Up until that moment creating art was easy. Before this, all that was needed was patience and practice. You find something beautiful and draw it. Let your eyes absorb the beauty and then channel that vision onto paper. I was a junior in high school when my art teacher rocked my world.

The assignment was to make something that represented our families. Sounds simple right? The catch was that this wasn’t a drawing. It wasn’t a photo. As we tried to pin down Mr. Schatz about what exactly we were supposed to create, he was elusive. The more we pressed him the more confusing the assignment became.

We knew what a drawing was. We know what pottery was. We knew what photos were. We knew what songs were. We knew what a poem was. These things defined “art” as we knew it. But this assignment was something confusing, something foreign to us. Finally, Mr. Schatz gave us some vague direction. He said something like,

“Think about what your family means to you. You know these people better than anyone else in the world. You can’t sum up the most important people in your life with a drawing. You can’t represent your love for your mom with a poem. When you think about your brothers and sisters you feel something inside you. Focus on that – and then make something that feels the same way.”

Needless to say, we left class that day bewildered. We struggled with it. The word that comes to mind to describe what I felt was “terrified.” I was supposedly one of the talented artists in the class and I had no idea what to make.

As I struggled with the assignment, things gradually became clear. Creating something was secondary to the process. It didn’t matter so much what we made, what mattered was learning to think creatively, passionately, and personally. Shapes, color, paint, tools – all the familiar skills we were learning – were all finally given a purpose beyond “making pretty things.” For the first time in our lives, this thing called “art” was connected to something inside of us. It was terrifying, yes, but it was also empowering. It was a pivotal moment in my creative development.

This was in a public school in the midwest, Wentzville High to be exact, but I still wonder what impact traditional education has on creative development. So much of what we learn in school is how to memorize and recite answers. We learn what hoops to jump through and in what order. Do a, b, and c and you earn a diploma. Where does creativity come into play? Creativity isn’t something that you can create a formula for.

As a graphic designer I get paid to work for so-called “non-creatives.” It is a challenge that I gladly welcome, but I can’t help but wonder if these people are merely missing a creative component that should have been taught in school. These brilliant people are enormously intelligent with successful careers and more wealth than I will ever see. And yet when it comes to a visual vocabulary they are infants. When conversations stray beyond the physical/quantifiable/literal I see the same thing that I saw back in high school: terrified bewilderment. And just like in school some people embrace the new world, others run for cover and the comfort of more easily measured occupations.

It happens without warning. It just appears from nowhere. Where did it come from? How did you do that? You were just zoning out at your desk in a post Taco Bell coma and it hits you. Inspiration! Your brain is an amazing machine, and we really don’t know how it works. Where do great ideas come from?

Not to long ago I wrote a disappointed review of an article in Scientific American about new research being done on the subject of creativity. There is a similar article published in the new issue of Wired (November 2009) called “Flights of Fancy: Why an idling mind is the mother of invention” written by Clive Thompson. He talks about daydreaming and studies that are being done on the brain when it is idling. The conclusions seem to be that rather being time we are wasting it is actually a critical and complex brain function. It is similar to storage backup on a computer because the part of your brain that is active when your mind wanders is responsible for processing long term memories.

The article goes on to talk about the implications that this could have on business situations that focus on efficiency and productivity. Since daydreaming can’t be considered “billable time” it is safe to say that most businesses don’t encourage it. In reality, this could be some of the most valuable we spend at work. I am sure you can remember plenty of times when you had an insight to a problem come into your brain seemingly out of nowhere. That seems to be how our brains work, often hidden and unknown. You can’t force yourself to be creative.

The part of the article that I disagree with, however, is the recommendation that “unblocking” the social internet sites would somehow increase our daydreaming time. Letting your mind wander is not the same as updating your Facebook status or watching Flight of the Concords on YouTube. Surfing the web is an activity that requires thinking, no matter how mindless it is. Killing time and procrastinating isn’t going to lead to a breakthrough in creativity.

I would go a step further and say that surfing the web might actually stifle the creative power of daydreaming. Surfing the web, although lots of fun, keeps our brains constantly “on.” The brain is a muscle that needs to relax, too. It is the resting that is critical so that our brain can do it’s magic. Like I said when I wrote about the link between dreaming and creativity, sleep allows our minds to do things that we can’t do when we are awake. The same is true of daydreaming – if we give our minds the chance. We can’t use daydreaming as an excuse to be unproductive, but next time you come back to consciousness at your desk after a good daydream maybe you can feel a little less guilty.

I suppose I have pretty much based my design career on my intuition. Through trial and error I have pretty much stumbled upon a set of concepts that work. While this has served me well, trusting your gut can only get you so far in the business world. If you really want to have an impact you need to supplement the intuitive mentality with concepts that can be appreciated by people who aren’t interested in trusting somebody else’s gut. And let’s face it, that is pretty much everyone. When paying thousands of dollars for an advertisement, a logo, or a website there are very people in the world who would be satisfied by the rational of “take my word for it.” I believe that is probably the biggest reason for the disconnect between “creative” and “non-creative” professionals. You can create a masterpiece logo, but if you can’t communicate why it will be effective, you will be sent back to your desk to execute client requested tasks that you know will make the logo worse.

Many designers are happy with this arrangement. Endless client revisions translates to more hours, which translates into more cash. It is easier to accept the destruction of your work if you can cash bigger checks as a result. Some designers can’t handle the hypocrisy and either drop out or become the stereotypical designer making fun of the clients behind their backs.

Luckily there is an alternative besides occupational hypocrisy and pessimistic burnout. The answer is to entrench yourself in the psychology and research behind what powers your intuition. Trusting your gut is important, but it isn’t enough. Your intuition works for a reason, and you can learn to explain why. If this type of thinking appeals to you, I urge you to read a few of the books I have been enjoying recently. They are:

“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” is a great look at why people are fooled by marketing. I think that too many people assume that the public is dumb, when in fact people are amazingly consistent and intelligent creatures. This book comes to conclusions that you couldn’t arrive at if you simply trust your intuition.

“Predictably Irrational” is a book I am just starting but I am already hooked. The problem with trusting your gut is that it makes mistakes because so much in the world is counter-intuitive and irrational. Learning how to predict the irrational is a great skill to have.

Here is some practical advice if you are trying to supplement your intuition. Study your reactions to marketing, art, and design. Sensitize yourself so that you can take mental inventory of things that you see that “work” and what doesn’t. Question everything you see. Never take anyone’s word for anything. Filter everything and never accept surface level answers to questions that seem straight forward. As you carefully study your own responses to your surrounding as well as the reactions of others you can start to apply the things you learn to your work.

I just read an article on the Scientific American website called “An Easy Way to Increase Creativity. The article correctly points out that creativity has a great deal to do with context and outside factors influencing the individual. If you can identify the factors that increase creativity you might be able to increase your chances of finding creative solutions.

The article points out that one factor contributing to creativity is “psychological distance” which they define as ” anything that we do not experience as occurring now or here. In other words, if you can take yourself out of your current mindset you will be more likely to think creatively. That isn’t groundbreaking research, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Unfortunately, the article ends with some terrible advice when it comes to the practical application of the scientific studies. The article says,

“…there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality.”

I think that is a pretty bad summary of some relatively intriguing research. Let me take it one point at a time.

1. Travel to faraway places.
This suggestion completely misses the point of the scientific research. Traveling to a faraway place is not the same as “psychological distance.” The point is to get your mind thinking differently, not to actually travel. Granted, a trip to a foreign country might inspire you, but traveling alone isn’t going to make you more creative.

2. Think about the distant future.
In the study, people are asked to think about themselves a year from now. Then they are asked to think of themselves solving an insight problem. This is a much more subtle way to think about a question than just saying, “Imagine how you would solve this problem in the distant future.” I guarantee if the question was phrased like that the answers wouldn’t be creative they would just involve people in silver suits and flying cars. That isn’t creativity, sorry.

3. Communicate with people who are dissimilar to you.
First of all, I can’t see where this suggestion is getting pulled from anywhere in the article. Maybe this one is just phrased badly. If it said “collaborate with people outside your normal circles,” it wouldn’t sound so bad. It feels condescending to me for some reason to assume that I would be surrounded by clones of myself.

4. Consider unlikely alternatives to reality.
Creativity requires that you do more than consider alternatives. You need to throw reality out the window and live there for a while. If the answer was reality then you wouldn’t need to be creative in the first place. I think it is funny that they added the word “unlikely” to that sentence to make it a little more redundant. I feel like this is saying “consider the unlikely, then get back to reality where you are more comfortable anyway.” Good luck with that.

The next sentence in the article says,

“Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly.”

The result of our modern times is that creative thinking is increasingly rare. The research cited shows that by default most people find it hard to think about problems from anything but a very literal point of view. They have to be “tricked” into being creative with scenarios that inject psychological distance into the question. More music, food, people, and vacationing isn’t going to make you more creative.

My last post asked if it is possible to increase creativity by taking notice of our dreams. I have wanted to document my dreams for a while, so I finally took action and built a website that makes it easy to record your dreams. The site is called Dream Feedr and it is open to anyone interested in keeping a dream journal.

Here are some of the features of Dream Feedr:
• Quickly post a new dream in a “Twitter-style” interface.
• Each dreamer will have their own page showing their dreams.
• Each dreamer has their own RSS feed.
• Keyboard shortcuts for quick editing
• You can tag your dreams with keywords.

Click over to dreamfeedr.com to look around or to join for free. I have about ten dreams entered in there already, and I find it really interesting that all these thoughts would have been lost and forgotten if I hadn’t took a little time to write them down.

Dream Feedr is very much a “beta,” so it could change quite a bit depending on the response I get from people. Let me know what you think. If you have any interest in starting a dream journal I encourage you to sign up for a free account and test it out.

I while back I made a post talking about the relationship I have found between how many hours of sleep I get and the quality of my creative output. I try to monitor myself constantly to see if I can find patterns to how I work. When am I at my best? When do my best ideas come? If I can recognize the factors that help boost my brain then maybe I can improve myself.

One of the things that I have been paying attention as I search for ways to be more creative is my dreams. Every once in a while I will wake up with answers to questions that I couldn’t answer the day before. Sometimes I will see things in my dreams that I can use when I wake up. Am I dreaming these things? It is safe to say that our brains are doing much more than resting when we sleep, but how can we capitalize on it?

I have never used drugs, but I can relate to artists who think that mind altering substances increase their creativity. Creativity could be defined as the ability to uncover the seemingly hidden solutions to situations. A creative person has the ability to see things that other’s would miss, no matter how long they look at the facts. It makes sense that someone who is extremely creative must have some “mind altering” abilities that other people don’t possess. How do they do it? Another word that creative people often get labeled as is “dreamer.” Maybe there is something to that stereotype.

Sleep allows our minds to do things that we can’t do when we are awake. In dreams we are not constrained by the rules of reality. Anything is possible. That is exactly the state that a person’s mind needs to be in if they are going to create something that doesn’t yet exist! It is a shame that so many of us dismiss our dreams as bizarre annoyances that prevent us from enjoying a good night’s sleep.

So how do we harness the power of our dreams? How can we optimize our sleep to maximize our creativity? That’s a tough question, but I have some ideas that I will share in my next post. Right now it’s bed time and I feel like dreaming.

Yesterday Rian snuck past me as I worked in the basement with an envelope in his hand. When he reappeared without the envelope he told me that he had a surprise for me, but I had to find it. “Daddy, you are cold. Warmer. Warmer, hot, hot, hot!” I picked up the envelope and opened it. “It’s a picture of you!” Rian said proudly. I opened the envelope and enthusiastically praised his drawing skills.

I have very fond memories of drawing when I was a kid. My parents had me drawing in a sketchbook at a young age, and they were very supportive of the artist in me. I remember dictating to my mother who would patiently write out the stories to accompany my illustrations. When I was in grade school my mom helped me organize an art club and invite my friends over for an afternoon of drawing and learning about art. We only met once or twice, but it helped me establish an identity at an early age of being an artist. My friends knew that was my “thing” and they respected it.

If you ask any successful person to point to people that influenced them when they were young, I bet most of them can quickly identify some key people. We all remember that one teacher who inspired us and encouraged us. When you think about these people you realize how life changing a few words of encouragement can be. A little praise of a kid’s math skills may send them on a lifelong journey into engineering. Praise a person’s singing and they may love music for the rest of their life.

Seeing my son’s drawings brings back great memories and makes me really proud of him. I gave him a sketchbook today and we had a fun time drawing pictures of his R2D2 toy. I hope he enjoys drawing in his sketchbook as much as I enjoyed mine. I don’t know if he will grow up to be an artist or an astronaut, but I know that being supportive of whatever he is interested has the potential to shape his future.

As I finish writing this Rian snuck past me again. He says he has something for me because “You are my best friend, and I love you.” This time he has a stack of about a dozen envelopes. I bet each one contains a drawing of me. I guess that just proves my point that a little positive reinforcement goes a long way!

I try to keep track of when inspiration hits me. If I am exercising or driving or reading or running when the idea comes, I make a note of it. If I could find a pattern to when I have my best ideas then maybe I could hot wire the system when I need it. Wouldn’t it be great if you had this kind of control over your mind? Knowing that you had to come up with a solution to a tough problem, you could just follow 5 easy steps.

Step 1: Skip breakfast.

Step 2: Take a 15 minute nap immediately after eating a chicken nugget value meal from McDonalds.

Step 3: When you wake up, surf the internet for rare b-sides from your favorite musician. Burn a cd of your new music and play it in your car while you drive.

Step 4: Stay up an hour later than you normally do and set your alarm for an hour earlier than you normally wake up.

Step 5: Wake up as normal, hitting the snooze twice, then take your daily shower. As you are washing your hair the solution will come to you. Guaranteed or your money back. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Do you have any routines or tricks that help you find inspiration? In reality we have very little control of when inspiration will hit us. After building Font Burner last year I went through several months of waiting for my next idea. All I could do was wait. I couldn’t force myself to think of something. My sketchbook, where I document my ideas went practically unused for most of the summer.

The idea for Phone Feedr came to me as I lay in bed around midnight. It kept me up for hours and I had the whole site completed in my mind by morning. All that was left was the execution. Since then I have felt like I am in a zone. One idea connects to another. Ideas that have been dormant for literally years have resurfaced thanks to a new insights. My sketchbook is active again and I feel like I have to write things down for fear of forgetting them. No joke, I had a dream that I was working on a website for work. In my dream I had added a feature that hadn’t even crossed my mind while I was awake. The next day I remembered the dream, and thought, “Wow, that is actually a pretty good idea.

I don’t want to sound like I some kind of a genius or anything. Most of my ideas are crap and I won’t know it until some time in the future when I can look back at them with objectivity. But that doesn’t matter. The thrill of creating something is my drug. There isn’t a better feeling than being in the zone, having ideas that build off each other.

So as I sort through my ideas and try to carve out time to pursue my projects I find myself sleeping less and working longer. This is another chance to try to find a pattern to my productivity. How does sleep affect the equation? Too much sleep and I am lazy and unambitious. Too little sleep and I am impatient and easily distracted. But at about six and a half hours of sleep I am on fire. My brain is dulled just enough to make connections that a fully alert and rational mind would skim over. It lingers on the thoughts a little longer, in slow motion, spinning them around and remixing them. For the visual graph-lovers out there, it looks something like the graph on the right. There is a sweet spot of sleep where creativity peaks. I have a feeling that this is the same reason why some people use drugs.

So I am looking forward to finishing some of these ideas up and sharing them here soon. I have a couple WordPress plugins in the works. I also plan on releasing some WordPress themes. I have a significant improvement to Font Burner on the way. Some iPhone related things, and some refinements for Phone Feedr. I am really excited about it all. Better get back to work.

I recently watched a documentary about a Chuck Palahniuk conference called Postcards from the Future. For those of you who may not recognize the name, Chuck Plahniuk is the author of the book Fight Club, which was turned into one of my favorite movies. Do yourself a favor and read some of his fiction.

Unless you are a huge Palahniuk fan, I don’t know if I would recommend you rush out and watch it, but there was one section of it that I thought was especially interesting. Chuck is talking about how useless protest is compared to the power of story telling. He talks about our current times and the opportunities that are available to storytellers.

Chuck explains how as consumers of culture we have a larger archive of knowledge than any generation in the history of the world. We have more free time than anyone in history ever has. We have access to cheap and powerful technology that makes it easy to create and deliver our stories. Perhaps most importantly we have a dissatisfaction with the garbage that has flooded pop culture. It is that dissatisfaction that will compel us to create something better.

This all adds up to a time when their is huge potential for story telling to change the world. I found it really inspiring and I hope you do too. Here is the video:

I got an email this week from a person who was interested in comparing graphic design and chess. Her idea was to write a chess rule book based on the principles of design. I don’t know if that is possible, but if she can do it, I would love to read it. The whole thing has got me thinking again about how the mental activity of chess and design are similar.

The connection for me is that Chess is a game of creativity. Within the rules and structure there is an infinite amount of possibilities. You sort out the potential winning ideas from the sure losers. You avoid traps and stick clear of easily predictable moves. You narrow down your options until you are left with a few “rough drafts” that might work. No guarantees, just your best effort and the hope that it will work out the way you plan.

You also have to predict the actions and tendencies of your opponent. When you play well you are actually controlling their actions and reactions just like a well designed object will. Things fall in place and you are successful. When you play poorly, the best intentions – the seemingly fool-proof strategy- falls apart and you lose.

Design also is more of a problem solving activity than just the “make it look pretty” mentality that defines our profession to the uneducated. A creative mind can overcome a deficit of “pieces” by understanding how to use limited assets in powerful combinations. With a firm understanding of “the game” we can see possibilities that are hidden from the average person.

If you are interested in exploring the chess/design metaphor further, you can browse the Be A Design Group archive where I have talked about the connections in the past.