Priyansh Mangal

Priyansh Mangal | Thursday, June 7th, 2018

Hello, everyone! I feel that as either final projects come along or as you start summer ones, it may be good to address the different ways I’ve learned to get inspired or to ideate! Here’s a quick list of tips that could possibly help creatives out!

Visit your subject matter! Say your project is to design branding or a poster (or maybe just make an illustration) for… a movie theatre or a coffee shop. Go to that theatre or that coffee shop! You may know how these places look like and you may go there so frequently that you could draw it from memory, but being there and in the scene will definitely get some ideas rolling. Instead of the cliche “oh, coffee shop means I need a mug” or “movie theatre means I should use popcorn”, you can grab a lot of creative ideas from the vibe of areas as well!

Do your research! This sort of goes hand in hand with visiting your subject matter. We’ll continue the coffee shop example… where does coffee come from? Is that company known for something specific about their coffee? What makes their coffee so great? Make sure you’re still in the essence of coffee. Why do people go to coffee shops? Ask all the questions that you can because your answers may spark something.

Make an inspiration board! I used to be against this when I was younger because I thought I would get an idea in my head from someone else and then accidentally copy them. The trick is to gather everything that inspires you, take what you like, leave what you don’t, make something, and then make sure it doesn’t look like any of the pieces you gathered. You can take an idea from something, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it exactly in that way. For example, say you like how the smoke of the coffee makes the name of the shop. Why do you like that? It’s typography integration with an aspect of the coffee. Maybe the coffee itself instead of the smoke? Maybe it’s done in a different way. Understand why you like it and then make it happen!

What do you want to say? The connotation is very important no matter what kind of art you’re doing. A feeling or an idea should be expressed, so make sure you get that down before you start to say you’re stuck! Maybe you need to look at it in a different way. Maybe instead of saying “What do I love about coffee?” say “What do I hate about coffee and how is our coffee not like that?”. Solve a problem, say you love something in another way, say why people should care about what you’re selling, make sure you’re saying what you want to say.

Word association (it’s almost like a game)! Say your words are “coffee” and “shop”. Now, get out a blank piece of paper and write all the words you would associate with these terms. Things like “beans”, “liquid”, “black”, “brown”, and so on will probably be the first things that you think of, which is completely okay! But how do you make an interesting or original idea? You keep going past the obvious and maybe you find something that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise!

Literally just put down everything. Even if it’s an instant throw-away idea that would not work in a million years, write it down and draw it out! Exhaust all of your ideas and make sure to get all the bad ideas out of your system and the good ideas onto paper!

And that’s all I’ve got at the moment! Feel free to reblog and add your own tips too if you have them! In this day and age, there are so many ways to get inspired and I’m sure I didn’t list all of them!

I hope this helped get you out of your creative rut and helped you get moving!