This isn't really true. If a requirement is 'creative' - that is, it involves doing something that has never been done before, as opposed to a standard design

This isn't really true. If a requirement is 'creative' - that is, it involves doing something that has never been done before, as opposed to a standard design pattern - then it will also require a creative implementation. Sometimes very simple requirements require great creativity in the implementation. Most software requirements leave the question of how the thing will be achieved entirely unstated. It's very easy to write a single page of requirements that could require hundreds of pages of code to implement.