody died. Which taught me…

Lesson five: A lot of mistakes don’t actually matter very much.

It’s not like flying a plane or performing brain surgery. The margins for error in creativity are generous.

Of course, I’m mainly talking about mis-steps and mishaps here, not total monumental fuck-ups that can end a career or start a culture war or close down a business. I’m glad to say I don’t think I’ve made any of those.

I’m also not saying mistakes are unimportant. In the advertising world, a big creative mistake usually has a financial consequence and could end up costing someone – client or agency – a lot of money. So you don’t want to be doing that all the time.

But mistakes are not all bad either.

I’ve found that one of the lovely things about working in the creative industries is that you can make non-catastrophic mistakes. And if doesn’t positively encourage mistakes, it is very forgiving of them.

And I think the reason for that is, unlike lots of other jobs, because we’re not always in execution mode.

We spend – or we should spend – a long time on the exploring, ideating, incubating bit. The divergent thinking part of the process. And that’s the time for making mistakes, so when it comes to the delivery, they’re perfect, error-free gems.

But surely the greatest mistake of all is to be so afraid of making one that you don’t take any creative risks at all.

Because we all know, if you want to be noticed, if you want your message to get through – whether it’s a personal project or a brand campaign – then the riskier stuff, which often means the untried stuff, has more chance of achieving that.

Lesson 6: Making creative mistakes is often a sign of taking creative risks.

You have to go right to the edge of what is challenging, original and attention-grabbing. That does of course run the risk of the idea going so far up its own backside that it becomes meaningless. Or wading into territory that’s controversial or polarising, or going somewhere wholly offensive and wrong.

But that’s why safe spaces are SO important for creatives. An environment where you can say silly stuff and make mistakes and go down creative cul de sacs.

A big reason why I will always bang the drum for more creative response time in the lifecycle of a marketing project.

To my mind, taking a creative brief should be like being dropped somewhere in Venice without a map and told to find St Mark’s Square.

You’ll follow your nose. Stand on a bridge and think, I’d like to be on that bridge over there, but I have no idea how to reach it. Then you wander off, your eye drawn by something intriguing and you disappear into a warren of narrow streets. Turns out it’s a dead end, but then you hear some Vivaldi playing somewhere nearby, so you retrace your steps and pop out into a square where stands a beautiful 15^th century church out of which emerges a wedding party and it’s all just so romantic and dreamy. Well, that’s not a wrong turn. That’s a wonderful, unexpected turn that you can pocket for another day. Meanwhile you keep zigzagging about until you come out onto a bridge and you think, oh! I’m on that bridge I wanted to be on, how did I get here? And so it continues until you start to get your bearings, building on what you’ve learnt, and gradually you get closer until at last you spill out onto that vast glittering square – and not only have you reached your destination, but you’ve had the most thrilling time getting there and you’re all the richer for having got a little lost on the way.

So that’s where I am today. All grown up and espousing the benefits of straying from the path and getting things wrong!

And now as a Creative Director, I need my creative team to know they too have space to make mistakes on the way.

They say there’s no such thing as a bad idea. Well there is. But I’ve learnt that a good creative process means that those ideas don’t get very far. Because a creative team is just that – a collective team effort, with collective team responsibility.

It’s not just more fun to be working together, it also means the mistakes, misjudgements and mis-steps have more chance of being picked up before they become problematic.

Lesson 7: It’s easier to catch mistakes when you’re working with other people.

So I will leave you with this:

I’ve got two daughters, teenagers now. They look pretty similar, but they have totally different personalities. Exemplified in their early attempts at writing.

D1 – more like me – didn’t want to write a word until she’d mastered her letters. No mistakes here mummy.

D2 – less like me – just wanted to play at writing. So she just gave it a go, and kept going, page after page, until some recognisable words emerged.

Both got there in the end, in their own ways.

And I think creative people are like that. We’re not all one type. Not all wild and reckless and willing to go astray all the time. Lots are. But don’t assume that’s everyone.

So let me speak to anyone in the room who dreads making a mistake… Take the leap. But – and this is so important – make sure you’re in an environment where making mistakes is ok, and surround yourself with people who make you feel safe to push yourself into that braver, riskier space.

And if you’re the kind of person who is totally blasé being out of your depth and making mistakes, then take a minute to observe the people around you.

Especially if you have the privilege of leading a team. Look at the creative people under your wing.

Give them permission to make mistakes on their journey. Make them feel safe, show them how to learn from their mistakes, and share the responsibility. Don’t assume they’re all comfortable colouring outside the lines, but in the right conditions, with the right encouragement, I know we are all capable of creating wonderful, courageous things.