Keeping Creative!

#creativechallenges

Over the last months I have started to swim three times a week on the basis that I need to get fitter. When I started I could only do 20 lengths and that nearly killed me. Time and time again I wanted to give up, but two months later I am now swimming 50-60 lengths. I’m losing weight, feeling better in myself and just feel healthier. For far too long I have sat around wanting to get fitter, wanting to lose weight, but unfortunately waiting around does not do anything (except help you put on weight). My motivational phrase for the last few months to myself has been, “this belly ain’t going anywhere sitting on my butt”.

I have come to the conclusion, that as a graphic designer, it is no different. I need to exercise those creative muscles. For all those who are creatives, in whatever field you may find yourself in (if you are in a field you may be lost), there will be plenty of times when your creativity cannot be found. Times when your creative tank is empty and just trying to come up with new and fresh ideas creates so much stress that you just want to give up. There are days when you wonder why you do what you do, but then come to the realisation that actually you wouldn’t want to do anything else in the world.

However I can get frustrated when the ideas aren’t flowing and nothing seems to work. That being said, being creative and staying creative requires movement. Sitting at my computer looking aimlessly at the screen, hoping some creativity will pop from the sky and everything will fall in place, is not how it will most likely happen. Sometimes that does happen and those times are great, but for us as creatives we need to exercise – we need to sketch, look, take photos, challenge ourselves, learn from others, but most importantly we need to keep moving forward.

Creative-workshop

So I have set myself a design challenge using the ‘Creative Worshop’ book by David Sherwin. I won’t be doing all 80 and I can’t promise I will do one challenge a day or even one a week, but I am going to work through a few of these design challenges to sharpen my mind, my ideas and my creativity. Each challenge has a time limit which leads me to the toughest part of this challenge – vulnerability! I will upload each challenge to my blog when I have completed it to show the world.

So watch this space – Let the challenge begin. #creativechallenges