During our first week of class we discussed creativity. We covered such topics as where does creativity come from? And what do creative professionals do to be creative?
We listened to a podcast by the Design Guy (designguyshow.blogspot.com) on Wednesday where he covered creativity. I found it very interesting that he points out that creativity does not just “happen” to us, but is a process we can actively pursue.
He talks about a common problem had by many people is that they feel a need to create a completely new idea every time they try to create something. Whereas in reality, creativity is just combining old elements in a new way. What this effectively means to me is that I do not have to try and think up something I’ve never seen before in my life, but rather take a few things I have seen before and combine them in a unique fashion.
To encourage this type of thinking, I need to try and begin looking at life around me in a different, I need to notice things I see every day in my life in a new light. I need to think about how they could be combined with other elements to create a new idea. An example of this was covered in my last post where we thought up combination of band names and book/movie names. I think is something major design professionals do, they observe the world around them and see not only what is, but what could be when combined with something else.
To increase my creative thinking I am going to strive harder to notice things in a new way, to make mental note of old elements that could be combined in a new way to create something new. Specifically as related to my web design degree, I am going to try and observe websites that have elements I like and think about how I could integrate those elements into websites I may design.
Now it’s off to work on some other homework.