Get Inspired from Fellow Students

Inspiration for me can come from a variety of sources. Music, books, aimless internet surfing, a long hot shower, or maybe a night of drinking at my local watering hole. I think it's important for each individual to find that one thing that gets the ideas flowing. Currently, I've been looking at design that other students across the country are creating. There is a wonderful magazine on news stands called CMYK Magazine. It features, exclusively, the work of design students. Design school is the time for students to be experimental and this magazine showcases some excellent examples. If you find yourself in a Barnes and Noble pick up a copy. Here is a link to their website: www.cmykmag.com.

Inspiration?

Looking for inspiration in a creative dry spell is probably the hardest thing for me...and things have been at drought proportions around here lately. The (unrelated) day job has been a time and energy drain lately, and it seems to be harder and harder to split my little free time up among all the things that need to be done, including coming up with ideas, and wrestling them into something presentable.

I'm lucky because my husband is an illustrator, and somehow, doesn't mind me coming home and bouncing ridiculous ideas off him. Going completely ridiculous and reining in in seems to be the best way for me to come up with something if I'm not champing at the bit to work on something (Evil Cheerleaders scripts, I'm looking at you).

Also, I try to make time to do "nothing". Even when a concept hits like a bolt of lighting, there's always something that needs to be worked on, and sometimes, a long hot shower or taking a wiki-journey helps me to figure out what needs to be done. "What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working even when he's staring out the window." seems to describe my working style very well - there's an awful lot of what looks like staring, puttering, and general time wasting, and then a flurry of activity. The harder I stare at a blank screen, the less I'll ever get done.

and...a few quotes I found thinking about this...because every thought needs some googling.
"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." Jack London
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.” Charles Mingus
“Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.” Ray Bradbury

in(t)-spə-ˈrā-shən

Inspiration is hard to come by sometimes. Everyone is inspired differently and by many different ways. My inspiration comes from...well I don't know. I try research to inspire myself, digesting a lot of my surrounding throughout the week and I do try to take as many pictures as I can. Sometimes I need to take a drive somewhere to the country or try to get my navigation system lost, go fishing, or golf to gather my thoughts. But sometimes I draw blanks.

I have the same problem of a profession concrete wall holding me back. Through my coligante career I have an interactive design AA and a BS in Visual Communication Design. I started off in a newspaper sweat shop doing an ad in 45 minutes perfectly and creatively until they ran out of money. Then landed in the corporate financial world creating market materials which to say the least, not to inspiring. But learning world class customer service is well worth it. So through all of these sweet jobs that did not inspire me, I was left and still am in a cocoon of sorts. I have lacked inspiration for a long time until I enrolled into this program 3 years ago. That was my main reason to achieve my MA and step back into the design world I sorely missed. The corporate world is a dead end for me but pays the bills and inspires me to do something more with my life and design ideas.

I find inspiration in the smallest things and think what makes that logo or design timeless and try to install that inspiration in a design, like what would this look like 10 years from now.

I still feel lost when designing but I stand fast and be patient and most of the time the inspiration will appear and if it doesn't I stay up late as much of you do as I do find my creativity rises with caffeine, iTunes spewing out some Pink Floyd and the clock ticking away.

Here is a website I found that includes many links to inspiration.
http://freelanceswitch.com/working/34-places-to-get-design-inspiration-online-and-off/

when you're lacking inspiration...

lack of creative ideas got you in a rut ?  time for compulsory, narcissistic, self-initiated work !

p.s. steve filmed this as part of a group proj...

Inspiration is tricky

I find my inspirations to be tricky things because the things that i love, the designs and styles that i find to be the most attractive are the kind i never have the clientle for. So i find that after hours of pouring over things i like, ohh and ahhing, im left to my own noggin for ideas. And I too am just starting to be able to get out what's in my head, mainly due to technical skills, that will eat up my energy, which then sends my creativity down the crapper. I couldnt tell you how many times ive said to myself "there is no way it should take me this long to do XX" but i'm getting better. Back in the words and images days, that was my first real design class, and i really struggled. grid? huh? One reason was i didnt realize it was ok to look at other stuff to generate ideas. My first degree was in english..and that is not something we are encouraged to do. I still get a tinge of guilt when i look at something and it makes me think, "oh, something like that could look good"--i always feel like this little monkey is going to jump out of my closet and scream COPYCAT! But I am always amazed, and relieved, that even if something did inspire me, it's not even remotely the same.

I wish i could be cool and say im inspired by the flecks of gold in my daughter's hair and koi fish, but im not. maybe im not that good. maybe i don't pay enough attention. I work 8-5, im a single mom, i go to school. I'm inspired by the thought that i may get something good out and still have time to take a walk with the dog and Chloe. Or sleep. And i push to inspire myself with the fantasy that maybe if i really pull a few great things off, i can quit my job, work freelance, and bring my mac to the park on a crisp autumn day so i can be inspired, and Chloe can play.

creative block

I like this post because this has been something I have been thinking about lately. I assist a graphic designer at an ad agency and she gives me some of the less creative jobs and I have been having a hard time making them work creatively (small home improvement ads with lots of copy, etc.). I too feel like they are all starting to look the same and I have been trying to find new solutions for designs like these. 

I took my first class in graphic design just a couple of years ago and I can relate to Emily because my technical skills are just starting to catch up with my ideas and creativity. I also could relate to the correlation of time/energy and creativity. Sometimes I have to finish an ad in a minimal amount of time at work and it sucks all of my creativity out of me because putting a time restraint on creativity is a buzz kill, but that's reality.

Some techniques I use to help get inspired are brainstorming by making lists/associations in a journal, looking for inspirational designs and ads (Communication Arts is a great source), surfing images on google images, and checking out stocklayouts.com

I found a site (ag design) that has some information on creative block that I thought was helpful. There are more links at the bottom of the site too. When there's this much written about inspiration and creative block it's reassuring that all designers experiences this.

perfectly adequate - be gone!

I was reading an interview in Believer about my chosen movie director Steven Soderbergh. In it he said that success is like the whirlwind romance, that when it’s over you wonder if it ever really happened, and failure is like the house guest that will not leave… One could apply this thought to inspiration as well. The good idea falls from the sky after going through many bad ones or at least less good ones.
I think this is why as I’ve said before, it is so important to have your own personal creative work in addition to your job. I view what I do as a professional service that can be on occasion creative but most of the time you are jamming out the “perfectly adequate.”
I would very much like to get away from “perfectly adequate,” or at least raise the bar on it, but this is all a gradual lifelong process…
I feel inspired by a myriad of things I will never, ever use in the world of work.