Compare and Contrast

Here’s a piece I designed as part of the Crash Course on Creativity. It’s a flashy piece of bling that sounds an alarm when it’s wearer uses incorrect grammar.

I encounter the strategy of juxtaposition in almost every resource on creativity. Roger vonOech includes it in his Creative Whack Pack, as does Tina Seelig in her book inGenius: A Crash Course in Creativity. (Here is a TEDx talk where Tina Seelig talks about the 6 characteristics of a creative person. Definitely worth the watch.)

As an aside, I enrolled in a MOOC (massive open online course) a couple of  years ago taught by Seelig called, A Crash Course in Creativity, offered through Stanford University. It was a free, six-week class that explores strategies similar to those I’ve been writing about. Anyway…

Juxtaposition asks you to compare things in order to extrapolate a meaning. When trying to develop or push an idea, it’s often worthwhile to force comparisons of things that may be dissimilar. The resulting vibration of oddness can pique the imagination into looking for solutions that may not been evident to you before.

This is one of the classic examples of Chindogu.

Take Chindogu, the Japanese art of unuseless inventions as an example. By “unuseless” it has to appear as if it would be a great idea, but isn’t really practical. In fact, if you’ve made something truly utilitarian, then, according to the tenets of Chindogu, it’s not a Chindogu. Think of little umbrellas for your shoes, or a motorized work desk so you never have to stop working.

I’m not suggesting that everyone go around making absurd or unusable work, but rather, how does the introduction of new or unexpected information enable you to explore the problem in a new way? How can the compare-and-contrast of juxtaposition help you to expand your idea’s usefulness, context, scope, appearance, or unique qualities?

We Need to Talk

The Spurs Coyote is chatting it up with some fans to get ideas about his performance. From the Index-Card-A-Day challenge.

A Researcher at the University of Michigan conducted a study to determine if 4^th graders who were allowed to discuss a complex problem with other children were more likely to come up with more and/or better solutions than those children working alone, or not discussing the problem. The research showed that students who were allowed to work with a partner, and speak to that partner, extrapolated stronger hypotheses than those working alone, or who were not allowed to talk.

I don’t know about you, but some of us (me) like to stew on problems in isolation. However, it can be beneficial from time to time to leave the confines of your studio or design table or computer, and share your ideas with others, inviting feedback about what you’ve been up to. Discussing work-in-progress with like-minded creators can help you to hone your craft, discover possibilities, and/or receive useful critique.

It might also be beneficial to ask someone who has no idea what you’re talking about. “Ask A Fool,” is one of my favorite prompts from the Creative Whack Pack by Roger vonOech. “Ask a Fool,” suggests that conversing with someone who is unfamiliar with your discipline will help you to see a problem with fresh eyes. We become so familiar with our own output that it can be stimulating to look at the work from a newbie’s perspective.

Who can you talk to about the project you are working on right now? What expertise can they add to yours to help move your work along? Who might add a different perspective on what you are trying to do? How can a novice help you to explore what you do and why you do it?

Whoa! Step Away From That Idea!

Drawing I made for the Index-Card-A-Day challenge.

There’s nothing like a long, slow, simmering pot of individual ingredients that becomes a delicious mélange of flavors, like say, a marinara sauce. The separate elements of tomatoes, onions, garlic, spices, combine to create a complex, yet enticing blend of awesomeness where no one flavor overwhelms another. While I think there are a lot of parallels between food and art, what I’m really getting at here is the idea of incubation.

Deadlines and pressure can kick us into an adrenaline rush of creative output, but an opposite, and equally useful strategy, is that of wait-time. In education, wait time is the period a teacher might pause for students to respond to a question before giving hints, offering answers, or asking the next question. Generally, the more complicated the query or problem to be solved, the longer the wait time. In a classroom, wait time might be a few seconds, but for our purposes here, wait time is expanded.

When working on a creative project, wait time can be an important factor in solving, clarifying, or exploring your idea. Putting all of the raw ingredients into the pot, turning your brain down to simmer, then walking away, allows your mind some time to work on solutions in the background while you’re not paying attention. When you return to the work, you will see what you’ve started with fresh eyes. You might also have one of those Eureka! moments when you’re driving, or taking a shower, or feeding the cats, when a revelation comes to you seemingly out of the blue. Giving yourself an incubation period allows time for your inklings to stew and become a cohesive pot of goodness, a complex blend of individual ingredients transformed into something special because of the simmering. Stepping away from a problem can actually speed up your creativity and production in the long run.

In what ways do you ruminate? Are there ways you can approach a problem in sections or stages that allows for an gestation period in the work flow?

Set It On Fire

Preparatory drawing for my Cat Circus series

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s face it. Many of us are more productive when there’s a deadline. Whether from a client or teacher, a challenge-a-day or a show deadline, that little bit of pressure can be the catalyst to create. The result may not always be our best work, but it does require that we make something, which almost always leads to something else, and can often be surprising.

That’s why I love shows like Project Runway and Top Chef. Contestants are faced with a challenge. There’s a list of supplies, like sequins and burlap, or tuna and turnips. The criteria are always coupled with a time limit, say, 24 hours, and relatively high stakes, like culinary stardom or famous haute couture. The contestants are instantly in a flurry of activity and ready to tackle the problem. Materials are considered. A plan is made. And production begins. Just when things seem to be moving along (better for some than others) there is usually an unexpected announcement that ramps up the pressure. One of the hosts tells the chefs that they must cook without electricity, or designers must use asymmetry and the bark of a tree. Suddenly, the original plan is derailed and must be rethought or enhanced by the introduction of new information.

The former president and CEO of Honda, Takeo Fukui calls this, “kicking out the ladder.” In this video, he tells a short parable about how he gets his engineers to produce high quality work in a high stakes business. Ignore the plug for Honda and pay attention to the discussion taking place among the employees about problem-solving and risk-taking. The ideas presented about creating can be applied to anyone in any discipline committed to eliciting the best results.

While you might not want to use these high-pressure strategies of setting parameters, creating unexpected obstacles, and taking extreme risks all of the time, they are great for short-term projects or when you need a boost in your production. Yes, you might fail, or things may not turn out like you’d hoped, but you will learn a ton. You might also find yourself doing greater things than you ever thought possible.

In what ways do you encounter challenges, deadlines, and unexpected obstacles? How do you use these perceived roadblocks to further your own creative thinking?Can you find or set parameters to achieve even greater results?

Get yourself to the next level, kick out the ladder—and set it on fire, so there’s no going back!