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Want to Get More Creative? A Designer’s Tips for Finding Inspiration

20 Mar 2014

Look, creativity is something that is so obscure and abstract that its capacity to be taught is something that also begs the need for creativity. People who say they’re creative cannot necessarily measure their creativity, nor could they describe it.

There are a couple of instances in which concepts in creativity can be ascertained. One of which is ‘inspiration.’ Now, inspiration is one of those things that is exclusive to the individual. Either a concept, story, situation, or circumstance and trigger inspiration, but hitting the response mechanism which enables inspiration is much harder.

It’s also clear what you’re thinking: wow, is this going to solve my creative issues? No. Go into this piece with ample skepticism and you should want to be impressed.

Intent

The whole deal behind becoming more creative, or ‘inspired,’ is a two way street. If, for instance, you need to create something for a job or project then what will be produced or created has an attachment of necessity. Oh you need to create a storyboard for a deadline? The produced storyboard will have a tiny bit less utility. On the other hand, if you create a storyboard for a movie or sketch out of your free will and accord it will be marvelous. It’s the difference between a well written novel and one that was created merely to make money.

The first step to using inspiration is wanting to be inspired. Otherwise the whole game is out of whack. That cliche: in it to win it could not be more accurate in this case. Designers do this all the time, the first step to designing something to be proud of is first to want to design. Anything less is pointless.

Keep Your Eyes Open

Let’s say you’re on board with the whole intent thing: you’re in the mindset to create. Here’s the secret to inspiration: it can come about anywhere at anytime. Inspiration is one of those tricky concepts that hides when you’re looking for it, and stands right in front of your face when you’re not looking for it. Yeah, complicated.

The best tip after intent is to be prepared at all times for inspiration. You may have heard of a ‘Eureka!’ moment, and it certainly exists. ‘Eureka!’ is the phrase shouted by Ancient Greek Scholar Archimedes when he put together the principles of water displacement… while taking a bath. Eureka roughly translates to “I have found it!” The Eureka Effect, as it is legitimately called in academic circles, is a science which tries to categorize and explain the phenomenon of this ‘Eureka moment.’ The problem is this moment lies in between a philosophical and cognitive science domain, so part of it is theory, part unexplained phenomenon, and part promising.

Knowing that a moment like that can occur is an excellent method to finding inspiration. Instead of searching for it, let it come to you.

Theres one more historical and well known example of Eureka: There is a substantiated myth surrounding Sir Isaac Newton, who was an English physicist and mathematician, and all around ‘creative dude.’ As legend has it, he was sitting one day, chilling about in the Cambridge courtyard when allegedly an apple fell either on his head from the above apple tree, or right in front of him. These falling apples serve as a metaphor for inspiration, because while Newton was chilling about he’s like “Why aren’t those apples going up? Maybe theres something pulling it down with a lot of force or something, like a gravitas [which means greatness in latin] or something. I’ll call this force gravity. Boom. His inspiration for the science of gravity came to him, instead of him going to it.

Forming Habits

Old habits die hard some people say, but sometimes old habits are good, like brushing your teeth twice a day. So forming a habit of identifying possible inspiration is super effective.

A personal method is examining the negation of a concept. There are two things conveyed in every conversation for instance: the information that is said, and the information that is not said. This is known in the world of philosophy at least, as the problem of the other. It’s actually a serious problem in phenomenology.

So lets say you have to create a brochure, and you know that many brochures are tri-folded, and many include basic information and some stock photos. Finding inspiration to create a brochure that is interesting and properly creative is to do everything that a brochure is not. It will be fresh. Put a word search on it to ‘unlock’ the information contained in the brochure. Really, get weird. Weird is good because weird is fresh. Staying habitually weird is what makes artists great. Picasso, Dali, Warhol and even Banksy championed creativity by habitually looking at the other or what is not.

Creativity is not a standalone trait that can be taught. Identifying the means that lead to creativity, and in our case using inspiration as a means is by and large the best tool to become more creative. Intent, keeping your eyes open and devising good habits all lead to more meaningful creativity.

By: ParadigmNext http://paradigmnext.com

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+ParadigmNextChicago

ParadigmNEXT, Inc. is a digital agency headquartered in Chicagoland. We provide branding, identity, integrated marketing, social media strategy, art direction, web-design & development, startup incubation, commercial video production, product development, and commercial storefront development services to a wide array of clients ranging from bootstrapped startups to successful longstanding companies.