Something that I think a lot of students find at this time of the year is the difficulty of finding their creative direction, getting stuck and getting increasingly frustrated in not finding the ideas their projects require.
Why is this?
Well mostly it is due to being stressed and trying to force creativity. If it isn’t going to happen straight away, this can really frustrate and infuriate a person and sometimes it can cause sleepless nights, worry and self doubt in their own abilities.
The simple answer is go back to the drawing board - think of what helps you to find inspiration, and reflect on how you can over come problems rather than stare them down and get despondent.
There are many of ways to over come this feeling;
- Research - go back to find inspiration from others, look at how other designers have created projects and follow their lead. Sometimes there might be just one thing you see that sets off a chain of thought and sparks an idea. In this case my research went back to basics and tried to use the basic 2x2 red LEGO brick as my basic inspiration.
Look at these websites to help give you a starting point;
- Sketch - we are blessed with paper and pencils in this society, yet we tend to overlook these in favour for that big shiny expensive Mac sitting in the corner. Sketching can be both therapeutic and rewarding when it comes to ideas. Above you can see the design process I came up with to produce an idea to get my students thinking about the LEGO brief they have got. I used the inspiration of the basic red block and sketched out some ideas and quotes to inspire my thinking and you can see immediately that they aren’t the world’s greatest drawings, but it gave me enough inspiration to progress the ideas forward.
- Develop - From here I was able to develop my ideas further using the Mac and after a lot of development you can see the final net that I came up with. By looking into packaging I was able to create my own basic net shape that suited my design - I wanted the direct mail box to resemble the LEGO brick when it arrived through the mail, and create an excitement and a level of intrigue to the recipient.
- Evaluate - People underestimate evaluation and analysis - it is a key element to any designing you do. Something can look amazing on the beautiful retina display of a Mac, but when it comes to printing and constructing it could look completely different. Sizes, colours, construction all might need adjusting but until you physically look at it you have no idea! By evaluating a design you could actually find more ideas and developments from this one idea! You can see my physical model above and from that I found that some tabs needed changing, a few sizes needed adjusting but overall I was kind of happy with it.
- Talk to others - by talking to other people, creative or not, it can really help you see your ideas in a different perspective. Sometimes when talking about your ideas you yourself might see things from a different slant and again this can really help you develop an idea - talk to your audience - be a more considerate designer.
You see, I hope that all these points may help others out, and show you that you are not the only designer that gets stuck with ideas - but you are in a better position to deal with these problems if you follow these simple points.
I hope this helps a few people out there and remember any issues don’t hesitate to just drop me a message or head over to designlecturer to see more helpful articles!
….and the proof that - hate drawing in pencil :/
