Open Your Eyes Bro

The second class of Contemporary Design Culture.

In this week’s class, the main topic was creativity. What is creativity? I pondered for a moment. Creativity can be found in the most unique places. Creativity can be found anywhere. To be creative you can not fear being wrong. Creativity is about expressing yourself. Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns and relationships and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods and interpretations.

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people” -Leo Burnett (15 Famous Quotes on Creativity, 2020)

I strongly agree with this quote, I believe by having various interests and to have the ability to be fascinated by all the beautiful things in the world you are at an advantage to be creative as you have a multitude of inspiration.

We were asked if we thought we were creative. And if so what inspires us to be creative and how do we capture or realise our creativity? I think I am creative. There are various ways I capture my creativity. I show my creative side by how I decorate the room I sleep in. I enjoy putting up posters, tapestries, pictures, flags, signposts, drawings, graffiti and LED lights. These items that are plastered on my walls represent who I am. They convey my interests and where I come from. The environment created by the decorated walls helps to trigger my creative flow. I particularly like the atmospheric light that comes from my salt lamp. There are so many ways to express creativity, I believe you can be creative in how you present yourself on social media, in the way that you wear clothes and even in the way that you play a sport. A creative sports player thinks outside the box, each sports player has their own style of playing.

Can you learn to be creative? Yes, I am learning to be more creative right now. It is easier for some to learn to be more creative than it is for others. But anyone can learn to be creative. We all have preconceived views on the methods of how things should be done that acts as a barrier to our imagination. As children we are free of these preconceived views and therefore as children, we are far more creative. An excellent quote to describing this is

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up”.(15 Famous Quotes on Creativity, 2020)

Pablo Picasso an extremely creative man said this.

It can be difficult to think outside of these preconceived views but there are methods of doing so. One method is bad idea generation. This exercise relieves the anxiety and self-confidence issues and allows people to be more playful and adventurous. Sometimes a bad idea can trigger a very good idea. This is a useful technique to prevent creative blocks. Rainn Wilson has interesting video on creativity. He says it is almost impossible to be creative if you don’t know who you are? What you are about? And what you believe in? I’m going to concentrate on learning more about myself and stop focusing on external things in order for me to be more creative. (How to Solve Creative Blocks, 2020)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXJfwk4Mii0

References

TwistedSifter. 2020.15 Famous Quotes On Creativity. [online] Available at: <https://twistedsifter.com/2012/03/15-famous-quotes-on-creativity/> [Accessed 27 March 2020].

youtube. 2020.How To Solve Creative Blocks. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXJfwk4Mii0> [Accessed 27 March 2020].