Archive for 'inspiration'
Giving creativity a helping hand, with a kiss
Posted on November 16, 2007, by dazzer67, under creativity basics, inspiration, preparation.
Stuck for that creatve idea to push the project forward? Has the muse flown the nest and taken your imagination with it? Are you struggling to find the idea to hang your assignment on? Well have a kiss.
KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid is a maxim creative people need to keep close by. Creative people often exist in one of two spaces. The scenario I outlined above or letting our ideas run away to end up with something so complicated you need a study guide to explain it. In both examples it can be helpful to rely on a KISS.
Simplicity may be the solution your client is looking for, or perhaps the idea you need to convey needs to be blatantly obvious. Clever campaigns are fine, but are useless if only those in the know understand them.
One KISS approach I have found useful in the past is to look for something else that does what I am trying to achieve and then adapt it for the media I am useing or current project. Take for example web design. You need to design a news page for a client. One way that news has been delivered in the past, that everyone knows about is a newspaper. Therefore why not use the newspaper as your starting point? What about designing your links page? Again one way that people recognise the concept of linking is on train maps, so why not use this as your creative starting point?
The point is to start simply and at square one. The muse may be gone but you can kick start your imagination by doing a little thinking and making some very basic connections. Fancy a KISS?
No Comments
Another apology but creativety abounds in the zone
Posted on November 6, 2007, by dazzer67, under creativity basics, inspiration, news, perspiration, site info.
As you may have noticed by the lack of posts I have been a little busy of late and I don’t see any let up in that in the foreseebale future. However, I will be pressing on with things here.
One thing that often happens with creative poeple is that they get engrossed in what they are doing. The focus is total on the creative task at hand. Whilst this is great for that task, the more routine and mundane tasks that life often demands get left to one side. [Please note that I am not suggesting for one moment that !maginality is a mundane task.] It is no wonder that creative poeople can be hard to live with as they focus on what they are doing rather than the relationships they have.
The danger with such a strict focus is burnout. Creatives will seek the to stay in the zone and the more they cling on the more it can damage. It is all too easy to then look for external stimuli to stay in the zone, excess caffeine and even something a little stronger.
What any creative needs to do is make sure they take downtime, this doesn’t mean they can’t be playing with ideas, taking notes and doodleing, but they should take a break. The batteries need recharging. There is more than one masterpiece in us all.
No Comments
NaNoWriMo 2007
Posted on October 31, 2007, by dazzer67, under inspiration, links, perspiration, preparation, writing.
Just a quick note to wish everyone who has entered NaNoWriMo 2007 the best of luck. I too will be attempting to write at least 1,600+ words each day to complete a 50,000 word novel by the end of November.
And for those who don’t know what it is, you can find out by following the link.
No Comments
Online button and badge makers
Posted on October 29, 2007, by dazzer67, under inspiration, links.
There is a good list of ‘button and badge makers’ over at Mashable. Although you have a lot more freedom creating such things from scratch it is always useful to know about such sites for speed and also inspiration.
The list is here
No Comments
Don’t be bound, you can use anything
Posted on September 18, 2007, by dazzer67, under inspiration, quotes.
“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
Henry David Thoreau
No Comments
A tale of two window panes
Posted on September 12, 2007, by dazzer67, under creative exercises, inspiration.
My desk is situated at the top of a modest office block that overlooks the town where I live and work. I am fortunate and have a large window by my desk, there is no cubicle for me! The window is divided down the middle making two panes. The view is interesting. Through one pane / view, I have greenery from some very tall trees, which change colour throughout the seasons. We go from luscious green, through autumnal yellow and brown. Then in winter we have the beautiful contrast of leaflessness and barrenness whilst hiding the latent life that will soon spring forth again.
The other view looks across the top of my town; roofs of slate, concrete and bitumen. A total contrast between panes, but unified in one view. I often sit looking out at this view and try to blur the two, bringing the man-made into the natural or the other way round.
This is one of the most basic ways to be creative, and let your imagination run. So your mission for today, should you choose to accept it, is to take two contrasts and merge them into one. Let your imagination free and let your creativity flow.
No Comments
Capture the idea the moment you think of it
Posted on September 7, 2007, by dazzer67, under creativity basics, inspiration, preparation, quotes.
I once had a dream. I remember the dream felt like a movie blockbuster. There was action, suspence and a fantastic story. I remember thinking in the dream that this would make a great film (don’t worry dreams are like that). The dream ended and so did my sleep. I slowly woke up, still thinking about the awesome dream. Gradually the plans and practicalities of the day ahead loomed into thought. The dream drifted to the periphery of my thought, but I still wanted to record what had happened.
I got washed, dressed and went downstairs to the desk that had my pens and paper ready to write the basic outline of my fantastic dream story. As I approached the desk I searched my mind for the story, reached out into my subconscious, grasping futilely. The idea was gone.
“Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.”
Hector Berlioz
I now keep a notebook and pen next to my bed. I have never had that dream again, however, perhaps writing this post will enable my subconscious to leak it into my dreams again.
No Comments
Prompts for creative people - The Majency Oracle
Posted on August 31, 2007, by dazzer67, under inspiration, links.
Similar to Eno’s Oblique Strategies and other prompt ideas comes The Majency Oracle. A fantastic set of prompts for ‘writers, poets, painters and other creative types’. If you are here then it is probably because you want some creative ideas, as such James Bickers’ downloadable idea deck is fantastic… oh and it is free, although a donation would, I am sure, be highly appreciated.
Kudos to Corrie Haffly for posting about this in her blog, if she hadn’t I could not tell you.
No Comments
How to build your creative word list - Folksonomy by the letter
Posted on August 1, 2007, by dazzer67, under creativity basics, inspiration, links.
Words are a wonderful source of inspiration and the following site could prove useful to those seeking it.
Wordie [wûrd • ?]
Like Flickr, but without the photos.
Wordie lets you make lists of words—practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. See who else has listed the same words, add citations and comments, and discuss.
No Comments
Meditate to create
Posted on July 26, 2007, by dazzer67, under creative exercises, inspiration, quick tips.
Stuck? Need some inspiration? Here’s a quick tip to release the creative juices.
Silence, space, solitude.
At times we can crave these things, our minds need time to relax, to settle and then move forward. The same process is helpful for creativity. One way to achieve this is through meditation, so here’s a little guided meditation that you could use.
- Turn everything off, so there are no distractions, no radio, no TV, no net.
- Find a comfortable place to sit down and close your eyes.
- Place your hands on your lap.
- Imagine a bright, white room. You are there sitting in it. The room has no furniture, no windows and no distinguishing features, it is pure white. Even with open eyes it contains no distractions.
- Focus on one wall of the room. It is featureless, there is nothing there.
- Let yourself ‘fall’ into the wall and become part of it.
- Imagine that you are the white wall, a blank canvas.
- Imagine that the ends of your fingers are the end of the canvas, they begin to tingle. You notice your toes are tingling too.
- The tingling spreads up your arms and legs toward your centre.
- Your whole body is now tingling, the whole canvas is tingling.
- The canvas explodes into colour, images pour from it and sound fills the room
- Capture the colours, images and sounds.
- Open your eyes and create
You can use lots of similar ideas, but the process is the same:
- Empty your mind
- Capture what comes out
Have fun
In the next couple of weeks I’ll try and pull together some audio files that you can use to help your imagination run free.
Powered by ScribeFire.
