Design your way

In the design industry, being just creative is not enough. Over the last few years, the design industry has undergone major changes.

You must now do your best to not just be creative but also keep whatever you are creating relevant to the users. This is a key to making a successful app or website.

Professionals are now required to be more responsible and understand that there are creative ideals. There are also effective, practical practices that must be exercised in the applied creativity professions. They must then follow these practices and apply them in their work.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed
obvious to them after a while.” Steve Jobs

I believe that changing your ideas and understanding on where you place creativity in our work and professional communication is important as it affects the quality of design a professional makes.

It also features prominently in the outcome of our professional prospects. I also respect the fact that we all have our differing ideas on these issues and it is therefore worth exploring them.

Learning to be creative

Creativity is something that you can learn. The only difference is many people must realize it take patience. The creative profession must also choose his or her thoughts carefully.

There are scientific methods that have been tested and proven to help you learn to be creative. Below are some of these techniques along with quotes from those who have shown great talent in their works.

Image source: Matt Lyon

There are important yet simple lessons all over we can learn-have a different color palette and take time off from your work-preparing yourself mentally to receive new experiences as well as training yourself to perceive thematic patterns-however the greatest lesson for all people and experiences, is one, that we can always learn to be more creative.

Many perceive creativity to a talent for the chosen few. Others see it as something external that is mostly out of our control. Creativity is not an exclusive right to a selective group of people. It is true that there are those who are gifted with a greater aptitude for literal creative thinking but thinking and idea generation are skill that one can learn easily.

According to the teaching of Garard Puccio of the Buffalo State College in New York, creativity is a four stage process. It starts from clarifying, ideating, developing and finally implementing.

To clarify is to ask the right question; while ideating is the exploration of many ideas as possible. The final steps are making sure your ideas are convincing and practical for other people. This is what he refers to as developing and implementing.

A less focused mind is likely to make connections faster and realize a novel solution to a problem than a focused mind. Puccio suggests making yourself less focused to anything else to be able to get to the stage where you can easily brainstorm.

This will give you the chance to be more innovative as you focus your mind away from just one option. This is not always possible with the mind being in an analytical state it is normally in.

Puccio’s ideating technique involves asking his students to brainstorm on a particular problem and after the discussion he presents them with a random object and asks them to come up with a connection. The connection has to be made to between the discussion they just had and the object. It must be a practical connection as well as convincing.

“It’s about forcing the brain to give up old patterns and search for new ones. That’s often what happens when inventors make a breakthrough.”

Be curious

Image source: Fei Xiao

I have learned that the best way to learn from original ideas is to read books. I do spend much time online but from my experience, reading books get you to the source that is pure and unpolluted. It is the way to learn from the thought leaders firsthand.

The internet is a huge source of ideas, some are duplicate other are very original. The challenge is to find the right material in all the noise on the internet. It is therefore smarter to get the information offline, internalize it and then share it by being original on the internet.

Your mind is easily creatively stimulated by the culture in the real world. It is important that you make sure it is getting the right stimulation by choosing the exposure of the right content only.

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” Leo Burnett

Invest in your own life to get ahead in life. Consider attending as many conferences as you can and getting the high end information from industry experts and making your notes of any new stuff you observe. Find a way to apply it in your own life.

Image source: Mike Smith

Remember useful information is usually scattered around in nuggets. Visit museums, markets, galleries and even retro junk shops. This is the way to fire up your synapses and stimulate creative thinking and ideas in your work.

Imitate

If you think about it really well, a creative idea that you might have could not be a new idea at all. We’re bombarded daily with lots of information and inspiration and what we’re really doing when we’re creating something new could be something that has been done before and we unconsciously replicated.

This has been common with artists. They produce a piece of art thinking that they have come up with an original masterpiece. It is later that it is realized it is a copy of a piece they had been exposed to earlier on and forgotten about it.

The process of learning and expansion of thought begins by copying. A young child learning starts by copying what is availed by the teacher, and then they build on that. It is like being shown a mathematical formula then applying it to solve a problem.

“A great part of art consists in imitation. For the whole conduct of life is based on this: that what we admire in others we want to do ourselves.” Quintilian

A good way to start is look at what looks inspiring to you from respected piece for work. After going through a good number of them, making sure you make your own personal references of course, try to replicate them randomly.

Try and see if you can come up with similar works or close copies later own. This is a good way to stimulate your brain to learn to recognize quality work. Your brain will then start to come up with its own unique yet good ideas worth presenting to the world.

Have no fear of failure cause you will fail anyway eventually

Image source: Vincent

We have had that moment when we have to put forward a new idea to a client. This moment is always followed by fear of what might happen. This is the moment you have to put your ego to a great risk of ridicule if your idea does not meet expectations.

“Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.” Denis Waitley

The only way to grow our confidence is to push through this fear. Even for those with the thickest skin to withhold ideas for fear of speaking them out, this is a wall that has to be overcome if you have to come to a point where they eventually get recognized.

We need to instill this new aspect taken by many emerging young startups in our education system. These young start-ups have taken up a fail-fast culture. They try new ideas as fast as they conceive them without wasting time so as to learn and succeed or fail without fear. This is an important technique if you are to make any head way soon.

Be tenacious

The brain is a muscle that becomes better the more it is used. There is scientific evidence that show synapses for physical channels that become more deeply ingrained the more a subject repeats an action. It is a way the brain helps as to live life by strengthening our strengths and doing away with what we do not need.

Hard work is the solution

There greatest advertising agency of its time on Madison Avenue was created by David Ogilvy. He used to work extra-ordinarily long and when coming up with headlines, he used to insist on coming up with multiple of them and all their variations before settling on one. It is this kind of devotion to his work that contributed to the success of his work.

To get yourself to a state where you can be creative, you need to fine a quiet place. Once you have found a place where you are undisturbed, set a time length of less than 90 minutes and not more. Our brains need rest after such a period of time. Now take time to allow your thought process to work on a problem.

The way to go about it is to come up with many solutions as you may manage. Even after coming up with one that you think might be the answer, keep working on more of them that are applicable form a different dimension. Acknowledge that is an uncomfortable way of doing it without letting it affect you negatively.

Be Disciplined

Image source: Jennet Liaw

In life you have learned that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to learn something new. This could be driving a car, riding a bike or playing a piano. But as you apply the skill daily it becomes an effortless act that you do not have to think about.

This is because your brain’s synapses physically curve a channel in the brain for that particular skill. Then your subconscious takes over making it feel like a normal task to you.

You need to set up a disciplined and routine culture to make creativity flow within you. Have time lines and follow them religiously.

Image source: Amy Hood

I wanted to make this article for over a year and postponed it because up until now I haven’t read enough materials on what is creativity and the importance of having creative thinking skills. I hope you enjoyed the article and excuse some typos and (hopefully not) the eventual nonsense that might appear in some sentences due to a combination of enthusiasm and lack of sleep.

In any case, I hope this article inspired you. Stay humble and be creative!

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