This week I took a test designed to tell me more about my creative personality.
Creative Types is based in psychology research and is the brainchild of Adobe Create, along with creative agency Anyways, a group of UK developers and designers, and writer Carolyn Gregoire who co-authored Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind.
The premise of the creative types test is that all creative people have a core personality with certain traits, strengths, and weaknesses (or as the test results like to frame them, areas of untapped potential).
The test comprises only 15 questions. According to Adobe Create, it 'assesses your basic habits and tendencies—how you think, how you act, how you see the world—to help you better understand who you are as a creative.'
Taking the test was a sensory journey of sorts; the designers have built something beautiful with a seamless relationship between form and function. I found the process intriguing; the questions didn't read like other personality-type tests I've dabbled in (and yes, I do take them with a heavy pinch of salt). They cut through the predictable and by doing so, prevented me from giving the kinds of answers I might have felt I 'ought' to give.
The test designated me The Innovator, which I felt was pretty accurate. I recognise in myself a lot of the characteristics associated with this type - change fuels my creative fire; I feel at my best when I am solving problems and coming up with new ways to do things; I interrogate structures; I often ask 'why?'.
I also have a tendency to want to move on before I finish something, because I hate that 'messy middle' part of a task! My results suggested I should collaborate more with Maker types, to help me learn to knuckle down and take ideas more securely from concept to completion.
I feel that understanding our creative selves better allows us to improve both personal and team dynamics, and focus where we need to learn as well as where we excel. To this end I have circulated the test to my team at work and hope we will all gain some valuable insight from our specific makeup as individuals and as a group.
Intrigued? Take the test for yourself here: /mycreativetype.com/ - then come back and tell me your type.