Inspiration creativity

Many people might confuse about creativiy. How to be more creative?  How to inspire creativity? Where to find our inspiration? Creativity is everywhere. No matter what we see, what we smell,what we hear and even what we feel, it might inspire us. Creativity is very important in our life especially for those who are in design field. For those designers that work in company, they could not simply leave their work place. Therefore, they will  sit in front of computer to do research which can inspire them. They might looking for the others nice  work as reference. Free-lance designers prefer to explore more new things which are not around them. They might have a short travel to another place. Maybe they will walk around to look for something that is special and can inspire them. No matter how, exploration is very important to those who want to inspire their creativity.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a creativity technique help us to generate a large number of ideas for a project and also solution for a problem. Normally, this method will be used in group discussion. At first, participants with different knowledge will come together. They will bring various types of ideas and solutions. For sure we will come up with a lot of ideas no matter good or bad at the beginning. The big advantage is we can learn a lot of new things from each other since everyone might come from different background. Everyone has the own ideas and experiences. Once the ideas become more and more, they will discuss and filter out those unsatisfied ideas or improve it to get the best solution. This method is not only help to inspire creativity but also help to improve teamwork in a group since the final solution must be agreed by majority

Creativity of kids

What is creativity? Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas, a different perspective view on something and explore new thing with own knowledge. Creativity is important because it brings out  new and exciting ideas and activities that are unique to a person.

In my opinion, kids are more creative compared with adults and they might be the most creative group among all people. Adults tend to be hard to generate their new ideas compared to kids. Sometimes, they might have new ideas but don't dare to explore it. They might be worry too much about the result, afraid of the bad consequences. They don't feel like take adventure. Sometimes, they have their ideas but lazy to explore it until the another person generate the same idea and successful. They will only  feel regret not  explore it earlier and blame themselves.

Kids are totally different with adult. They like to figure out something interesting and fun. They tend to be more creative just because they are still small and naive. They might think lesser about the consequences compared with adults. People might think that what they done will bring bad effect. But they do not realise that dreaming doesn't help. The most important is take action. If you never try, no matter how creative you are, you are just dreaming.

Dot

When we see a lot of dots, there is a implied line will  lead our eyes to connect all the dots. Implied line is an invisible line that will automatically lead our eyes to connect all the dots and form an object. We do not have to learn it since it is our natural reaction. We could not really see a real object but we can feel it because of implied line.

Dot to dot drawing is a form of drawing in which numbered dots on page must be connected in ascending order to create a final picture. Most of the kids should play this game before including me when I was small. Once we use pencil to connect all the dots by following the numbers, we can see the form of the object in the dot drawing. It is not only easy and fun but also and educational game that help to inspire imagination and creativity of kids. As we know, dots form line. Lines form  hape and shapes form object. 

Point of Purchase Display

What is point of purchase display? It is a marketing materials placed next to the merchandise it is promoting. These items are generally located at the checkout area or other location where the purchase decision is made. Normally, we can see that the checkout counters of many convenience stores are cluttered with candy or cigarette POP display.

I still remember last time, our Creative Communication Design tutor asked us to create a POP display. I chose M&M Milk Chocolate as my product and christmas as my display theme. At first, I planned to use christmas tree model as my POP display. When I showed the tutor all my sketches, she was just rejected my sketches directly. She asked me to think more about christmas and what else can represent christmas since everyone will know what am i going to present once they see my display and no suprise at all.After that , I was thinking that what else can represent a cheerful and sweet christmas.Santa Claus?Snowing? Or elf? At last, I design a gingerbread house model as my POP display and this ides had been approved. The reason I used gingerbread house is once we look at the display, we can feel how "chocolate" it is and how sweet it is. Besides, it is also one of the christmas tradition which can strongly represent christmas.

This is my M&M Milk Chocolate POP Display.

Colours expresses feeling

Colour is a very amazing tools. Colours can be divided as warm and cool colours. Warm colour is from red to end of the spectrum while cool colour is from  blue to the other end. It is not only can make something look more interesting but also communicate with people. Colour is involved in psychological theory. It help us to express our feeling.

These are some of the colours expression meaning

Black- death, mystery, unbearable, evil, criminality, hidden aspects, sinister, depression, grief, pain, hopelessness 

Blue- old, peace, depression, sadness, relax, calm, piety, wisdom, introspection, solitude, loneliness

Brown- wood, comfort, ground, earth, substance, worn 

Gold- value, honour, luxury

Green- nature, fertility, balance, youth, water.

Grey- neutrality, sadness.

Orange- strength, endurance, warm.

Red- love, passionate, excitement, appetite, health, courage, hot, danger, aggressiveness, power

Purple- royalty, high range

Yellow- hope, joy, sun, delicate, spiritually, innovation, intelligence

White- purity, innocence, cleanness, cold.

                         This is chinese style wedding. Bride wears red which represent happiness.

                             This is western style wedding. Bride wears white which represent purity.

Black represent sadness and death.

                                                           Gold represent loyalty and wealth.

                                                           Green represent nature and grassy

Light Painting

Light painting is a fun technique that gives great results. It is a technique that painting with light because what we are actually do is moving hand-held light source or moving the camera.
When I went for shooting with friends at I-City, we met a photographer which is my friend's photography teacher. We felt glad to know him because he shared a lot of shooting skill with us and also the person who make us know what is light painting and how to do that. 
There are 4 things that we need for light painting is a long exposure shutter setting camera, tripod, a flash light such as torch light and a dark location. Painting with light is very interesting because it can form a colorful and bright figure in a dark location. Besides, it is quite easy to be formed because we don't really need a professional skill.

                                        These are light painting by moving laser lorch light

                                              This is light painting by moving the camera

Illustration

As we know, a picture is worth a thousand words. Illustration is an artwork that contain information such as story or poem. It can be drawing, painting or photography.
There are a lot of famous illustrators such as Greg Becker, Kat Cameron, Jimmy Liao, Owen Carson, Victoria Ball and etc. One of a illustrator as well as book picture writer that I prefer is Jimmy Liao (幾米). He is a famous Taiwanese illustrator. Those illustrations that he creates are recognized by chinese worldwide.  His illustration theme is always based on love, dream and realistic.

                                                   The Starry Starry Night. Theme: Love

                                              The Monster who ate darkness. Theme: Dream

                                                 
                                            Don't blame me, it's not my fault. Theme: Realistic

                        His illustration is just very simple and those figures are even out of proportion.


But the way that he creates his work does attract a lot of readers no matter children, teenagers and adults. He uses simple ways to create extremely creative artwork that able to inspire and motivate his readers. 

Pencil sketch

There is a lot of materials for us to create an artwork such as oil paint, acrylic paint, colour pencil, charcoal, ink and pencil. One of the material that I prefer is pencil. By using pencil, I can create a lot of techniques such as cross hatch, horizontal hatch, vertical hatch, blend and dot to create different effects. B series pencils are important for me to improve the tint, tone and shade of an artwork. For example, HB pencil helps me to produce light tone effect. According to the number of B series pencils, the increases the number of B pencil, the darker the tone can be produced.
In my opinion, I don't think that we can only use colour to produce interesting artwork since pencils may help me to create a lot of interesting effect.

This is an artwork that created by using B series pencils.

Black Fairy Tale

Fairy tale is a dream for human no matter children or adults.

Cinderella is going to marry the prince after she proves that she is the owner of glass shoes

Snow White is kissed by the prince and the poison is cure.

Princess Aurora sleeps for 100 years and finally wake up once Prince Philip kisses her.
A cruel prince turns to a beast because of a curse and at the end turn back to a prince because of a kiss.

Happy ending has always been expected when people is watching fairy tale.

So how about black fairy tale?
Every people questions Scissorhands Edward's personality after Jim framed him.
One day, Edward accidentally kill Jim just because he wants to protect his lover, Kim.
At the end, they forced to be separated.
Edward Scissorhands is one of the successful black fairy tale.
It is a good example for us how to be creative as it break the traditional concept of fairy tale.
It is a big changes among all the fairy tale since nobody can expect the sad ending.
It's just like we have to create something different to discover and develop our creativity.

Edward cannot hug Kim tightly because of his scissorhands.

Basketball

Less people know that the diameter of a regulation basketball is 25cm. And the diameter of a basketball hoop is approximately 45.5cm which mean a basketball hoop is larger about 20cm than a basketball. This 20cm is a very hard and also far distance for every basketball player. People might think that it is a boring and even a dumb game since 10 players run here run there until sweating and tired just to fight for a ball. But once they did it, their future will be bright. Some people play basketball just because they really love it. Basketball is just like their spiritual. People play it no matter they feel happy, excited, angry, upset and even lost. They enjoy the feeling like flying in the sky. This help them to forget everything when they are playing basketball. Some people play basketball just for exercise. Some guys play basketball just to get attention from girls because they think themselves are charming when playing basketball. Some people play basketball just to earn money if they win a contest.  Some girls watch basketball contest just because they think that basketball players are so charming. Besides, basketball make people understand teamwork is important since solo will never work. Teamwork and time limits of contest  make us believe that never give up before the final whistle, nobody will know the answer until the last moment. No matter what reason, interest should be the main reason for a person to play basketball since this is the only long last motivation that can make them play basketball until they cannot play it anymore.
A creative idea is recognized if we develop it. When we are working, we have to finish our work before the deadline that given by client. Therefore the progress is extremely important. Work in team may help us especially in brainstorming since our team members may provide us a lot of new idea that we never discover.
But the most important is design must be our interest so we only have motivation to develop our idea and achieve it. 

This is the my first postcard design by using photoshop. Thank to my friend who teach me to use photoshop.

Time Machine

Human are quite contradict. Sometimes, we wish to turn back to the past but sometimes, we wish to go forward to the future.
When I was a kid, I wish to have a time machine. So that, I could see how am I doing in future and even how big the changes no matter successful or failure. When I was facing a lot of problems, I wish to "go to my future" to see how am I going to solve all these problems. Therefore, I don't have to squeeze my brain juice to think of solution.
The feeling is hard to be described when I am seeing my old photos.
When I am getting mature, I am thinking that how good if  I could turn back to the past. When I missed out something important, I will think that how good if I could turn back to the past. When I was regretting with what I had done, I wished to turn back to the past to prevent the problem caused. When I was thinking of the past, I wished to go back to the happiness moment and even stay at that moment forever that will never appear in my life anymore. When I had made a wrong decision, I wished to turn back to the time that I haven't make the decision.
Unfortunately, there is no time machine such thing in my life. The only thing that I can do is accept the fact, face the problem and solve it.

Magic Wand

I wish, I wish and I wish to have a magic wand.
Every people wishes to own a magic wand if it's really appear in this world.
Unfortunately, people nowadays just want to fulfill their own desires without any effort.
The feeling was so terrible when  I saw my friend's work was better than mine.
Not because of jealousy but self-abasement.
I can only blame myself because of my laziness.
If there is no pain, there won't be any gain.
Therefore, I believe that if I put more efforts, a tablet pen or even an ordinary pencil can also be my own magic wand.