A year ago I decided to start a daily design project. I chose to design posters and digital artwork, as that’s what I always loved creating. My goal was to practice creativity in a consistent, playful and non-restrictive way.
One of the most common misconceptions about creativity is that one should wait for inspiration, for an idea to appear and become your driving force. I believe, in most of the cases, inspiration is something that comes to you during the work process. Creativity can be trained, like a muscle. To train something, or turn it into a habit, you need to commit to it fully and make this exercise non-negotiable for an extended period of time.
It’s best to start with something small, something that you don’t have to think about too much or debate whether you should it do or not. I’ve noticed, that most of the times when I would open my computer, even when I had no idea what I wanted to create, inspiration would come. My initial commitment was very simple - “sit down once a day to design a poster”. Many things, including this exhibition and also new projects, have unfolded from that.
Often I would end up producing mediocre work. Sometimes even work that I really disliked. But it still felt like I’m on my path, it took me somewhere, I learned something from it. Being too afraid to produce shit work can be very limiting and can prevent you from producing great or any work.
We are often in awe when we see a football player score an amazing goal. If we talk to his coach, he will tell us that he’s seen him score the same goal over and over during his endless, exhausting and repetitive practices. I think if we take greatness, inspiration, and creativity off their pedestal and view them as something more earthly, they become way less scary and much more manageable.