TWELVE Mail: What did you have to unlearn about great ideas?

Carlos Alcácer Falcó: A great idea used to mean a Cédric Grolet dessert to me: forty-two components and a spectacular photo. These days I prefer the ideas that were already sitting in the fridge, waiting for someone to open the door. The best dinners of my life didn't come from a recipe, they came from looking at what I already had. The hard part was never inventing the idea. It was seeing it. That one stings to admit.

Irene Llorca: I used to think great ideas depended a lot on being in the right place, with the right clients and the right budgets. Now I think it has much more to do with persistence. There will always be reasons why an idea can’t happen. The difference is how many times you’re willing to come back, rethink it and find another way in.

TWELVE Mail: What did you have to unlearn about simplicity?

Carlos: I've learned that simple and simplistic aren't the same thing. A simplistic dish is missing salt. A simple one has nothing on it that shouldn't be there. A tortilla de patatas is three ingredients, and hardly anyone manages to make it memorable. Early on I took things out to look sophisticated. Now I take things out until removing one more would break it, and that line sits a lot further along than people think.

TWELVE Mail: What did you have to unlearn about creative confidence?

Irene: No matter how many awards you win or how much experience you have, every new brief starts with a blank page, and that’s always uncomfortable. The difference is that, over time, you learn to trust yourself. After solving one brief after another, you stop seeing uncertainty as something to fear and start seeing it as part of the job.

TWELVE Mail: What did you have to unlearn about building brands?

Carlos: A brand is built like a stock: low heat, hours of it. Not in a microwave, which is exactly what we usually get asked for. A brand has a lot in common with a neighborhood restaurant. You build it with your regulars, by getting them to come back, and come back again. What stays with people isn't the menu, it's one particular taste. Nobody remembers a tagline. You do remember where you were when you tried something.

TWELVE Mail: What did you have to unlearn about Cannes?

Irene: Cannes always felt a bit like a faraway place to me, somewhere I dreamed of being. So maybe what I had to unlearn was the idea that I was just a visitor there. Once you’re surrounded by people whose work you’ve admired all year, you realise you belong in that room too. And honestly, it just makes you want to come back.