According to Patrick Burgoyne it can - he’s just written a provocative post on the Creative Review blog, claiming that by sitting ‘hunched over their Macs, headphones on, plugged into their own private world’ designers are killing conversation in the studio - and when the conversation dies, so does creativity:

Design studios used to be full of banter – work-related or otherwise. Now all you can hear is the tssk, tssk of a dozen headphones.

Sure, you can still hold meetings and discuss the work, but who ever had a great idea at a “brainstorming” session? There’s something about the appearance of a flipchart that just sucks the life out of a room.

Great ideas come about either when you are busy doing something else – walking, taking a shower – or through talking to another human being.

If you’ve listened to any of the podcasts of my research interviews about managing creative teams, you won’t be surprised to hear I think he’s got a point. Every single manager, director, consultant and development professional I’ve interviewed has said that conversation and interpersonal interaction are essential to the creative process. One of the themes that has come out of the research for me is the idea of conversation as a creative meta-medium, where new connections and ideas emerge that would never have occurred to individuals working in isolation (or with their headphones on).

So should design studios ban iPods? That might be a bit extreme, but just as some companies have regular ‘no e-mail’ days, maybe there’s a case for ‘no-iPod’ days, or a return to the communal office sound system.

What could be better for fuelling the creative tension on a Monday morning than a good old-fashioned squabble over who gets to put their tunes on the stereo?

The Creative Review blog highlights an excellent e-book for aspiring graphic designers - Twenty Four Seven by Adam Graveley.

A couple of years ago Graveley was looking for his first graphic design job and couldn’t find a useful guide - so he showed a lot of initiative by researching and writing it himself, by asking for advice from renowned designers Tom Roope (Tomato Interactive, UK), Alexander Gelman (Design Machine, NY), Jan Wilker (Karlssonwilker Inc, NY), Jonathan Ellery (Browns Design, London), Peter Saville (London) and Adrian Shaughnessy (TiRA, London). And when he couldn’t find a publisher, he showed even more initiative by designing and publishing it himself as an e-book.

It’s lushly designed and full of the kind of practical advice that should help to direct creative enthusiasm without crushing it. The big name interviewees offer wisdom based on years of experience, but Graveley gives plenty of useful tips himself, written in the tone of the bloke at the desk opposite you:

You will not have six weeks to complete a brief. You will need to produce relevant concepts quickly and must be able to articulate them in progress meetings. You could only have a few hours to produce something. You have to be able to handle yourself when time is running out. You will panic, you will cock up and you will learn from your mistakes. Be aware of time management.

I’m not a graphic designer but if you’re looking to land your first job at a design studio this sounds like a voice worth listening to.