Do you ever struggle with staying creative? Do you ever find yourself struggling to come up with an idea for a new project?
As a creator and designer we’ve all been there. The challenging part is getting past that creative road block and still producing new content.
I was just recently in this position. As a creative services intern with the Altoona Curve a lot is asked of me. More than I origianlly expected before I started the internship. Weekly I create new motion graphics for each player on the team that are played as they walk up to the plate to take their at bat. Sometimes the scheduled game corresponds to a theme to draw more fans into the stadium each night. There has been Star Wars Night, Country Night, Tribute to Will Ferrell Night etc. You get the idea. So creating the graphics for those particular nights is fairly easy. For Star Wars night I animated the players baseball bats to be light sabers. For Country Night, instead of basetball caps, I photoshopped cowboy hats onto the players pictures. While those examples have been pretty easy, there are games when the theme has not been so easy, and I’ve come to a creative hault. Railroad Appreciation Night? While this may be easy for someone to come up with idea for this theme, it was for me. Some ideas don’t always pop straight into your mind.
I’ve hit a creative hault.
Once you’ve acknowledged that you’re in a creative hault you begin to start climbing out of the rut towards the surface. Surface = An Idea. Recognition of you’re creative stand still is step 1.
Next I begin to brainstorm what I already know about the topic. Write what you know down.
Third, google images of the topic you’re working towards. You may see a picture that sparks your interest and immediately gives you an idea.
My forth step can go anywhere in the order of steps. and thats to take a break. Find something to occupy your mind and come back to whats got you caught up in a little bit.
Whats helpful for me, is to find a couple images that I like, through them on a photoshop document and begin moving them around. Cutting things out, and adding some text usually gets my brain moving to come up with an idea.
Lastly, you may have tried several layouts for whatever project you’re working on and thats fine. Keep working at it and tweaking things here and there and you’ll eventually find something you like and are satisfied with. Be persistent.
Those are just some steps that I took when I was in my creative rut, when asked to design “Railroad Appreciation Night” themed headshot animations for a Curve home game. Hard work and persistance is key, as well as googling images to help spark your creativity.
BE YOURSELF, DREAM, and CREATE!