I recently stumbled upon an absolute diamond in the dirt when I was collecting some books from my old pad. The gem in question was a book called Creative Advertising which became my creative bible during my student days. Simply put the book is the definitive guide to creative thinking. What is creativity and what techniques can we use to be creative? This may seems an impossible question to ask as I know for sure that the most gifted creative’s are creative simply because they have no methodology or set techniques to be creative…in the case of mike kus he has no clue where his ideas are coming from! I can however reveal from my experience techniques that may help you to be creative and which can be used to generate ideas whether you are a web designer or someone else entirely!

The article is written loosely and in more bullet point format in much the same way ideas come in bits and pieces.

Creativity demands abundance, so make it your objective to take lots of different routes without too much critical thought. The best artists are prolific…be similarly prolific…don’t think too hard just do it!

If a concept isn’t working come away from it and take a completely different route…in these early stages don’t try and force ideas or concepts. Step away and give your subconscious mind a chance to solve the problem. The subconscious mind is a key thing to understand for creative’s…knowing when to step away.

Have fun and flow.

Never say no to idea…run with it.

The best ideas and designs take time. The more time you think and analyse the product or service, from every possible angle and even physically play with the product the more your ideas will flow.

Stimulate all 5 senses…come face to face with the product or experience the service.

Doodle on your pad before you go to screen…use physical mood boards if possible.

Ping-Pong ideas with others. I will always remember this quote, it is one of my faves:

Good ideas come from individuals…Great ideas come from the chemistry between them

Make mistakes

Develop new ideas from old. Reuse old designs-article coming next week touching more upon this.

Here are a few specific techniques for web designers which you may want to experiment with during your creative process:

• Metaphors

• Patterns

• Perspective

• Colours

• Scale – play with different scales small to XXL!

• Symbols and signs

• Use different fonts

• Create a story from the USP

• Play with the absurd / surreal

• Overlap and combine elements

• Transparencies

• Exaggerate / multiply

• Segment and separate imagery

• Turn it around or upside down

• Create an optical illusion

• Play with time

• Use textures

• Create a spoof/ parody or joke from the USP

That is all… try It. In future articles I will be looking at specific techniques to generate ideas namely .the morphological mix which is perfect for ideas generation. This is only the first phase the next phase involves developing an idea….have a read of the book to learn more about this one, it is too long for me to go into today!

Ps. Apologies for the image today…yes it is an istock image but I did at least put it in a composition.

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