[Sara Gómez Woolley]

Please read Jillian Tamaki on Idea Generation and watch Sterling Hundley on Ideation (synonyms!) – Compare them and consider your own ideation process below.

[Stephanie Erazo]

Concepts are essential to any creative project, whether a simple or complex work of art. They provide the foundation for bringing creative ideas to life, whether it’s through visual art, writing, or design. With concepts, a project can be easier to succeed. Tamaki emphasizes that for a piece of art to be successful, it must communicate its idea effectively to the viewer and evoke various emotional responses, such as charm, intrigue, empathy, or provocation. To achieve this, Tamaki encourages creatives to draw inspiration from external sources, such as media, culture, books, movies, news, and fashion magazines. She suggests that creatives save interesting photos and illustrations in a “Reference” folder for color schemes and composition inspiration. Sterling’s ideation process involves researching a client brief or an article, simplifying the text into fewer words, using them to create word stacks, and writing word associations under each word stack. Tamaki and Sterling share a similar approach to their ideation process, where Tamaki recommends using isolated words during active reading to brainstorm metaphors, symbols, verbs, colors, and random thoughts to build upon their concepts. Taking a brief break from brainstorming and allowing thoughts to flow freely and naturally while strolling could help discover unique concepts or insights.

[Sebastian Chapman]

Concepts are ideas. Jillian uses classic methods for her ideation. Mind mapping, research, word connections, immersion, and imagery. She starts with research, mind mapping, she may let it marinate for a day and come back to it; then she will add images to her words and start making connections before moving on to the thumbnail stage. The only thing I do different is that sometimes I will get an instant idea so I will write down words or a sentence explaining what I am envisioning and will do an extra rough sketch to remember it for later. I do image research and references last so that my mind stays clear and fresh; I tend to get distracted the most in this stage.

[Anthony Bermejo Vazquez]

Reading and watching both methods of concept creation shows that not only are concepts the basis of all works but they differ as with Jillian its more of a note taking process where small notes can become descriptions then the beginnings of a piece. Where as Sternling seems more of an actual instruction manual. My own process is more of a first come first serve as the ideas I get while creating concepts for an assignment is what I tend to go along with, I tend to just sketch and sketch until I see something that I feel I can work well with. However this results in a lot of unfinished and mostly incomplete ideas that never really go anywhere. If an idea does get past this stage I tend to do an image search for references of what I need and proceed to go straight to making drafts and then the final piece.

[Layla_Flores]

Jilian Tamaki focuses on concepts and how to generate ideas through research. She uses images and words to collage her ideas together and make a concept. The fourth part of her process relates to Sterling Hundley on Ideation since he addresses the use of mind mapping and finding keywords. Both have their own process of coming up with new ideas. Personally I like visuals better so I will often try to find images that relate to the topic. I don’t usually write anything out but I do make rough sketches.

[antigonebuzhala]

Concepts are abstract ideas that we think about a topic or subject. Jillian Tamaki and Sterling Hundley have basically similar methods of working. They explain how important is to understand the topic and do research on what you are not familiar with in order for the illustration to make sense and give the message. They also explain that notes and icons make the workflow easier. Notes give you more ideas while you write them down and help in making connections. Jillian Tamaki steps begin with being interested in the topic you will work on and studying it. References also are very important because they help in developing those ideas. And the last step is to draw the thumbnail so we see what our ideas would look like.

[Stephanie Erazo]

Hi Sebastian!

I agree with you completely! My biggest regret during my creative process is letting great ideas slip away. One way to generate fresh ideas is to jot down default or immediate thoughts to approach the problem with a new perspective later.

[Sebastian Chapman]

Anthony, I feel the pain of having to discard a bunch of ideas and I think that’s partly why I go so hard on my thumbnails and if an idea starts feeling off I just scrap it as fast as possible so I don’t feel like I have wasted my time. In my perfect world I would have the energy and time to finish 80% of my thumbnails into finished illustrations.