Graphic designer Carolyn Eckert has put together ideas for how to come out of the haze and focus.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/P5286570.jpg-750w.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo: Carolyn Eckert<\/p><\/div>\n
Excerpt from Your Idea Starts Here: 77 Mind-Expanding Ways to Unleash Your Creativity<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Have you ever been lost in the woods (or in the city, or parking garage)? Everything is great, until suddenly, you\u2019re not sure if you\u2019re on the right path. You don\u2019t know whether you need to go forward or back. And now, it\u2019s starting to get dark. You\u2019re tired, hungry, thirsty, a little cranky, and a slightly unnerving feeling of panic is starting to build.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what it\u2019s like to design, write, or to be in the middle of any project when you\u2019re stuck. The questions just fill your head like, \u201cI just don\u2019t know how to start,\u201d \u201cwhat do I do next?\u201d \u201cI have all of this, but how do I put it together?\u201d \u201cDoes this work?\u201d and \u201cIs this enough?\u201d You have to embrace this feeling of paranoia, knowing it\u2019s part of the process.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an old newsroom term called \u201cgathering string,\u201d which means that you\u2019re looking for something you can\u2019t quite name yet. But how do you even start to look for something when you don\u2019t know what you want to find? It helps to simplify the complicated and break down the process into three steps.<\/p>\n The first part of this process is to gather. Start accumulating anything you like that could possibly relate to your project. You\u2019re gathering inspiration.<\/p>\n PHOTO: \u00a9 Teresa Grow, Madison and Grow<\/p><\/div>\n Shown here, above, is Teresa Grow\u2019s living room. For her company, Madison and Grow, she designs patterns and textiles inspired by the places she lives and visits. The patterns on her couch pillows come from mussel shells on the beach. The shape of the woodstove inspired the pattern for the upholstery and the black and white strands of circles in her wallpaper.<\/p>\n To become more aware of your surroundings, it may be helpful to write down the details of the day: where you went, who you met, what you ate. Just the physical process of writing can make you realize or remember something you didn\u2019t notice at the time.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve gathered and gathered and have accumulated a lot of great stuff, it\u2019s time to break. Break down what you\u2019ve found into manageable chunks and determine what you\u2019ll use to move forward.<\/p>\n If you have too much information\u2014simplify. Isolating one small part of a problem can help you to determine a direction. Shrink it, crop it, break it down. Looking at only part of the whole forces you to see the information in a different way. What is the least amount of words, imagery, or parts you need to move forward? \u201cThe paper clip was invented in 1899. It hasn\u2019t been improved upon since.\u201d\u2014Sara Goldsmith, Slate<\/em>.<\/p>\n Keep in mind, this part of this process is also filled with \u201cbad\u201d ideas. But are they really all bad? If someone had told you he was going to make millions selling clay figurines that sprout green hair, would you have believed him? The following image is from a real patent, obtained in 1879 by someone by the name of B. B. Oppenheimer. It\u2019s titled \u201cFire Escape.\u201d He\u2019s got the parachute, the head harness, and the landing shoes . . . what could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n Being open to all possibilities sometimes is just a matter of shifting perspectives. Try, for example, looking at your mistakes in a different way. During the process of working on this book, I was searching for visual examples to illustrate each of my points, and I stumbled (by mistake) upon the work of neuroscientist Sam Gershman.<\/p>\n On his MIT website, he posted images for \u201cbeautiful wrong things\u201d noting: \u201cOccasionally when visualizing scientific data, I make mistakes that are even more beautiful than the original.\u201d When I asked him if I could use his charts in my book, he said, \u201cCarolyn, you know that these are mistakes, right?\u201d And I said, yes, that\u2019s why they\u2019re perfect.<\/p>\n All of these strategies are, in a sense, ways to see the ordinary things around you differently. Look around, and look around again. What do you see that you might not have seen before? Below Felice Varini uses a visual distortion of space to confuse your sense of what is 2D and 3D. This is only yellow paint on the walls and ceiling\u2014nothing else.<\/p>\n Ok, so now that you\u2019ve gathered ideas and inspiration, become a creative observer, and expanded the way you think, what\u2019s next? The third stage is to build. It\u2019s time to organize this rough material so your project can start to take shape.<\/p>\n Categories can help structure a large amount of information. You can even make up an organizational structure. Here, the bookbinder Shoshannah Wineburg decided group pieces of easily overlooked glass debris to show how special they could be.<\/p>\n And organizing your information can help you make connections with something you noticed long ago. For example, when he was young, William Le Barron Jenney noticed that bamboo huts could withstand the force of tropical storms in the Philippines. He remembered this strength and flexibility later in his life while he was designing the world\u2019s first skyscraper.<\/p>\n It\u2019s okay to get personal and use your own memories and experiences as the foundation for projects. In fact, sometimes in order to build something stronger and more original, you have to draw from your own life. Your project can become much richer if it comes from a genuine source.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s totally ok to get a little help when you need it. Bring your ideas to a partner, especially if your partner\u2019s skills can complement your own. After all, to make 3D movies, red needs blue . . . it\u2019s only when the colors work together that your brain can see the result.<\/p>\n Time has shown that the best ideas don\u2019t come out of nowhere\u2014they come from observant people who have learned how to use their own experiences, have borrowed from all the right places, and searched to make the usual unusual. So, when you get a little stuck, look around you: the answer might be waiting for you already.<\/p>\n Simplify and gather, break, and build the parts. Make it personal, and ask for help.<\/p>\n And you\u2019ll find the path out of the woods. You might even start to see the woods and the world in a new way.<\/p>\n Getting Unstuck (and Learning to See Differently)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2017","category-fall-2017-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6213"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7100,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions\/7100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Three-Stage Process<\/h4>\n
<\/a>Pick something you like, or something you don\u2019t like, and think about how you would make it your own. Use something as your starting point. Sometimes you may have to hunt for your one thing: sometimes inspiration might be right in front of you. Above, the artist Shaun Kardinal decided he wanted improve his vintage postcards with embroidery.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>If you\u2019re still stuck\u2014maybe you can\u2019t find anything you like or have no idea how to move forward\u2014write down what you don\u2019t<\/em> want, or do the opposite of what you\u2019ve been doing. If you were aiming for high-end, aim low. If you were using blue, use orange. If it\u2019s square, make it round. Or turn your project upside down or backwards.<\/p>\n<\/a>Stage Two<\/h4>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Sometimes, no matter how impractical or silly they seem, your ideas can make you, or someone else, see something useful or interesting. These ideas might take you in a different direction.<\/p>\n<\/a>Mistakes can show you that sometimes, in order to move forward, you have to break or wreck things to make something new. Be willing to take things apart. While you\u2019re looking at your original idea or creation, you might see it only as one thing, instead of recognizing the potential of what it could be.<\/p>\nStage Three<\/h4>\n
<\/a>In this forest behind his house A. A. Milne was inspired to write stories for his son, Christopher Robin. When you start to put your project together, you can use yourself as the starting point: Think about who you are, what you like, what you don\u2019t like, your family, your successes, your strengths, weaknesses, or what inspires you. Australian Aboriginal artists share personal stories in their \u201cDreamtime\u201d paintings, which depict the knowledge passed down to them from their ancestors.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nCarolyn Eckert is the author of Your Idea Starts Here: 77 Mind-Expanding Ways to Unleash Your Creativity<\/em><\/a> \u00a92016 by Storey Publishing, hardcover.\u00a0Photography excerpted from Your Idea Starts Here<\/em> \u00a9 by Carolyn Eckert, used with permission from Storey Publishing.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"