A creative intention necessarily includes tool choice. Without “putting pen to paper,” The Intention doesn’t transform into The Act. It remains daydreaming (nothing wrong with daydreaming unless it isn’t wanted).

Here are some reasons why tool choice often becomes a block.

The two big reasons we get hung up on creative tools are:

  1. “Making stuff” could as accurately be described as “playing with creative tools.” Some tools are more fun than others (Play is what we’re doing here).
  2. The pernicious, meaningless thought: “Quality is important.”

Many will say “Creative tool obsession is just PROCRASTINATION from THE WORK.”

I used to think this. I now know that this frame is deeply unhelpful. Judging oneself this way is the surest path to probably never making anything, and doing so joylessly.

It also simply isn’t true.

Addressing the “Quality” noise first (it’s just noise): Artistic Quality a) is not a Real Thing, b) can only even be discussed in terms of the creative intention, which includes the tools chosen, and c) has never once been helpful to think about when approaching creative work.

It’s certainly counterintuitive that focusing on quality wouldn’t help you produce higher quality. A lot of truths are counterintuitive in this coercive, managerial culture.

All of this Quality thinking can be summed up in the phrase: “This better be good.”

Feeling inspired?

Let’s say we take the quality nonsense seriously… We can only even have an entertaining discussion about creative quality in terms of its intention, which includes tool choice. Therefore, tool choice cannot affect quality.

Yes, this is what I’m saying: Creative tools cannot affect even a notion of artistic quality, because that quality could only be judged on the full creative intention behind the work, which always includes the tools chosen.

What about just “getting it right”? Can’t this be measured? Again, only in terms of intention.

Did you intend for that shot to be 3 stops underexposed? No? Then yeah, that didn’t work.

Was the shot underexposed because your camera is bad in low light? Then you have two choices:

A) Acquire the tools to fulfill this arbitrary intention (hard), or
B) Shift your arbitrary intention to account for the tools you have (easy)

Neither choice affects Quality.

My use of “arbitrary intention” isn’t pejorative. Creative intention is and should always be arbitrary. Like Play.

MY 3-YEAR-OLD
We’re going to stack these blocks as high as they go until the tower falls.

There is no reason. The decision has been made and we are doing it NOW.

But because certain tools allow/encourage creating certain types of stuff, our creative intentions tend to flow into what I’ll call Pools of Practicality. This is why football/soccer/calcio is the most popular sport in the world (and it isn’t close).

I’ll write more about Pools of Practicality and how they create illusions and false choices around creative tools at a later date.

Meanwhile, may we all have fun with our creative tools. They matter. A lot. But they’ll never affect the quality of our work.