creativity

Thoughts on Creativity and Design Process

abduzeedo — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:11:34 +0000

I will start this post off by saying that everybody is creative and for some that might come as a surprise, but I believe in the idea of creativity as a means of solving problems; the easiest and most efficient way possible. When I say easy I'm referring to the timeframe that it takes to complete the task, and efficient to how well received the work is from the target audience. But the question is what to do when we cannot come up with any good idea or the so terrified creative block.

The creative process is something unique because it’s personal, we cannot teach someone how to come up with ideas but we can learn how to organize our thoughts in order to make our ideas easier to achieve in the form of a good design. At least in my opinion and let me explain why.

Overflow of Inspiration

We are bombarded with information all day long and even when we are sleeping we might dream and have ideas and therefore inspiration. That is good in terms of having lots of resources available but it’s really bad as well because with that amount of information it’s pretty hard to make a decision.

That’s why I believe that our decisions have to be made with goals in mind and these goals alongside with a clear idea of our target audience will help us filter this avalanche of ideas and inspiration.

...designers give form to products, interiors, and visual communications, and satisfy the functional, psychological, and aesthetic needs of users... http://design.osu.edu/dept_what.html

Create Constraints

In order to overcome this problem it’s really important to define some constraints. If we have too much freedom again it’s hard to make a decision because it tends to fall to our personal opinion and we can't rely that everybody will like the same things we do.

The book Making Ideas Happen covers this topic really well saying that in a specific research with designers, they were much more productive when they had more constraints in a project than those who had more freedom.

My suggestion to creating these constraints is to fall back to the importance of having a good design briefing before starting any sketch or firing up the computer. Talk with the client, try to understand exactly what you have to do and for whom you will do it. That is key.

Before starting anything I asked all questions I had and defined the constraints, that made the whole process a lot easier

Try, try and try some more

I've already said this in some speeches I gave, but it’s true. The only way to come up with something cool is by trying, testing, and evolving ideas. If you just wonder and never do, you will have nothing to evolve upon. It’s like the fear of the blank page. Once you start adding things to it, it's not that complicated anymore…it’s all about playing with the elements, right? Or like the inertia principle, once we get the object moving it’s hard to stop.

When I was in college I had an amazing professor and he used to make us sketch at least 150 variations for a logo project, he used to say that the first ideas we have are always based on something we saw and it’s already known and popular, that’s why we did it. Only after we run out of ideas is when we will start innovating.

Delivering

I tend to think that the next idea will always be better, which in reality most of the times is and that’s why I had so many projects that were never finished. As I mentioned in the last post we have external factors that might make us unsure and insecure of our ideas.

Now, I believe that we have to think of design as an evolving process that means once we have an idea and have gone through the creative process with the right constraints and we know that we did our best we must deliver.

Once we deliver we can start thinking on improving upon it. Seth Godin mentions that he is successful because he delivers more while other people keep postponing the delivering in order to finish a master piece which might never happen. He also talks about the last minute questions before delivering what he calls the Lizard Brain calling.

Amazing talk about delivering by Seth Godin

You don't need to be more creative, all of you are too creative.... what you need is a quiter lizard brain... - Seth Godin"

Creating something is always exciting, and having ideas is super easy that is why I am sure that everybody is extremely creative. Now the secret of success is making these ideas come true.

The most comforting thing is that we start a project with at least 50% chance to succeed without even doing anything. Now try to imagine if we give it our best, how much that percentage would chance in our favor.

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

2010: A Creative Year

abduzeedo — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:10:24 +0000

Another year is closing and a new one is on the way. The start of every new year is filled with planning and goals for the next 365 days that follow. It's not any different for me. I have some crazy resolutions for the next 12 months, and I believe 2010 will be a creative year. One for the books.

I was reading some articles online. One in particular was a really interesting post by Mike Kuz (one of my favorite designers) for 24ways.org called a New Year’s resolution, where he talks about trying more and not limiting yourself to the web when designing for the web.

“A key factor in creating something original and fresh for the web is to stop thinking in terms of web design. The first thing we need to do is forget the notion of headers, footers, side bars etc. A website doesn’t necessarily need any of these, so even before we’ve started we’ve already limited our design possibilities by thinking in these very conventional and generally accepted web terms.” - Mike Kuz

Besides reading articles I love listening to podcasts when I’m running. I've listened to some really great ones, but there's two in particular that I want to mention. The first is from the IA Summit 09 called Creating Magic Kingdoms: User Experience Lessons from Disney’s Imagineers by Mike Atherton.

Mike talks about passion when doing something and how that helps us to achieve our goals. He uses Disney and their engineers or as he calls them- "Imagineers" as an example. It’s very motivating with great insights about the importance of trying and believing in what you’re doing.

“Our greatest asset was ignorance. We didn’t know we could fail” - Marty Sklar, Imagineer.

You can see the slides and listen to the podcast below.

The second podcast that I found useful was a great episode from the SpoolCast, podcast from the UIE.com by the mighty Jared Spool, called Innovation Beyond the Buzzword. It was an interview with Scott Berkun and he talked about the meaning of the word innovation and how we can bring it into our projects.

The part that I enjoyed the most was the discussion about how to be creative. He says that everyone is creative but somehow we deny that because it is something very particular of each person, there’s no right or wrong, but instead only points of views. We simply don’t want to expose ourselves or get into discussions or arguments about our thoughts and we end up choosing the logic fields like math or science where there’s one right answer.

“True innovation starts with you allowing yourself to be creative and recording your ideas religiously in a safe place like a notebook or sketchpad. Don’t self-censor, either. Initial precision and “getting it right” are the antithesis of creativity. It’s essential to let the ideas flow, and your ideas will improve as you continue to record them. Your journal is an incubator of ideas. Not every idea will be a success, and some will be terrible! But Scott says that’s OK. When an opportunity for change arises, you’ll have a treasure trove of ideas to pick though.”

They go on to talk about the importance of group trust when you have an idea because that's what's necessary in making the idea come true. This leads to one of the most important topics for us designers that is how to provide useful feedback, or honest and constructive criticism among teams and individuals.

“Good critiques take practice and trust within your team. This usually requires time and commitment.” - Scott Berkun

I highly recommend that you listen to this episode. You can do so below

Great design by Glennz, one of the most creative t-shirt designers out there. Glennz simply plays and tries different concepts for well known things like this one.

When I said in the beginning of the text that 2010 would be a creative year I meant that the best way to be creative is practicing and exercising creativity. There was a time where I believed that good ideas would come out of the blue. I later found out that there's always a lot of thought involved. Nobody simply comes up with a good idea if there's not a problem to solve, a question to ask, or a desire to fulfill.

I want to propose that we all make 2010 a great and creative year by sharing our knowledge and not being afraid of experimenting. Let’s be less critical about the outcome of our experiments and more cheerful about our discoveries in the learning process and the evolution path in the design skills. That's what's most important after all.

About the author

Very Creative Photos by Murat Suyur

paul0v2 — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:15:46 +0000

Well, if you like to see great photography and a good work on photoshop this is it, Murat is one of the most creative artists I have ever seen, I'm sure you seen some of his pieces around but this selection is going to bring your inspiration level to the top, check it out.

Murat Suyur was born in Istanbul 1984, lives and works in Istanbul - Turkey. His approach to photography is a classic on in early 2005, he says the computer is just a tool that he uses to carry out corrections. He has an unmistakable pictorial idiom, based on his humor, his playfulness and a practically unlimited power of the imagination.
Murat pictorial composition nonetheless remains simple and clear. The multiple levels of interpretation in Suyur's work points to surrealism art as the creative source of his inspiration.

For more visit muratsuyur.com

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About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

creativity

Thoughts on Creativity and Design Process

Overflow of Inspiration

Create Constraints

Try, try and try some more

Delivering

About the author

Sponsored Links:

2010: A Creative Year

Another year is closing and a new one is on the way. The start of every new year is filled with planning and goals for the next 365 days that follow. It's not any different for me. I have some crazy resolutions for the next 12 months, and I believe 2010 will be a creative year. One for the books.

About the author

Sponsored Links:

Very Creative Photos by Murat Suyur

Well, if you like to see great photography and a good work on photoshop this is it, Murat is one of the most creative artists I have ever seen, I'm sure you seen some of his pieces around but this selection is going to bring your inspiration level to the top, check it out.

About the author

Sponsored Links: