I’ve been reflecting a lot this week about creative process for this class, as well as GRDS 701.  What I’ve really learned is that each creative process is unique depending on the person.  We can’t expect all designers to fall into a perfectly outlined process and always expect the most creative outputs.  Through all of our readings this quarter, some processes are centered on moments of frustration, possibilities of unexpected meanings, trying to shock, inspire or question the things around us.  For me, my creative process seems to always be changing.  I always start out the same with sketching, but I have found that most of my creative process is done away from my desk, my office, my computer and even my house.  I always find it essentially to understand who I am striving to design for and the more I research what has been done successfully and unsuccessfully to solve these problems the more I begin to formulate what I want to do.  Like I wrote earlier, a large part of my creative process is done outside; watching people, watching nature, just observing what surrounds me.  While I might be designing something for a computer screen, I may find inspiration from someone walking their dog.  It is through this observation exploration that I realized that I enjoy a disruptive wonder for both the audience and myself.  I enjoy finding a solution that seems so obvious that I wonder “wait, has someone done it before?”  I enjoy moments that make people stop and think and as often as possible, make them laugh.  I enjoy my creative to be fun, interactive and inquisitive.  These are the moments I strive for because I do think design plays a huge role in how we feel on a day to day basis.

Has it been the longer I was working as a design “professional” the more my creative process was centered around a deadline or what a client wants?  Is it that I work mostly with electronic mediums so I instinctively go to the computer?  I don’t know if I have the answer yet, but I did realize this week that I have set a new personal goal for myself while in graduate school, to try and design as much as possible, project permitting, NOT at the computer.  This was a really foreign idea to me.  I kept thinking, how will I do this?  But then I started thinking about the graphic designers I admire;  Paul Rand and Milton Glaser and they both boomed in our industry in a “non-digital” environment.  Can I do this?  Am I a strong enough designer not to rely on a computer to fix a crooked line?  Can I explore an idea far enough without the fear of having to crumble up a piece of paper if it doesn’t work out? And I really wonder if non-digital graphic design still has a place in our profession.

I quickly got to set my goal in motion this week for a project for GRDS 702 that I have decided to do mostly designing off the computer.  My neighbor is a fine arts student at SCAD and I sat down with her over the weekend to do some brainstorming and I found her creative process so interesting.  We were sketching with different mediums and I realized each time she did it, she always grabbed a small piece of paper from a notebook.  I asked her what it was and she said it was her experimenting notebook.  She pulled it out and leafed through all these pieces of paper that had different patterns, motifs, drawings sketches almost anything she felt like experimenting with.  Whether it was a new paint, marker, ink, whatever, she would just doodle with it to learn how it flowed, how it would blend with other colors or mediums.  It was something I typically do on a white artboard in Photoshop or Illustrator and then hit the delete button when I’m finished and I thought about how many possibilities I probably erased at the click of a button.

It’s been a fun goal so far and I’m really looking forward to the challenge down the road!

This is something that I want to work more into my creative process, as well as in the ways I present my process.  I want to step away from the computer and use my hands.  It was not that long ago, the early 80’s, when graphic design was still an art with your hands and required artistic fine art skills.  I feel so much of that creative process has been bypassed with the computer and I have fallen pretty to it as well.  Why do we feel the need to associate graphic design with the computer?  Again, I find myself just as guilty of this process and it wasn’t until this quarter that I really began to notice, understand, and appreciate the value of using my hands to work through my creative process.

The other thought I have after looking at all three process books is how different each one is.  Sure, there are the generic sections that include research, brainstorming, ideations, etc., but each one has it’s own unique voice.  This is what I think if the main benefit of examining all three, to help me better understand that while there may be overall guidelines to a creative process, we each have our own individual process we work through and that is OK.  I think about my work environment, and how clients, or even my bosses want things to be in the same template for every design presentation.  We have to hit on specific line items the client lays out and I have found that this is actually a very restrictive process.  While I understand the intent is to be efficient in a “business” environment, I have really learned this quarter that you never know where creativity may get its influences.

That is what I have learned about my creative flow; I can’t force it, I can’t make it happen, I just have to be open and patient and have confidence that it will happen.  Yes, there are times when I’m up against a deadline at work, or at school, and I begin to worry that nothing is sparking in my mind, but I try to continually remind myself to just trust myself because it will come.  I try to remind myself of this during all steps of my creative process, but I admit that I sometimes forget it particularly at the beginning when I’m researching, reading and trying to find answers.  It’s not until I get to sit down and create that I take a breath and try to stay open.  I would like to insert this reminder during my research and collaboration steps of my creative process.  In my earlier post I identified my greatest weakness as my bias to just jump right into a solution and I feel that is because I am blocking my own creative flow to get the job done.  If I can be committed to staying open through all phases of my creative process, I think my experience of flow may actually come sooner and perhaps make the rest of the process easier.

In an ideal world, this diagram would be my creative process.  To start, I receive a task.  Whether it’s from a client, my boss, my teacher, a friend, whatever it all starts with someone saying “Hey, we need this!”  Maybe even me saying it.  The next step is to learn about it.  The basic who, what, where, why, when questions that must be answered or I feel a little lost.  Then I begin to research it.  Oftentimes a task is centered on a business that I have no knowledge of. On any given day I might be working with a custom home builder, the military, a non-profit and a pet service company.  By no means do I know the ins and outs of these businesses, or their audience.  This part of my process is always the longest.  I find I struggle with a design if I don’t understand the business.  I find that research and collaborate go hand in hand quiet often.  Most of the time the individuals that assist me with my research are also the decision makers during the project.  While I’m learning about what they do, we continually bounce ideas off each other, brainstorm and explore possibilities.  Then comes the fun part – I get to create!  This is always the part I enjoy the most, taking all of the information I’ve collected and put it all together.  I love making sense of chaos in a creative way.   Then sometimes it’s back to the drawing board for revisions,  hopefully not too many because I’ve listened and interpreted well at the beginning of the process.  Then we’re done, but it doesn’t mean I end things there.  While in the diagram, things may visually end, but I think it’s important to always explore how anything you create can evolve and grow over time.

The skill I would welcome the most in collaborating with others is someone’s ability to “think outside the box.”  I find my biggest weakness is that I have a hard time moving beyond the expected solutions.  I think a lot of it comes from working in an environment that clients want the same thing day after day and it’s very hard to convince them to be “different.”