The 6 Indie Mistakes
this article really sums it up. Have an idea, and want to see it become real? Prepare to work really hard for it. The bigger the idea, the harder you must work.
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
On bad artistic assumptions
In creativity, I cannot stress enough the importance of research. This is not an idle bit of advice. In teaching or learning, there are many such rules and practices, which are taught and given without argument, expected to be accepted. As a student you may accept unquestioningly what you are taught, at least for the purposes of the course and the grade. Without the reasoning to back it up though, such lessons do not become knowledge, but instead become religion. Knowledge is something that you can demonstrate, and if prompted, give a convincing argument why such and such is so. Religion is merely a set of rules that you follow, without knowing why. They are in other words, a set of assumptions.
This is all very abstract without an example, so I will demonstrate now why research is important, and why a creative should not take it for granted.
Some time ago, I made a Totem painting. The basic idea I had was to paint on a 2' by 8' masonite board, a Totem Pole composed of a number of various mass cultural characters, such as the cat in the hat, kermit the frog, mickey mouse, etc. Collaged with this was images of various scenes I picked out of searching through various japanese websites and books; imagery from japanese culture; modern and traditional. While the painting was generally well recieved, it wasn't a *great* painting, and this was not due to the quality of paint I used (admittedly poor), or how much time I spent making crisp lines (not a lot).
The reason it wasn't a great painting is due to the rushed assumptions I made in the conceptual phase. The worst assumption, was the ethnocentric viewpoint that totem pole design is simple, and primative, and thus easy to imitate. The really stupid assumption that totem poles were merely stacks of heads, and yet another bad assumption that it's possible to encapsulate the subtleties of an entire culture by merely selecting a few images.
The truth is, totem pole design is as nuanced and delicate an art as font design, or classical architecture. There is a balance of line, volume, and flow which is not easily mastered. Additionally, totem poles are not merely heads- they are entire bodies, deformed yes, so that the head is the most prominant feature. But the body is still there nonetheless. There is cultural context in these deformations which again is not easily mastered. This sense of cultural context is also missing in my rushed and crass choice of japanese imagery. These assumptions, spelled out, seem obviously stupid. But these sorts of assumptions are not easy to notice, especially when you are rushed. They are not easily noticed because one does not typically think about what assumptions one holds, until they are prompted in such a critical way.
The most difficult thing about learning, is being flexible enough to recognize where you are making assumptions, and maintaining the will to discard these assumptions when it becomes necessary. This is something a teacher cannot do for you. This is why research is important: It shows you what reality IS, not what you expect it to be.
Research research.
This is all very abstract without an example, so I will demonstrate now why research is important, and why a creative should not take it for granted.
Some time ago, I made a Totem painting. The basic idea I had was to paint on a 2' by 8' masonite board, a Totem Pole composed of a number of various mass cultural characters, such as the cat in the hat, kermit the frog, mickey mouse, etc. Collaged with this was images of various scenes I picked out of searching through various japanese websites and books; imagery from japanese culture; modern and traditional. While the painting was generally well recieved, it wasn't a *great* painting, and this was not due to the quality of paint I used (admittedly poor), or how much time I spent making crisp lines (not a lot).
The reason it wasn't a great painting is due to the rushed assumptions I made in the conceptual phase. The worst assumption, was the ethnocentric viewpoint that totem pole design is simple, and primative, and thus easy to imitate. The really stupid assumption that totem poles were merely stacks of heads, and yet another bad assumption that it's possible to encapsulate the subtleties of an entire culture by merely selecting a few images.
The truth is, totem pole design is as nuanced and delicate an art as font design, or classical architecture. There is a balance of line, volume, and flow which is not easily mastered. Additionally, totem poles are not merely heads- they are entire bodies, deformed yes, so that the head is the most prominant feature. But the body is still there nonetheless. There is cultural context in these deformations which again is not easily mastered. This sense of cultural context is also missing in my rushed and crass choice of japanese imagery. These assumptions, spelled out, seem obviously stupid. But these sorts of assumptions are not easy to notice, especially when you are rushed. They are not easily noticed because one does not typically think about what assumptions one holds, until they are prompted in such a critical way.
The most difficult thing about learning, is being flexible enough to recognize where you are making assumptions, and maintaining the will to discard these assumptions when it becomes necessary. This is something a teacher cannot do for you. This is why research is important: It shows you what reality IS, not what you expect it to be.
Research research.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
The value of the creative brief
During the development of an idea, it's easy to lose sight of your original vision. You begin to see new things in your work, and it carries you in new directions. Often during this process you end up with something very different from that which you originally intended to create. During the process, you forget the problem that you set out to solve, and judge your work purely on its aesthetics, or the feeling of the moment.
The creative brief is the solution and recognition of this situation.
A creative brief is a written, detailed description of the design problem to be tackled. It is not simply a statement of the problem (a brochure needs to be created), but also gives you relevant facts about the client, their target market, the market goals they wish to achieve, their history as a company, the intended message which needs to be conveyed, and any other relevant information. A good creative breif gets beyond the simple question of "What do you want", and instead sets in a number of parameters which define a "space", what is often referred to as the "Problem Space". Within this defined space exists viable solutions, and beyond it lay non solutions. In theory. A really good design process will recognize when a creative breif is inadequate, and midway through redefine the problem, perhaps in different words, perhaps from a different perspective. For instance, a creative brief might stipulate that the client needs a business card for her florist business. A designer, after some meetings with the client, might redefine the problem as "The client wishes to attract more business from engaged couples, and stay within a budget of under $4000"
The key here, is the more detailed you get, the more you crystalize a vision of what the problem *really* is, the more productive the design process becomes.
Through each revision, and at the end of the process, ask yourself: "Does this *really* solve the problem?". be thoughtful and honest to yourself (or others) in giving the answer. If you answer no, ask yourself why, and you will understand what revisions need to be done. If you answer yes, be careful that you are not deceiving yourself. There is no such thing as a perfect solution- But within a problem space there are many possible solutions. Is this the best one?
This may seem stupidly obvious, but in this complex mesh of theories and processes that is the design process, it is easy to lose sight of what is obvious, and get lost in the details of implementation.
The creative brief is the solution and recognition of this situation.
A creative brief is a written, detailed description of the design problem to be tackled. It is not simply a statement of the problem (a brochure needs to be created), but also gives you relevant facts about the client, their target market, the market goals they wish to achieve, their history as a company, the intended message which needs to be conveyed, and any other relevant information. A good creative breif gets beyond the simple question of "What do you want", and instead sets in a number of parameters which define a "space", what is often referred to as the "Problem Space". Within this defined space exists viable solutions, and beyond it lay non solutions. In theory. A really good design process will recognize when a creative breif is inadequate, and midway through redefine the problem, perhaps in different words, perhaps from a different perspective. For instance, a creative brief might stipulate that the client needs a business card for her florist business. A designer, after some meetings with the client, might redefine the problem as "The client wishes to attract more business from engaged couples, and stay within a budget of under $4000"
The key here, is the more detailed you get, the more you crystalize a vision of what the problem *really* is, the more productive the design process becomes.
Through each revision, and at the end of the process, ask yourself: "Does this *really* solve the problem?". be thoughtful and honest to yourself (or others) in giving the answer. If you answer no, ask yourself why, and you will understand what revisions need to be done. If you answer yes, be careful that you are not deceiving yourself. There is no such thing as a perfect solution- But within a problem space there are many possible solutions. Is this the best one?
This may seem stupidly obvious, but in this complex mesh of theories and processes that is the design process, it is easy to lose sight of what is obvious, and get lost in the details of implementation.
The flood
The important thing to remember about ideas, is that they are not important. This will probably violate a lot of people's feelings about ideas, but it's true. Ideas are cheap. It's the execution that matters. This is why I have no problem writing all my ideas out here. It doesn't serve me any function to jealously keep all my ideas secret, in fear that someone will steal them. I am not the scriptwriter that accuses the producer, who rejected my script, of stealing the very ideas within it. The value of ideas has become very distorted in modern western culture. This could go on to become a lengthy discussion about copyright law, but that is not why I am writing this post.
So, let's take it as a given that ideas are a dime a dozen. Suppose I fill this blog up with a dozen ideas a month. How do I determine which ideas are worth pursuing? Which ones should I invest real time in bringing to reality? I Think this is related to the question I asked in the first post. How do you define a person? Another (more sexist) form of the question is "What is the measure of a man". It's a question about measuring the potential of a person. It's a question about predicting what that person is likely to do in the future. Depending on how you look at it, it's also about how a person is percieved. It seems shallow, but social perception is important. So when you are judging a person, what factors go into your judgement? What do you look for to decide whether someone is a genius, or a peasant?
Perhaps it is what a person has done in the past. If it is, then really, you are judging a person based on what ideas they chose to act upon, out of the sea of ideas. So one must choose carefully, as the ideas one chooses, determines who they are, or at least how they will be judged.
Many people will chose ideas based on their marketability. Perhaps there's a certain cool factor. Perhaps they've fallen in love with a particular technology. (lots of people have fallen in love with AJAX, lately). Most people don't think about the criteria they use for choosing what to act on. They just do things because they feel good, or they do things because they think it is expected from them by other people. Some people just have a really nice hammer, and are out looking for things that look like nails. Others just want to be seen doing the same things as everyone else, and desperately want to be thought of as cool or normal.
As a Graphic Designer, I am trained to start with a problem. Once I've established the exact nature of the problem, I must think of as many possible solutions as possible. The flood of ideas. The more you can think of, the better. The idea that wins, is the one that solves the most aspects of the problem. The progression design history has not been a progression of new ideas, but the identification of new aspects of the same old problems. Modernist architecture fullfilled all the needs of a human being, through the triumph of science.
That is what the architects thought. They've thought of the optimal size of the kitchen, the living room, how many bathrooms there should be, where they should be located, how high the ceilings should be, what the best materials are, how to give just enough space to someone so they don't feel cramped, but not so much that high density living is not possible.
They forgot that humans don't like living in featureless boxes. So Postmodernism is about the discovery of the human aspects of problem solving. Unlike modernism, Post-Modernism doesn't strive for purity, or the triumph of man over nature. Post modernism accepts everyone and everything for exactly what it really is. Post modernism doesn't reject history, it doesnt' reject science, it doesnt' reject pointless decoration or starkness. Post modernism is the relentless search for new aspects to old problems, and it has erased the boundary lines for future eras of art, and replaced them with a smooth continuous forward march away from the myopia of modernism.
So how do I choose which ideas to pursue? I don't. The best thing to do is choose which problems to pursue, and investigate as many aspects of the problem as I can, in a thoughtful and methodical way. The ideas will sort themselves.
So, let's take it as a given that ideas are a dime a dozen. Suppose I fill this blog up with a dozen ideas a month. How do I determine which ideas are worth pursuing? Which ones should I invest real time in bringing to reality? I Think this is related to the question I asked in the first post. How do you define a person? Another (more sexist) form of the question is "What is the measure of a man". It's a question about measuring the potential of a person. It's a question about predicting what that person is likely to do in the future. Depending on how you look at it, it's also about how a person is percieved. It seems shallow, but social perception is important. So when you are judging a person, what factors go into your judgement? What do you look for to decide whether someone is a genius, or a peasant?
Perhaps it is what a person has done in the past. If it is, then really, you are judging a person based on what ideas they chose to act upon, out of the sea of ideas. So one must choose carefully, as the ideas one chooses, determines who they are, or at least how they will be judged.
Many people will chose ideas based on their marketability. Perhaps there's a certain cool factor. Perhaps they've fallen in love with a particular technology. (lots of people have fallen in love with AJAX, lately). Most people don't think about the criteria they use for choosing what to act on. They just do things because they feel good, or they do things because they think it is expected from them by other people. Some people just have a really nice hammer, and are out looking for things that look like nails. Others just want to be seen doing the same things as everyone else, and desperately want to be thought of as cool or normal.
As a Graphic Designer, I am trained to start with a problem. Once I've established the exact nature of the problem, I must think of as many possible solutions as possible. The flood of ideas. The more you can think of, the better. The idea that wins, is the one that solves the most aspects of the problem. The progression design history has not been a progression of new ideas, but the identification of new aspects of the same old problems. Modernist architecture fullfilled all the needs of a human being, through the triumph of science.
That is what the architects thought. They've thought of the optimal size of the kitchen, the living room, how many bathrooms there should be, where they should be located, how high the ceilings should be, what the best materials are, how to give just enough space to someone so they don't feel cramped, but not so much that high density living is not possible.
They forgot that humans don't like living in featureless boxes. So Postmodernism is about the discovery of the human aspects of problem solving. Unlike modernism, Post-Modernism doesn't strive for purity, or the triumph of man over nature. Post modernism accepts everyone and everything for exactly what it really is. Post modernism doesn't reject history, it doesnt' reject science, it doesnt' reject pointless decoration or starkness. Post modernism is the relentless search for new aspects to old problems, and it has erased the boundary lines for future eras of art, and replaced them with a smooth continuous forward march away from the myopia of modernism.
So how do I choose which ideas to pursue? I don't. The best thing to do is choose which problems to pursue, and investigate as many aspects of the problem as I can, in a thoughtful and methodical way. The ideas will sort themselves.
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