Some Great Creative Thinking Quotes

Creative Thinking Quotes from Luke Sullivan's book - Hey Whipple Squeeze This

 I have been taking an art direction and typography class to satisfy an elective requirement for a master’s I’m pursuing.  The text is by Luke Sullivan entitled Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.  There are many things I could say about it, however, I am just going to share some quotes.  I had a difficult time curating these, as there is least one per page.  What’s more, Sullivan mentions other books he’s read which I’d love to get into, maybe after the thesis.  Anyway, enjoy!

“Look for polarities.  Where you find them you will also find tension.  And where you find tension, you will find creative sparks.”

“ ‘Ask a better question.’ By that he means a question to which you don’t know the answer.  He likens it to ‘placing the solution just out of your reach,’ and in answering it, you stretch yourself.”

“I’m serious.  Creativity is exactly like washing a pig.  It’s messy.  It has no rules.  No clear beginning, middle or end.  It’s kind of a pain in the ass, and when you’re done, you’re not sure if the pig is really clean or why you were washing it in the first place.”

“The best answers always arise out of the problem itself.”

“Woody Allen says, ‘If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative.’ “

“When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and will produce its richest ideas.  Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.”

Ok that’s it for now.  I’ll come back with some more later.

Cheers,

Devin

Challenge

It has been difficult to write with school keeping me busy over the past three months.  I have a little respite so I am taking advantage to write here some.  I will make my best effort to continue to write this blog over the following terms.  There have been several creative thinking ideas I had over the past stretch of time, above is an image from an eperience I had that was most definately a creative thinking exercise.  I was brought in to work with Theatre du Reve for a performance at the High Museum of Art.  The performance celebrated French History and specifically the role the Tuilerie Garden took. My role was to create street art during the performance.

To develop the imagery I looked through the script and experiemnted withusing differnt elements in a graffiti style.  I found that dialog from a play isn't always the most graffiti friendly.  There is a reoccuring theme throughout the play, how people should be free and that this sometimes comes through violent action, the French Revolution, the Terror, WWI, and Nazi occupation all played a part of this performance.  The balloon also made several apperences in the text , so after a while I took my freedom message, droits de l'homme, the balloon worked as a good visual element that attracts the attention, then it was just time to work out the color scheme.  This came mostly from experimentation, in the end, one doesn't go wrong with a primary triad.

What you see above is a mock-up I did on the painting wall at school.  As it turns out the museum was funny about me using spray paint so the mock up turned into the actual thing the night of th performance, where instead of painting, I wheat pasted. Problems promote creativity!