Our memories and visual libraries are not as accurate and straightforward as we might think. Especially in the process of ideation, relevant topics, imagery and the direction of those ideas might not flow right away to the surface of our expressive abilities. Jillian Tamaki shares her creative process through seven steps for creating more successful, intriguing and charming pieces.
Her first step I believe, is the most important step and that is to be interested in what you are doing. No matter how talented or hardworking you are, if your brain is not focused and you are not genuinely interested in what you are doing, it will be very hard to randomly produce something memorable and effective. Her second step is building your own library of ideas, visuals as well as experiences.
Her third step is to focus further. When building the library, focus on what you are reading, watching and hearing and make the special place in your brain for things that stood out to you. This will also help you find out more about yourself and things that get you excited the most.
Her fourth step is writing down words and their connections, however random they might be. This is basically pouring the associative memory out in order to find some relevant patterns and things that could work with the project.
The fifth step comes after finding potential connections between the word associations and moving to a visual part of the project. She advises looking at multiple images of the subject of our interest. The sixth step is mixing it all. From my own experience, this is the most fun step that allows me to unleash my creative flow and create endless possibilities. In this step, I often times find the most interesting ideas and I get very excited about the project.
The last but not least, the seventh step is putting everything together into thumbnail sketches. The way that is communicating our ideas clearly and effectively to the viewer.
I enjoyed the descriptions of all her creative steps and three that I could totally relate to is building the library of visuals and ideas which I always try to do that and the second is mixing.
I also agree with her first step, for me personally it’s very hard to stay focused and come up with ideas for a piece if I’m not interested in said topic. I think it’s important to always work with something that engages us because if not, like you said, it won’t work out no matter how talented and hard working you are.