Creative Creativity: A Daily Guide To Creativity And New Ideas

Strategies for Overcoming a Creative Block

2010-02-13T17:42:20-08:00

I wanted to point out this great post that has the opinion of 25 creative people on how to overcome a block. My favorite comes from Erik Spiekermann:

There are 6 strategies for this situation:

1. Avoid
Do something else, wash the car, back-up your data, do errands…
2. Think
Sit back and think about the issue, just let your mind go…
3. Research
Look up stuff, go through your old projects, but avoid Google — it takes too long to find anything useful…
4. Collect
We all have lots of stuff; there must be something in there that is waiting to be used…
5. Sketch
Drawing is great, even if you have no talent. Just visualising the simplest things makes them come alive…
6. Deconstruct
Take the problem apart, look at the parts and then put them back together…

Don't forget to check out the comments, I found some interesting stuff there as well.

Read it here

Paint Your Own Bullseye

2010-01-18T20:28:19-08:00

Great interview with Brian Eno on the Guardian today. Lots of interesting stuff, but I just want to pull two quotes. The first is a good reminder about succeeding on your own terms.

Instead of shooting arrows at someone else’s target, which I’ve never been very good at, I make my own target around wherever my arrow happens to have landed. You shoot your arrow and then you paint your bullseye around it, and therefore you have hit the target dead centre.

The second quote is about the death of the recording industry, but it's really about much more than that.

I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.

Be sure and check out the quote on Frank Zappa as well.

Read the rest here

Tim Burton on Creativity

2010-01-03T11:52:05-08:00

One thing you can say for sure about Tim Burton, you can tell one of his films immediately. From Pee-wee's Big Adventure to Big Fish to Sweeney Todd, very few directors today can put their creative stamp on material as clearly as Tim Burton.

His background as an animator explains some of the amazing imagery in his movies, which carry his personal style as if he'd drawn them. Frustrated with being labeled childlike or stunted, he rightfully points out that his movies deal with adult themes like alienation, relationships and death. They are fairy tales for adults and children, with themes we all deal with blown up to operatic proportions.

Hopefully, the quotes below give some insight into his development as an artist and his creative process.

I remember, I was at Cal Arts and I wasn`t a good life-drawer; I struggled with that realistic style of drawing. And one day I was sitting in Farmer`s Market sketching, and it was this weird, mind-blowing experience. I said, `Goddammit, I don`t care if I can`t draw, I`m just gonna draw how I feel about it.` All of a sudden I had my own personal breakthrough, and then I could draw, and satisfied myself. I`ve had very few experiences like that, and I`ll never forget it.

You always have to feel like it's going to be the greatest, even if you know it's going to be a piece of crap.

One person`s craziness is another person`s reality.

Children are not perverted in a way. It has more to do with the culture. When children are drawing, everybody draws the same. Nobody draws better than everybody else. There's a certain amount of strength, there's a certain amount of passion, there's a certain amount of clarity. And then what happens is it gets beaten out of you. You're put into a cultural framework, which gets beaten into you. To punch through that framework, you have to maintain a certain kind of strength and simplicity.

Why not, if something is going to be flawed, why not have it be interestingly flawed, as opposed to boringly flawed?

All monster movies are basically one story. It's Beauty and the Beast. Monster movies are my form of myth, of fairy tale. The purpose of folk tales for me is a kind of extreme, symbolic version of life, of what you're going through. In America, in suburbia, there is no sense of culture, no sense of passion. So those served that very specific purpose for me. And I linked those monsters and those Edgar Allan Poe things to direct feelings. I didn't read fairy tales, I watched them.

I think the atmosphere that I grew up in, yes, there was a subtext of normalcy. I don`t even know what the word means, but it`s stuck in my brain. It`s weird. I don`t know if it`s specifically American, or American in the time I grew up, but there`s a very strong sense of categorization and conformity. I remember being forced to go to Sunday school for a number of years, even though my parents were not religious. No one was really religious; it was just the framework. There was no passion for it. No passion for anything. Just a quiet, kind of floaty, kind of semi-oppressive, blank palette that you`re living in.

Why do I like clowns so much? Why are they so powerful to children? Probably because they are dangerous. That kind of danger is really what it's all about. It's that kind of stuff that I think gets you through life. Those are the only things worth expressing, in some ways: danger and presenting subversive subject matter in a fun way.

Picture Via

Reintroduction

2009-12-28T23:00:47-08:00

I wanted to take a moment to reintroduce myself. My name is David Wahl and I work for amazing stuff maker and seller Archie McPhee. I have recently been focussing my attention on establishing a new literary magazine/blog Monkey Goggles. I have written lots of articles for it. The most popular was my experience with Mick Jagger when I worked at a toy store.

I have a Tumblr blog I use to track interesting images, ideas and links. If you don't know Tumblr, it's a great micro-blogging service that is very simple to use.

I'd love for you to introduce yourself in comments and if you have any web presence, please link to it!

Addition Inspiration

2009-12-28T10:03:23-08:00

Here's a great method for coming up with new ideas. First, make a list of at least 10 things that you think are awesome. If you can't do that, I feel sorry for you and you might as well not read the rest of this. Seriously, if you can't make a list of 10 things that you love, you should be out looking for things to love.

Now, take your list of 10 and start combining things on the list together. For instance, you might have robots and werewolves on your list, I do, so jumble them up in your head and see what comes out.

Let's say you decide to use those two. The most obvious would be an animatronic robot werewolf that someone might build for a haunted house or for some kind of Scooby Doo-esque trap for a van full of nosy teenagers. But, we can go deeper than that. Werewolves are based on magic, not science. So, when a werewolf bites something it becomes a werewolf not through some biological process but magic connected with the moon.

What if a werewolf bit a robot and that robot became a robo-wolf on nights of the full moon? What if it was all machines? What if it was a toaster or waffle iron with added wolfiness? What if it was only machines shaped like a human? It's magic, so it doesn't have to make sense.

See, all interesting thoughts.

Now take the items on your list and start combining them and see how they fit together. They are all things you love, so I'm going to assume you know something about them. If nothing works, try a set of three.

Remember, if you don't like the first thought you have, try fitting them together in a different way.

I'm off to write a story about half-toaster, half-wolves combing the countryside looking for human flesh to eat and bread to toast.

Creativity in Bad Times - Think Like Water

2009-12-26T10:56:02-08:00

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
- Bruce Lee

In good times, people have the illusion that coming up with a single good idea is enough. A single good idea will make you rich for life or solve a problem permanently. People think of problems as walls and ideas as battering rams to break through them. It's not true, but it's easy to believe it.

Problems do not stand still. They grow and shrink, sometimes they fade away on their own and new problems appear where there were none before.

In bad times, people get frustrated because what worked before is no longer possible. The shifting landscape of the world puts up barrier after barrier and things that have worked for years become impossible, illegal or just plain stop working.

This is when it's easy to fail, because to succeed means having to constantly change and, even more painfully, having to admit that you were wrong.

That's why I think it's important to think about your creativity as if it were water. Instead of charging forward and battering things down, although it is capable of that, water can slowly wear down mountains and is constantly searching for a way to flow forward. It can break through a problem, but can also go under, around or through it.

Water is patient and seemingly undemanding. It fits perfectly into any situation it's put in. Water changes with the landscape as it changes everything it touches. It isn't upset to have to change its path.

Creativity is survival. Water survives difficult situations by setting its own conditions for victory.

If you feel like you're beating your head against a wall, try being water for a while. You might find a crack in the wall and get through, but even if you don't, at least your head won't hurt while you work your way through.

That's all you do - Unimpressive Creativity

2009-03-26T18:11:34-07:00

I was talking to a reporter today about some of the products we make at my work. I named Bacon Mints and the Yodelling Pickle as examples of popular items.

She then said, rather dismissively, "So, all you guys do is find things that have never been put together before and join them up, right? Pick two things and figure out how they go together."

And, a bit insulted to have my work so belittled, I thought to myself, that's what all creativity is at its most basic level. Don't we all strive to find new connections between things in an attempt to come up with something new?

So yes, like every artist, inventor and philosopher that has ever lived, that's all we do.

In another sense, I think maybe this is a useful way of looking at it. It's not hard, you can do it yourself. Just pick two things and find the connection between them. There is no mystery, difficulty or speed bumps, it really is that simple. All the books that have been written are pretty much making a big deal out of nothing.

All of us creative people, that's all we do.

Cult of Done Manifesto

2009-03-04T18:19:01-08:00

I know this has been posted all over the place, but it deserves to be posted even more. Bre Pettis and Kio Stark have written this manifesto for getting things done. They did it in 20 minutes! If you go to the actual post, you can find a fancy jpg version of it to print out and hang in a spot where you have to read it every day.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
There is no editing stage.
Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
Once you're done you can throw it away.
Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
Destruction is a variant of done.
If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
Done is the engine of more

From Bre Pettis's blog

David Byrne on How and When to Handle Criticism

2009-03-03T21:12:59-08:00

David Byrne posted in his blog today that one of his friends warned him not to read a review of his current tour in the New York Times. It was less than flattering and was written by someone who had not liked his work in the past. He passed on this advice.

While taking criticism on board can be constructive, it can also be detrimental to the creative process if it’s considered while that process is still under way. It undermines one’s enthusiasm and will — which is OK, beneficial even, but only after a tour (for example) is over. This review, by all reports, wasn’t helpful criticism anyway — it seemed to be one of those reviews that comes from some psychological issues the writer has — and therefore even a belated reading is not going to help us refine what we do.

David Byrne

Creativity is a Conversation

2009-02-28T13:28:26-08:00

Reading Ken Robinson's book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. So far, it's amazing. It's about finding out what your passion is, how to get good at it and how that will make you happy.

Passion + Talent = Happiness

This quote has stuck in my head for a couple of days because it just seems so right:

"You can think of creativity as a conversation between what we're trying to figure out and the media we are using."

I think it should be "figure out or express," but that's just nit picking. Lots to think about in that statement.

Seth, Sweatshirts and Creativity

2009-01-30T18:03:03-08:00

The amazing Seth Godin cast his spotlight on creativity this week. In a short post he does a good job of using a sweatshirt as a metaphor for creativity.

For me, creativity is the stuff you do at the edges. But the edges are different for everyone, and the edges change over time. If you visualize the territory you work in as an old Boston Bruins sweatshirt, realize that over time, it stretches out, it gets looser, the edges move away. Stuff that would have been creative last year isn't creative at all today, because it's not near the edges any more.

It's true, creativity is moving all the time. That's why if you write an idea down and forget about for a few years, you'll likely find someone has already done it by the time you get around to it. Seth uses this to persuade you to spend more time near the edge, which I agree with.

However, since creativity is a moving target, doesn't that mean we should be moving quickly on our ideas? Each creative impulse we have is correct for a moment, but that moment will pass. Don't spend time on the edge and then not take action. That's the definition of creative frustration.

Act quickly and often, that's the way to make progress. If you don't, you're just setting yourself up for regret.

We've all had to sit next to that guy on the bus that claims he invented Post-It notes in his basement in 1967, but never got around to doing anything about it and now all he has left to do is ride the bus and tell the same story over and over again about what an unrecognized genius he is.

Don't be that guy. And don't sit next to that guy if you can help it, his breath smells like tuna fish and socks.

Read Seth's post here

The ABC's of Staying Creative

2009-01-26T07:36:53-08:00

Do you experience lulls in your creativity? Do you run hot and cold with ideas? Want to be ready when you need your creativity the most? Here's one way you can be sure that you are always at the top of your game.

In David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin shows up to deliver a motivational speech to a room full of salesman. Really it's more threatening than motivational, but one of the bits of simple "wisdom" he shares with them is the ABC's of sales. The letters stand for "always be closing." To a room full of people struggling to make a single sale, this advice seems more like a cruel taunt than a guiding philosophy.

What if we changed the C from "closing" to "creating?" Always Be Creating. Is it a taunt to use this as a philosophy of creativity? Let's take away the idea of failure. We aren't using the phrase to imply quality, just quantity. So, there really isn't a way to fail except by not doing anything. It's not a taunt, it's a cheer!

Instead of working on something, finishing it and then waiting for the next project, what if you always had multiple projects going on? They shouldn't all be equally important. In fact, having a few low priority creative projects to work on for fun is completely freeing. What about writing Bacon Haikus? Or doing a drawing a day? Or even wearing a different outfit every day? It doesn't have to be something you're good at, in fact, being bad at it might be better in the long run.

These seeming distractions are actually keeping you at your top creative level! Your creativity isn't a faucet that you can turn on and off, it's an exploding geyser in the middle of your brain. The problem is that if you don't go there all the time, you might forget where it is.

Multiple projects. Plans. A giant novel about a war between the ant-people and the walrus-people. The perfect cupcake recipe. An elf outfit for your bulldog. A list of believable lies about Abraham Lincoln. A list of heavy metal band names that haven't been used yet. (That last one is harder than you think.) Designing underwear for chickens. Anything you want!

ABC, Always Be Creating! Don't take a vacation from doing what you love. Keep your projects secret or put them on the web. It doesn't matter! The whole purpose is to maintain your highest levels of creativity at all times.

It's as simple as... well.. you know...

Federico Fellini on Creativity

2009-01-24T19:44:27-08:00

Federico Fellini directed some of the best films of the 20th century. He was an artist who changed the films that came after him. If you've never seen one of his films watch 8 1/2, La Strada or La Dolce Vita and you'll be amazed at how many movies you've seen reference or outright copy him.

When choosing the image to accompany these quotes, I had to hold myself back from choosing an image from one his films. Not that Fellini would have minded, as you will see from the quotes below he didn't distinguish between life an art. In fact, as he points out, he doesn't see the difference between reality and imagination as a useful distinction.

Fellini's films really explore what it means to be a movie. His own life, random occurrences on set, hallucinations and sharp shifts in tone all play into the story. For him, life and creativity were inseparable. Here are a few of his thoughts.

A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.
Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.
What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one.... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.
The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.
You exist only in what you do.
I'm perhaps a special type of spectator. I experience pleasure when I find myself in front of something that is the absolute truth, not because it resembles life, but because it's true as an image for itself, as a gesture. And therefore vital. It's the vitality that makes me appreciate and feel that the action succeeded. I think the expression of an artist's work finds consensus when, whoever enjoys it feels as if they're receiving a charge of energy, like a growing plant does, of something pulsing, mysterious, vibrant with life.
A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.
Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.
I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it.
For every creative person, fantasy has certain aspects of obsession. Being unable to free oneself from these fantasies is a kind of torture.
Work is a protective canopy from dark thoughts about the flying time. Creativity creates energy, and energy stimulates the feeling of life.

The Creative Power of Faking It

2008-11-16T22:32:54-08:00

Today's post is guest-written by Jay Hathaway an always entertaining writer and blogger! Why do it for real when you can fake it?

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Sometimes a fake is even better than the real thing. Before Ben Folds released his latest record, Way to Normal, he spent a day in the studio producing “fake” versions of his new songs to leak to the public. Although these recordings were initially meant as a joke, a fun way to kill a day in the studio, they contain moments of brilliance that match anything on the “real” album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Folds said that the idea of making a fake album allowed him to create in a way he wasn’t totally used to: “The word ‘fake’ came up when we started doing it and it takes all the responsibility out. You can just be free to write and let it go.”

That goes a long way toward explaining how the leaked album, made in a single day, even came close to the official release. Trying to fake being yourself might actually generate something that feels completely authentic, not burdened by reputation and assumptions. The distinction between real and fake is important during the process of creation, but its power diminishes once the art is out in the wild. If you played Lovesick Diagnostician (a fake song) and Dr. Yang (the real track) for someone who knew nothing about Ben Folds, and asked that person whether they were real songs, the question wouldn’t make any sense.

Frank Portman hit on this idea in one of my favorite novels, King Dork. Tom Henderson, the titular dork, learns the following lesson during his life as a high school outcast: “Start a band. Or go around saying you’re in a band, which is, let’s face it, pretty much the same thing. The quality of your life can only improve.” To really be in a band, you have to make music. When you just say you’re in a band, you don’t necessarily have to make anything.

If you’ve ever made up fantasy band names and album titles, a game Tom Henderson and Sam Hellerman play throughout King Dork, you know that the identity often matters more than the music. The iconography you produce under the guise of your new band can take on a life independent of any music that has been or will ever be made anywhere in the world. There’s something tantalizing about titles of songs and records no one will ever hear and posters for shows nobody will ever play.

Some fake bands, like the ones Tom and Sam create in King Dork, eventually cross over into real band territory. They rehearse, they make recordings, and they play shows. Others have no intention of getting there at all. In fact, they make a point of never engaging in any musical activity whatsoever. My friend Evan Hamilton (who, it’s worth mentioning, is in a real band) told me about The Tree Brains, a “theoretical rock” band that started online (at The Sneeze). Here’s how The Tree Brains describe themselves:

The Tree Brains are an imaginary band that anyone can be a part of. No musical ability is required to join. The band will never play anywhere because it only exists in theory. There is no initiation into the band. If you want to be in it, you’re in it. You may lay claim to any instrument or job in the band you would like.

If you decide to join the Tree Brains, you’ll be able to go around saying you’re a part of the band, and there won’t be anything made up about it.

A concept like the Tree Brains seems fun, but not particularly practical. I think it can actually be put to great artistic use, though. Creating a band, or an alternate personality, takes the pressure off in the same way Ben Folds did when he labeled his work “fake.” If you feel too close to your work, like you’re risking too much, then try acting like it’s someone else’s. Invent a character (or a band) that comes from the part of you that doesn’t self-censor, and then write, draw, build or sing from there, too. The part of Ben Folds that writes whimsical, honest, borderline inappropriate lyrics made a damned good album.

Twyla Tharp on Creativity

2008-11-12T19:48:03-08:00

This great short clip featuring Twyla Tharp has some great insight into the creative process. In fact, I'm going to pick up her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. Especially interesting is her discussion about motivation for creation and its relationship to money.