Creativity… on demand!

The creative process can be perplexing, elusive and difficult to duplicate. Some days, I sit down and the ideas just flow. Other days, it’s like pulling teeth just to string a sentence together. I don’t know what variables have to be in place or which planets need to align for one situation to occur and not the other. But I’m always looking for ideas to spark the little creativity hamster in my head and get him running around his little wheel.

The Verve team brings you these tips, plus a few from the www.
From Amy:

• Don’t look at just other designs to get ideas – look at fabrics, furniture or fashion
• Use tools like Kuler for great color inspiration (maybe set a timer first, you can look for hours)
• Go shoe shopping

From Devon:

• Step away for five minutes
• Read part of a book or magazine
• Catch up on blog reading or emails that don’t require thinking

From me:

• Catch up on gossip – celebrity blogs are my dirty little (no so) secret
• Spend time outside with one adorable toddler
• Work on something unrelated for a while, maybe grade papers

Some ideas I’ve found trolling the Internets today:

• Get your box of crayons back. Hugh at Gaping Void says we’re all born creatives and we all get a box of crayons in kindergarten and we need to get those crayons back. This is tip 6 of 30. (I’ll add that subscribing to Hugh’s blog via email or a feed reader is also a nice creativity boost. Thanks for the inspiration, Hugh!)
• Listen to Bach? I’ve not tried this one. I have heard about the research that you think better when you’re listening to music with a beat.
• Try mind mapping. My favorite tool is Bubbl.us if you’re doing it online, or crayons (see tip above) if you’re doing it by hand.
• Look at what others are doing. What can you learn from the best designs, the best campaigns, the best ideas around. At Verve, we’re always interested in learning from the master’s in our fields. We read voraciously, participate in networking groups and talk at length about how we can apply industry best practices to what we’re doing in our day -to-day work

Anything you’d add?  What’s your favorite tip for creative sparkage?

Thanks for the idea for this post, Tamar. See? Another creativity idea – give and ye shall receive.