The Glue Gun

 

Did you know that whilst your glue gun begins to heat itself up so you can use it, it creates it’s own little glue sculpture? I didn’t.

In fact, I had never even considered using just the glue alone as a tool to create. You could make some really interesting, stand alone, shapes with it. Something I plan to use in one of my future projects.

 

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State of Play

Last weeks resources led me to finding out that even well established creative minds such as Paula Scher and Christoph Neimann struggle to get into the right ‘mind set’ that is required for graphic design.

This gave me a relief as I discovered I wasn’t alone in this, however it did also spark a heavy concern. Why is it that we need this in order to create? How much of an impact do our environments have to play in this? In an increasingly busier world, how can we find time to be creative? If we can’t, will we lost touch?

In Christoph Neimann’s book, Abstract City, he addresses what he refers to as the ‘creative process’ which gave me a great deal of insight on how he address these types of issues.

He spoke mainly about how he works towards his ideas, by this I mean he can spend the entire day sitting at his desk or in his studio thinking solely on how to overcome what others may refer to as ‘writers block’.

As Christoph’s work is now well established and has allowed him to have a full time job in the creative business, he has the time to fully commit himself to his ideas, solutions and the creation of them. But what if you’re working a 9-5 in a completely different industry and you’re struggling with time and/or energy?

I researched to find articles online that may address these types of issues and came across an article Andrew Tate named “5 Reasons your 9-to-5 routine is killing your creativity” 

In this article he spoke about a variety of different ways creative minds have approached this in the past, some of which (not surprisingly) had huge impacts on their social life and physical health.

He then followed this up with 5 tips on how you can help yourself, one in particular stood out to me, he wrote;

“A common complaint of the creative is that they need everything just so before they can get down to work. The music has to be right, the chair comfortable, and the light just so, but what is common is that people will often work whenever and wherever they can if the ideas are there.”

After reading this I had to be honest with myself. Yes, I often find that I can’t get into the right mindset because of a lighting issues, I’m not comfortable enough or that my surroundings are too noisy. But in reality are these just excuses we make? Lies we tell ourselves when we’re struggling to figure out a concept? He then followed it up with;

“If you feel that you have ended up too specific about where and how you can work you have conditioned yourself to believe this.

These associations (I can only write well when lying in bed) develop over time and can be difficult to break. Start small by changing one aspect of your creative behaviour that you think is holding you back the most. Again, do not expect overnight miracles, but over time you will find that your bond with certain negative rituals, places, and routines can be broken as easily as positive rituals can be made.”

This is something I aim to focus on going forward with my work. To start with, I’m going to try and loosen my structure. After examining how I work, I noticed that I always seems to apply a structure even before I begin a project, with writing I constantly check whether or not paragraphs ‘flow’ as I go, and if they don’t. I stop. So to try break this, I’m going to just write what I’m thinking, then take time perhaps the next day to read through and give it the structure it will most likely need.

Here’s a few video material that I used last week. 

Jessica Walsh – State Of Play

Paula Scher – Graphic Design Is Serious

 

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Nikon Coolpix B500

 

I’ve recently been gifted a Nikon Coolpix B500 camera for my birthday and I am extremely excited to be able to use this as a tool to created new designs and ideas!

Using this I hope to create new and exciting projects using both video and photography. Here’s a few images from my first few days of using it.

Here I’ve experimented using the multiple light exposure features as well as it’s zoom and auto vs manual focus features. These images are literally taken from just playing around and finding out what I can do with the tools provided to me – I can’t wait to learn more and to start optimising it’s features to create a new style of design.