Online ExpertTrack in Creative Arts & Media

Developing a Creative Mindset: Build Empathy, Collaboration, and Resilience into Your Creative Process

Explore your creative mindset to better understand your audience, build collaboration skills, and boost your resilience.

Created by

D&ADD&AD

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Inspire your creativity with tools to overcome any creative challenge

In a rapidly changing world, tackling challenges, whether big or small, takes a certain amount of creativity. It’s not the ‘same old, same old’, and we can’t look to what’s gone before to find the solutions.

For those in creative roles, this provides an exciting opportunity to bring the best of creativity to the forefront, find solutions that benefit audiences, and collaborate on brilliant solutions.

On this marketing ExpertTrack, you’ll develop techniques to better understand your audiences, successfully collaborate with different teams, and build resilience to overcome any challenges the future may throw at you.

Increase your creative empathy and tap into your customers’ emotions

Customers are the heart of every business, so it’s vital that you understand their needs and emotions so you can create brilliant ideas that resonate with your audience.

The first course in this ExpertTrack will provide the fundamentals to help you understand your audience. You’ll then see how this translates into brilliant creative solutions through personas and customer journey maps, which will also help make the creative process much smoother.

Develop effective team working skills for better creative collaboration

Positive team dynamics and great collaboration can not only make creative work more enjoyable, but can also increase productivity and reduce issues.

The second course will take you through different tools and techniques to help you work with a mixture of personalities and improve your overall team working skills.

Build techniques to strengthen your creative resilience

Working in creative industries can sometimes be stressful, with many unique pressures falling on the shoulders of creatives. That’s why resilience is such an important skill to grow to help you overcome the challenges you might face.

On the final course in this ExpertTrack, you’ll hear how successful creatives built their resilience over their careers and coped in testing situations. You’ll look at your resilience level and what techniques you can employ to overcome your inner critic, find your purpose, and fuel your creativity.

Learn with the advertising experts at D&AD

Since 1962, D&AD has been inspiring a community of creative thinkers by celebrating and stimulating the finest in design and advertising.

Having been established in the creative industry for so long, D&AD are perfectly equipped to help you develop a creative mindset that will fuel your creativity every day.

Illustrations by Alice Prentice

Key skills you will learn

  • Resilience
  • Collaboration
  • Empathy
  • Problem solving
  • Customer insight
  • Customer journey mapping
  • Audience analysis
  • Creativity
  • Remote working
  • Team working

Experience required

This ExpertTrack is designed for anyone currently working or looking to work in a creative industry. It may also be of interest to you if you’re looking to approach challenges in a different way as you will develop new skills to help with problem solving.

No previous experience is necessary to benefit from this ExpertTrack.

Getting started

This ExpertTrack will suit you if you’re a student or working professional looking to start a career in a creative industry or as part of an in-house creative team.

You might also find it useful if you’d like to learn techniques to embed a creative mindset into your day-to-day role in any industry.

ExpertTrack course overview

  • Course 1

    Better understand different types of audience and build empathy with your customers through your creative work.

    1 peer-graded assignment

    3 weeks

    3 hours per week

    • Week 1

      Understanding Your Audience
      • Introduction to Empathy
      • Why Empathy Matters
      • Personas and Motivations
      • Insight In Data
      • Deeper Dive
    • Week 2

      Exploring Your Audience
      • Bringing Your Audience To Life
      • Understanding Your Audiences Journey
      • Collating Your Research
    • Week 3

      Connecting Communication
      • Understanding and Using Bias
      • Communicating With Emotion
      • Ethics In Empathy
      • Bringing It All Together
  • Course 2

    Analyse your creative team dynamics and develop effective collaboration skills for better team work.

    3 weeks

    3 hours per week

    • Week 1

      The Foundations of Collaboration
      • Introduction to Creative Collaboration
      • The Shapes of Collaboration
      • Me & We
      • Team Tactics
    • Week 2

      Collaboration in Practice
      • Introduction to Practical Collaboration
      • The Challenges with Collaboration
      • Conflict in Collaboration
    • Week 3

      Collaboration in Action
      • Introduction to Collaboration in Action
      • Getting Your Collaboration Off The Ground
      • Keeping Collaboration Going
      • Closing Collaboration
  • Course 3

    Discover how to improve your creative process and build your resilience within the creative industry.

    1 peer-graded assignment

    3 weeks

    3 hours per week

    • Week 1

      Understanding Resilience
      • Introduction to Resilience
      • Resilience in the Creative Industries
      • Reflect on Resilience
    • Week 2

      Building Resilience
      • Introduction
      • Find Your Purpose
      • Showing and Sharing Vulnerability
      • Creative Challenges
    • Week 3

      Testing Resilience
      • Introduction to Testing Resilience
      • Feedback: Where, When and How
      • Your Resilient Future

Prove you're job ready

Highlight the new, job-relevant skills you’ve gained and supplement existing qualifications with a hard-earned, industry-specific digital certificate – plus one for every course within your ExpertTrack.

  • Learn the latest in your chosen industry or subject.
  • Complete each course and pass assessments.
  • Receive certificates validated by the educating organisation.
  • Impress employers with learning outcomes you can add to your CV.
  • Make your career dreams a reality.

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How ExpertTracks work

Join an ExpertTrack to master new skills in your chosen specialist area. Work through a series of topic-focused courses at your own pace, and pass the final assessment to earn a digital certificate award which proves your expertise.

Join a free 7-day trial

Decide if the ExpertTrack is right for you with free access to the full suite of courses and assessments for a week.

Keep learning for $39/month

Pay a monthly subscription fee of $39 for as long as it takes you to complete the ExpertTrack. You can learn at your own pace and cancel at any time.

Earn digital certificates

Receive a certificate for every completed course and pass the final assessment to earn a digital certificate.

Become an expert

Use your specialist training to progress further in your career or build expertise in areas you’re passionate about.

World-class learning with D&AD

Since 1962, D&AD has been inspiring a community of creative thinkers by celebrating and stimulating the finest in design and advertising.

Meet your instructors

Senior Learning & Development Manager at D&AD. I'm constantly inspired by brilliant creative ideas, and how to help others bring them to life.

Innovation leader, educator and investor. Unlocks creativity, courage and customer centricy for value creation. Expert in digital product, brand and leadership development.

I am an executive coach and also a therapist.

Elvira is a Creative Director, a certified Transformation Coach, and the co-founder of Tales of Tomorrow, a design studio for conscious creativity with an academy for resourceful creatives.

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FAQ

ExpertTracks are a series of online courses designed to help you master new skills in specialist areas. You pay a monthly subscription fee which includes access to all courses within the ExpertTrack, as well as assessments and the final digital certificate.

Each ExpertTrack comes with a 7-day free trial period. You may cancel your subscription at any time and your subscription will automatically cancel when you finish the courses and assessments in your chosen ExpertTrack.

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