All The Different Yous: 50 simple techniques for getting creative inspiration on tap


Book Description

All creative people have experienced them. The times when the inspiration is simply not flowing and you cannot see the way ahead with a creative project. It might be design, film, music, literature, art, cooking, or anything else that requires imagination as its primary ingredient. But the problem is the same one across all these creative disciplines. Drawing on over twenty years of experience, the author gives 50 simple solutions for overcoming creative problems and getting closer to completing your project.




Hand Lettering for Beginners


Book Description

Create beautiful lettering projects, quotes, birthday cards, and more once you’ve learned the basics of hand lettering from artist Sarah Ensign. Have you always wanted to learn the secrets to create stunning letter art? Now you can! This book takes you through different hand lettering styles such as faux calligraphy, brush pen lettering, and creating basic font styles such as monoline, elegant, and brush pen scripts. Sarah Ensign, author and influencer shares this fascinating craft with you through pages of colorful examples and worksheets that allow you to practice what you’ve learned. She also shares practical tips on supplies such as pen and paper, creating beautiful fonts, and master tricky connections, and planning layouts for quotes. Simple Techniques and Endless Possibilities In this colorful, hardcover book, you’ll find hands-on lettering worksheets and step-by-step guides that will quickly build your confidence. Explore your creativity with this fun, creative craft. Hand lettering for Beginners has a fun, non-intimidating approach to guiding readers through hand lettering techniques and possibilities. This book will start a fascinating hobby that will allow you to grow your hand lettering skills and create your own unique projects.




Keys to Drawing with Imagination


Book Description

Draw with Confidence and Creativity! New in paperback! Creativity occurs in action. It is not a trait; it is something you do. To be creative, you need to engage in the art-making process. When you are "in the flow," you shift out of the future and into the present, making connections, generating variations and surrendering to the process. This ten-year edition of Keys to Drawing With Imagination is a course for artists in how to take something, do something to it and make something new. Bert Dodson, author of the best-selling Keys to Drawing (more than 250,000 copies sold!) presents fun techniques and mind-stretching strategies to get you drawing better and more imaginatively than you ever have before. In every section, he offers you basic guidelines that help you channel your creative energies in the right direction. Before you know it, you'll lose yourself in the process, enjoying the experience as you create something gratifying and worthwhile. The subjects covered in this hands-on book are as vast as the imagination itself. Through 58 strategies, 36 exercises and 13 step-by-step demonstrations, you'll explore how to: • Take your doodling from mindless to masterful • Create your own reality by crumbling, melting or breaking objects • Flip the familiar on its ear to create something utterly original • Experiment with visual paradox and metaphor • Tell vivid stories through the details in your drawings • Play with patterns to create captivating compositions • Build your drawings by borrowing ideas from different cultures • Develop a theme in your work Along the way, Dodson offers you priceless advice on the creative process culled from his 70 years of drawing and teaching. For additional inspiration and encouragement, he includes the work of 30 other outstanding artists, including R. Crumb and Maya Lin. So what are you waiting for? Grab this book and start drawing! You'll be amazed at what you can create. *Note to readers: This book is a 10-year anniversary paperback reprint of the Keys to Drawing with Imagination hardcover edition (2006).




Playing with Sketches


Book Description

DIVDrawing is the backbone of art and design; with all of the tantalizing wonders of the digital world, the best designers, illustrators and artists know that it’s good to step back occasionally and hit the refresh button on your hand and mind. Playing with Sketches is a hands-on, fun approach to exploring drawing principles. Beginning with an introduction to the philosophy of learning through the process of play, this book brings you through a series of basic warm-up exercises that can be combined with later projects. Then you’ll move quickly on to more challenging and engaging exercises, including word games, dimensional shapes, and inventive sketchbooks and letterforms, eventually creating a “toolkit� of ideas and skills developed through the process of play. This book features creative, adaptable ideas, and numerous examples of designers and artists responses to each exercise, giving you a peek into their way of thinking and seeing. /divDIVWith over 25 contributors, from high-profile designers, illustrators and artists to talented graduate students, you see work that will walk you step-by-step through a process or inspire by example. The book provides meaningful outcomes for your practice, including building an image archive, being exposed to new ways to use media and tools, inspiring you to break the rules, to collaborate, and much more!/div




Creative Confidence


Book Description

IDEO founder and Stanford d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and the author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation, have written a powerful and compelling book on unleashing the creativity that lies within each and every one of us. Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.




Designing Your Life


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.




Presentation Zen


Book Description

FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.




Life Kerning


Book Description

Creative approaches for designing a more balanced life andcareer In the graphic design industry, kerning is the fine-tuning oradjustment of space between letterforms (type). In this book,author Justin Ahrens applies this concept to both the life andcareer of business professionals. There is a common misconceptionthat positive change in one's life only comes from a completesystem overhaul. Ahrens challenges this notion by inviting businessleaders and professionals to not only reassess the various spacesand goals of one's life, but to rethink our understanding ofbalance altogether. This book includes insights and observations from both thecreative and professional world. Guides you in determining what you're passionate about, and howto keep those passions in the forefront of your life andcareer How to create work that stands apart How to cultivate and maintain a group of wise mentors Develop critical decision-making skills Live a life that fuels your work, and work in a way that fuelsyour life. Life Kerning shows you how.




Start Ugly


Book Description

Start Ugly is a celebration of the messy creative process and a call to face the obstacles of that process with mindfulness and humanity. This is a book for anyone who has ever wished they were "more creative."




Zig Zag


Book Description

A science-backed method to maximize creative potential in any sphere of life With the prevalence of computer technology and outsourcing, new jobs and fulfilling lives will rely heavily on creativity and innovation. Keith Sawyer draws from his expansive research of the creative journey, exceptional creators, creative abilities, and world-changing innovations to create an accessible, eight-step program to increasing anyone's creative potential. Sawyer reveals the surprising secrets of highly creative people (such as learning to ask better questions when faced with a problem), demonstrates how to come up with better ideas, and explains how to carry those ideas to fruition most effectively. This science-backed, step-by step method can maximize our creative potential in any sphere of life. Offers a proven method for developing new ideas and creative problem-solving no matter what your profession Includes an eight-step method, 30 practices, and more than 100 techniques that can be launched at any point in a creative journey Psychologist, jazz pianist, and author Keith Sawyer studied with world-famous creativity expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Sawyer's book offers a wealth of easy to apply strategies and ideas for anyone who wants to tap into their creative power.