1. Mine your Subconscious and Dreams
Your subconscious mind is an unlimited source of creativity. Consider keeping a dream journal beside your bed to capture those surreal fantastic episodes while they are still fresh in your mind. This is a great way to bring some of yourself into your work. It's a sure path to making your artwork unique.
2. Keep a Drawing Journal and Doodle Regularly
Successful artists record their ideas regularly. For visual artists this means keeping a drawing journal. Though it can double as an idea journal. I tend to write down my ideas as much as I draw them. Probably because I can't draw that well. So, if I want to capture an idea I have, thoroughly, I need to mix in some writing. I use a hybrid of drawing and writing together to clarify and get the whole idea down. Depending on your skills and interests, your journal will take on a different form.
I remember in design school seeing some students keep journals that were bits of design, ads, or photos they had found pasted into their notebooks with lots of detailed notes breaking down the process behind each piece or what they found interesting about it.
3. Study Artists You Admire
If you like an artists work then study their work. Try to find out their process and how they go about their craft. You can also look at their work and try to figure out how to recreate something similar. Set out with the goal that your going to make something similar or in that style and then learn by emulation.
4. Look at the Natural World Around You
Nature is an infinite source of inspiration. Try shooting a bird with your camera. Capture it in motion. Draw it. Understand its architecture and anatomy. Consider the rhythm of nature and try to capture the concept in your work. Try to recreate the realism of water in Photoshop with bubbles, drops, splashes, rain, or waterfalls. These are just a few examples to get you thinking in this direction.
5. Look to Other Disciplines
Look to areas outside of graphics for ideas and then bring them back to your work. Good areas to look at are architecture, product design, vehicle design, and many more. For example, looking at modern architecture could inspire a whole series of illustrations for you to work on. Or you may find a detail that you could expand on in the 2009 concept cars that are being showcased. Veerle has a series on outdoor furniture that is inspiring.
6. Look to Art and Design History
You can study whole movements. Consider the work done today. How will it be interpreted a hundred years from now. Philip Meggs has a great book titled A History of Graphic Design that has significantly improved the curriculum across the Graphic Design discipline.
7. Experiment with Combining Concepts and Styles
Take elements from one style and then combine it with another style. This merges the styles together and creates something new. This is known as fusion. Its popular in all arts. Consider fusion cuisine. Where food from different regions or countries are mixed together to create new culinary delights. Its the same kind of concept only we're mixing elements together to create new visual delights. You can follow the same approach with mixing concepts together as well.
8. Shoot Lots of Pictures
Any artist, especially all of us that use photoshop will benefit by shooting photographs. It helps tremendously with developing your eye for composition. Its a great way to bring your world around you into your work. Its also a good way to find out what interests you. Consider keeping a digital camera on you all the times. They have gotten so small and powerful that this isn't a burden. That way your always seeing things and shooting images. Art infused with life, though for some of you that may feel like overkill.
9. Look at Old Advertisements, Kitche, or Ephemera
Artistic inspiration can really come from anywhere. Sometimes reinterpreting fugly things can place them in a new context that makes them beautiful. Retro styling is commonplace in art and design. The next time your at a junk sale look through the old albums, board game covers, or purchase that taxidermy squirrel pen holder. You can also set off on the web specifically looking for this type of inspiration.
10. Find Inspiration Online
There is so much on the web. Anything you can think of you can find. Just do the visual research. If you're inspired by science fiction technology well then keep a folder about it on your desktop. Any time you see something you like copy it into the folder. I have folders for: logo design, website interface elements, business cards, photoshop artwork, vector artwork, illustrations, posters, vintage categories, and many more. A good website for random visual inspiration is ffffound. Its updated regularily with random user submitted visual inspiration. Below are some recent finds.
11. Set Regular Habits
Make creativity a fixture of your daily routine. If you get most of your inspiration from photography then go for a walk in the morning and shoot cars, people, birds, zoom in on insects, buildings, anything you find interesting.
Consider setting aside even ten minutes a day for sketching. Or keep a doodle pad next to you. Make sure to have some scribbles on it by the end of the day. Got a phone call with a client, excellent, time to doodle. Above all else practice your craft every day. If your a web designer then make sure every workday your creating a website or at least planning a design, reviewing other sites, or practicing your craft.
There are some habits that anyone can benefit from. Scheduling helps tremendously with having a regular steady creative output. Its really hard to keep up the creativity if you overdo it and don't get enough sleep. Admittedly I do this a lot though. To much caffeine. To little sleep. Saturday I usually sleep on the beach or lie in bed and snooze with the TV in the background to recover.
Find a rhythm within yourself that gives you the best long term creative output. Consider your circadian rhythm. We all have an optimal schedule and need to find a balance with our bodies natural tendencies. Find out the time of day you think the best during and do your most creative work at that time everyday. If you need help finding this kind of balance check out the blog zen habits. Its a great resource for scheduling, finding balance, and getting things done without overdoing it.
12. Develop Your Creative Process
Create a formula for success. Any design or art project can be broken down in to phases. Let's walk through an example process.
Conceptualization is the phase where you brainstorm, mindmap, and come up with the initial ideas for the project. At this stage you may want to look for inspiration from different sources mentioned above to get going. Often fusing your ideas with something else can be a good combination.
Then you move onto research. Google Images is useful when searching for reference images. Sketching is the next step. It can involve pencil and paper. Though there are many forms of sketching. Consider using mood boards for web design. Or with Photoshop jump in and start experimenting with cutting photos and working on composition. You can clean it up later. Find a groove that works for you and that can be repeated on another project.
After drafting you continue to work on the image or design until its polished. Continually work on improving your process. Pay attention to how much time on average each phase of the process takes. This will help tremendously when you talk with clients and work on setting your project or hourly rates. A good process is a reliable and successful workpath for you to follow time and time again.
Conclusion
Tapping into an endless well of creativity involves finding constant sources of inspiration, continually growing as an artist, developing regular habits, and refining your processes. In the comments share with us any tips you have on how you tap into creativity continuously.
12 Ways to Tap Into an Endless Well of Creativity
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