The creative process is something any creative goes through and while it is different for everyone, I learned that no matter what kind of way you get your process out as a creative there are certain steps you take to jot your idea down and get it from your mind to the paper/screen.
One of the things I liked about Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk was how she put the blame on something or someone else in the room. Often times as a creative person it’s hard to pinpoint why I can’t get my ideas out and onto the screen and it ends up giving me very bad anxiety because I can’t get it out. Her method
of pinpointing a thought or a figment to blame, helps because at times you can’t help what your brain is thinking. It’s hard to tell what is going on and how to deal with it, but I do believe that she all together found a good method on how to deal with the ideal that sometimes it’s just that part of your brain that doesn’t want to function with the others. The creative process is one of the few things I dread about actually creating. Not the entire process,but their are bits and pieces I wish I could change and improve on.
One of the biggest things about the creative process is trying to find and draw inspiration from different places and ideals. I find this part challenging, not because it’s necessarily hard to find inspiration, but simply because at times I find myself slightly copying other ideas that I’ve seen unintentionally. I’ll look at a thousand and one things in order to draw inspiration and once I finally get it I begin to create, but I notice that as i’m creating I’m drawing and copying some of the ideas from the 99th thing I looked at,out of those thousand and one. This is also where Elizabeth’s idea comes in from blaming ‘someone’ else. I think it helps because the idea of me, the graphic designer doing the part of finding inspiration and acknowledging that while the other part is blamed for misusing the inspiration helps me get somewhere, by knowing not to do it again subconsciously.
The creative process is a long one and it consist of many different things, some tedious some fun and experimental, but you have to get through them in order to create. The creative process is a bunch of mumble jumble, but was better put into words during the lecture. The creative process includes things such as Research,Strategy,Creating, inspiration, mind mapping developing, designing & redefining. It takes a lot to go through the entire creative process, but it helps when you see the final product. In order to be successful you need to go through the creative process, but you also need other things. Contrary to what many people believe you do not need talent to be successful, you do need to have creativity but it can be very minimal as long as your hard work is consistent and you have patience. Success is determined by hard work, if you cannot put in the hours, then you cannot earn the success. This is where patience would comes in to the success. You have to be able to take the revisions, and take sitting at the desk for hours working on many tedious things to get the final product done. Although, talent isn’t necessary you do need skills. Anyone can learn skill, but it takes someone with the drive,passion and time to learn skills. All in all, it’s not true that you always need talent and genius to become successful/
During the creative process, I go back to the inspiration step over and over because of this, but it helps mainly because I end up finding my own style and unique spin on the task at hand. My inspiration comes from many places, but mostly it comes from trends and colors used in current designs of the media. I like to watch the new posters and things put on the train, and I’ve learned after watching them for awhile that many of them use the same color scheme. Therefore, I try to stray away from those colors. I want to bring something different to the advertising world as far as color goes, I want something to bring the viewers eye to my designs because of the simple fact that they are the consumer and I must try to grab and keep their attention. As far as trends,I do try to follow trends because it’s what keep the design sense into place. If my designs are out of style and out of trend, it doesn’t help because it then draws the viewer away even further.
The trends of today’s society only heighten the pressure of being creative. While I myself do try to follow trends and what is catching eyes of the viewer, as a creative I also try to creative and set new trends for others to follow; which becomes a constant battle for being creative. As a person who grows up in a thriving world where it seems like “everything” has been done and there’s nearly nothing left to think of, I am constantly discouraged from thinking up something new and even trying to do my own artwork. It currently takes me way longer to think of ideas and be creative, because I am constantly second guessing myself. I’m always trying to double and triple check to make sure I’m not copying someone else’s design that has been done for the same context and I’m always trying to not think of what else could go wrong because such and such didn’t work at a different time for a different creator.