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.




Creativity


Book Description

The legendary comedian, actor, and writer of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda fame shares his key ideas about creativity: that it’s a learnable, improvable skill. “Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall? We can all be more creative. John Cleese shows us how.




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.




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




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).




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.




75 Tools for Creative Thinking


Book Description

This creative card deck toolbox will guide the player to be creative at the different stages of any process or situation where new ideas are desired. The seventy-five tools are organized around six steps in the process: get started, look around, ask around, break it down, break free, evaluate, and select.




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.




Creative Thinking For Dummies


Book Description

Creative thinking made easy Being creative can be tough - and trying to come up with great ideas under pressure can leave the great ideas under wraps! Creative Thinking For Dummies helps you apply creative thinking techniques to everything you touch, whether it's that novel you have inside you or the new business idea you've had that will make you the next hot entrepreneur ??? or anything in between. Creative Thinking For Dummies is a practical, hands-on guide packed with techniques and examples of different ways to think creatively. It covers a range of techniques, including brainstorming, lateral thinking, mind mapping, synectics, drawing and doodling your way to great ideas, meditation and visualization, word and language games, and divergent thinking. See the world in a different way, and realise that you are surrounded by creative inspiration Brainstorm new ideas successfully and try out some lateral thinking exercises Open your mind to a new way of thinking and nail down those great ideas Discover creative thinking techniques using games, words, drawings, and storytelling Let creativity enhance all aspects of your life, whether developing your personal skills, becoming more professionally effective, or using creative thinking techniques to help your children develop their creative minds You'll soon discover that everybody, including you, has a wealth of creative potential within—you just need to tap into it!




Creative Thinkering


Book Description

Why isn’t everyone creative? Why doesn’t education foster more ingenuity? Why is expertise often the enemy of innovation? Bestselling creativity expert Michael Michalko shows that in every ?eld of endeavor — from business and science to government, the arts, and even day-to-day life — natural creativity is limited by the prejudices of logic and the structures of accepted categories and concepts. Through step-by-step exercises, illustrated strategies, and inspiring real-world examples, he shows readers how to liberate their thinking and literally expand their imaginations by learning to synthesize dissimilar subjects, think paradoxically, and enlist the help of the subconscious mind. He also reveals the attitudes and approaches that diverse geniuses share — and anyone can emulate. Fascinating and fun, Michalko’s strategies facilitate the kind of lightbulb-moment thinking that changes lives — for the better.