here is hazel
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The only thing different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. You might be more talented than me, you might be smarter, but if we get on a treadmill together, there’s two things: you’re either getting off first or I’m gonna die. It’s really that simple.
One of my professors showed us this video on the last day of class. Long story short, the secret to succes is to have an insane work ethic.
Somewhat related: The Campaign for the Accurate Measurement of Creativity
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“I don’t know what the hell is going on. Neither do you, and neither does any one else. We’re all lost and improvising, making things before we know what they do, and breaking stuff before we know what replaces it. We’re all tinkering and speculating, listening to see if our shovels hit something hard while we’re digging. I suppose that’s what world-building is, though, so let’s get used to it. We need to learn to tolerate ambiguity.” —Frank Chimero, telling it like it is. I suggest you read the whole thing. Here’s another nugget of wisdom:
Increasingly, our way is to fake it and assume that others are doing the same. We fein interest in work, speak sarcastically, buy things that are new reproductions of old things, and often presume someone is selling us something. Skepticism as a default state is a hell of a thing. We’re a hungry culture starved for sincerity, authenticity, and honesty. What does fixing it look like? It doesn’t look cool. In fact, it probably involves being so passionately enthusiastic about something that it is the exact opposite of cool. By caring intensely, we can connect to one another in more meaningful ways.
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I thought this was a genuinely inventive and fun children’s short—then I started laugh-crying.
Definitely don’t watch this around a kid that you like! “Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared” is by London-based collective This Is It(via Studio Sweet Studio)
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Everything is a Remix is an insightful four-part video series exploring the notion that nothing is original. Part 3 takes a deeper look into how the act of copying has driven (and continues to drive) creativity and innovation in all aspects of our culture.
While I agree that copying is humanity’s way of learning and progressing, I don’t think this gives us free reign to copy somebody else’s work and slap our names on it.
There is a difference between reproducing and remixing.
The problem is that we often copy previous forms of work subconsciously, making it difficult to distinguish one from the other.
My head hurts…
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“Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing…Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” -
“I sort of love it when things are going badly because I know that means that soon things will go well. I just stay at my desk, and I say, ‘There’s no shame in writing crap,’ knowing that it’s good for the brain because meanwhile, in some corner, something is getting nudged.” — Lemony Snicket on dealing with writer’s block. -
INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.
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Less is More
I’m sure we’ve all heard this adage before. And I’m sure we’ve all nodded our heads in unison and vowed to uphold this trite maxim multiple times (and then failed to do so in the end). But recently, I’ve begun to realize—really realize—the importance of ‘less’ in my creative life.
Illustration by Carolyn SewellThe pursuit of ‘less’ is not just a matter of being more productive; it’s also about honing one’s creative ability and reducing the urge to imitate another designer’s work.
Aaron Heth, a recent design school graduate, says about taking inspiration from the internet:
“To a degree, these things help with our creative juices, but they mostly have the bad habit of distracting us. Seeing too much can simply overload you and lead you in to making decisions that aren’t right for a particular brief.”
Picasso’s words are also relevant here:
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
Essentially he’s indicating that most artists have a tendency to recycle a previous artists’ work which, in the end, produce cookie-cutter results. But a great artist will take much of the same elements to a whole new level and make it his own. I believe it’s often the case with designers also.
As Frank Chimero points out in his semi-sort of comic, we need to “kill [our] timid notion of creativity” and make “allogical [illogical?] connections”.
THE GOAL: Stop using boring clichés! Be creative! Don’t be a good designer, be a great designer!
Since it’s impossible to produce original bodies of work when you spend most of your hours drooling over other people’s masterpieces, in order to achieve my goal, I need to refrain from visiting so many ‘inspiration’ sites/galleries/blogs and reduce other forms of distraction.
So far, I’ve diminished my Twitter following to 45, my Tumblr follow list from over 100 down to 80, and my Google Reader subscriptions from almost 300 down to 150 (I’m working on it).In addition, I think I’m going to take more showers.
