Stage 1 of the creative process: Curiosity
This is the second post on the creative process. It is based on the Rooster Talk I shared at the Glove Factory on Friday 3rd December 2021.
The first post asked What is Creativity?
Creativity is fuelled by curiosity
To find inspiration and be creative, we need to go beyond the confines of what we do day to day and hunt out a diverse range of ideas, designs and knowledge. To collect as many different dots, so that one day in the future we make a connection and something new emerges.
“Stay curious” is the first thing you see when you arrive at a DO Lectures event on the outskirts of Cardigan. This photo was taken when I was lucky enough to attend Makers + Mavericks in October 2021.
Keeping your mind open
50 inspirational objects and design - a wonderful book by Paul Smith
Paul Smith said:
“Inspiration is everywhere. It could be taking photographs through a viewfinder, which teaches you to look. It could be finding inspiration in texture, such as a rough wall next to a shiny door... It could be a Matisse painting, a movie, often it's an artist. It’s all there if you want it."
I love the way he describes the source of creativity. It's liberating to think that nothing you read, learn or see is wasted. You are free to look anywhere knowing that something may be of use at some time in the future.
Perhaps the best example of combining different disciplines and opening your mind to inspire creativity is the Bauhaus school.
“The mind is like an umbrella. It’s most useful when open”
Walter Gropius, who uttered these wise words, founded Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany in 1919. His vision was to bring arts and crafts together so that each discipline could learn from and inspire each other. The school became a hub for Europe’s most experimental creatives in the inter-war years.
It was not only a design movement, but a cultural movement. An attempt to blur the lines between craftsmen and artists. To embrace the opportunities given by mass production and marry functional design with aesthetic pleasure.
“Form follows function” and “less is more” were the revolutionary principles they developed which give a rich source of inspiration to many designers today.
The Bauhaus influence on the modern world in furniture design, graphic design, architecture, textiles, photography, typography and painting is all around you.
That’s where curiosity, collaboration and an open mind can get you.
Look everywhere
(Thank you Dave Trott for the following story from his book One+One=Three).
Dave Wakefield knew David Bowie was going to make it. They played in a band together in the mid-60's when Bowie was called David Jones. While his band mates listened to rock 'n roll, Bowie would listen to anything he could find that captured his interest - musicals, oompah music, whale songs, Japanese music, opera...
He was listening to a mix of music nobody else was listening to. He was soaking it all in.
He didn't know if he'd use any of it, but he knew something might trigger an idea and take him down a different avenue.
Paul Smith (again) tells a similar story about Bowie.
"When David Bowie came to my room, which is full of stuff, he just couldn’t stop asking questions. “Where’s that from? What’s that book about?” He had this lovely curious mind and that’s why his songs and his persona and chameleon way existed, was because he was always ready for the next thing, and turning it into something different.”
Follow your curiosity down any rabbit whole that interests you. Each thing you look at may not be original in it own right, but when you start combining different elements it will start to become unique to you. Nobody else will be looking down those exact same rabbit holes.
Or as Howard Bloom said:
“It is not the amount of knowledge that makes a brain. It is not even the distribution of knowledge. It is the interconnectedness."
Outsiders
Gareth Southgate is different to other England football managers. Not only is he quite successful, but he also looks outside the confines of football for advice. Instead of surrounding himself with people like him, he has gathered an electic bunch of people from different sports, from business, technology and the military.
He says:
"I like listening to people who know things that I don't. That's how you learn."
For the previous three decades, England football managers had relied on other footballing men to advise. But they had all had similar experiences and weren't offering any new perspectives - just affirmation of existing ideas.
It was a problem confronting the CIA after 9/11. Since it's foundation in 1947 they had recruited talented people but they were from a narrow demographic of white, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon, protestant males. They missed clues in the lead up to the terrorist attacks because they had no-one with different life experiences challenging them to look for new threats.
Similarly about a decade ago, Google were questioning why innovative ideas were becoming rarer. It was because they were hiring people from the same universities who were being taught similar things. They changed their recruitment policies.
Copy
Picasso famously said “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
Will Gompertz tells the story of Picasso's first exhibition in 1901 at the Vollard Gallery. The paintings were derivative of late 19th century artists Toulouse- Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet and Cezanne.
The show was a success but Picasso knew that he had to develop his own style if he was going to become a great artist. He began by copying from his predecessors. By understand their techniques and exhaust what he could learn from them. Only then could he strike out and do something uniquely his own.
Likewise, the Beatles began by covering songs and copying the styles of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly before they started to write their own songs. Apparently they did quite well.
New recruits to Apple's Design Studio are reportedly shown a series of 11 lithographs of a bull by Picasso (see below). Picasso starts the series by copying Durer and Goya before using each drawing to strip down the bull to the simplest form. Apple recruits are shown this series to demonstrate the necessity of removing the unimportant and concentrating only on the essential.
Picasso copies Durer and Goya. Apple copy Picasso. And so the world continues to spin.
It’s good to copy. Groundbreaking artists, musicians and scientists are doing it all of the time. Your curiosity will find the best people to copy from. After a while you will absorb your different influences and create something new.
Drop-in
Continuing the Apple theme, Steve Jobs delivered his inspirational Stanford Commencement Address in 2005 (it's worth taking 15 minutes of your time to watch it in full).
He shares a story about him dropping out of college but staying on campus to follow his "curiosity and intuition” and stumble upon lectures. One was on calligraphy which turned out to be "priceless." He learned about typefaces, spacing and what makes typography great. He didn't use any of this until 10 years later. When Apple was designing the first Macintosh computer he introduced beautiful typography which played a major part in making the Mac stand out from its competitors.
He summed it up wonderfully by saying:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
I'll finish with Paul Smith:
"You can find inspiration in everything. If you can’t, then you’re not looking properly. That means looking, and seeing. It’s all about using your eyes. It’s all there for you, free of charge."
Go out, look up, take it in and then move on. One day it might inspire you to create something.
Coming soon: Stage 2 of the Creative Process - Play.
Read the first post: What is Creativity?
