When you start your firm and operate it yourself, you must wear various hats: creative director, stylist, photographer, bookkeeper, and social media manager… You get the picture.
My primary responsibility, however, is to be the creative director. I’m constantly coming up with new ideas for my clients and myself for high-impact photos that engage our audiences with our goods and services.
I’m frequently asked, “How do you come up with such unique ideas for all of your photos?” Do I have a group of people to bounce my concepts off of? Is it possible that I become wary of coming up with so many alternatives at once? Or, what should I do if I don’t have any new ideas?
How I’m So Creative?
Although I do all of my creative concepting on my own, it may be beneficial and challenging. When you’re given a 20+ photo project and have to come up with 20+ unique concepts quickly, things might get chaotic.
I’ve developed a rhythm over the years of running my firm that allows my thoughts to flow freely. It keeps our minds sharp and helps us find answers for new situations we haven’t dealt with before, whether you’re in business alone or part of a team.
I find it fascinating to delve into the minds of other creatives, so I thought I’d pass along some of my insights and methods for maintaining my creativity flowing.
Try these ideas to assist you in relaxing and being creative in whatever line of work you’re in.
1. Limit your social media usage
As much as I enjoy perusing Instagram, I find social media a waste of my creative intellect. You won’t find me on social media if I need to sit down and do some concept.
There’s so much information our brains are attempting to take in when we’re scrolling Facebook or Instagram, and I believe it overburdens us and, at the very least for me, stresses us out! If your mind isn’t calm, those concepts will not visit you.
2. Make a list of words using your own words or those others have mentioned to you
I’m a visual learner, to put it another way. When it comes to creating ideas, I always have a clean sheet of paper and a pen ready. Based on our discussion or creative brief, I’ll quickly summarize what the project is about and the general feeling that the client wants.
I begin thinking of terms and colors representing the creative brief once I have the information on paper.
There is no such thing as best or bad ideas at this stage. Whatever comes to mind, I make a note of it. I’ll doodle some rough sketches at this time to help me understand them better. After writing my blog, I do this first thing every morning, after which there is nothing else on my mind.
3. Always keep your mood board on
A mood board may be made by utilizing visual search engines like Pinterest or Designspiration. However, whenever I see an image on the internet, in a magazine, or even in public advertisements or color schemes, I’ll take a photo of it and save it to a folder on my computer to refer back to it later.
I still have photographs from my college journey to Budapest years ago, which I still use as a reference. Always keep that creative aspect of your mind open to thoughts and file them away when you can – you’ll never know when they’ll come in handy.
4. Take frequent breaks
Working late into the night, taking a siesta, and then getting right back to it used to be how I worked off my backlogs. Nuh-uh! Working in a mad rush will not help you develop new ideas (and you’ll lose out on a lot of sleep).
When you’re thinking of ideas, take plenty of rest breaks. It occurred to me that while I was in the shower, many of my ideas came to me, which is not the most significant time to jot them down. I usually get a lot of creativity when eating or playing with my dogs.
That’s when I’m most calm. Pay attention to the times when ideas come to you and utilize those activities in the future to generate new ideas. When possible, I allow myself plenty of time to brainstorm, but sometimes my clients have a short deadline. Even a 10-minute tea session may help you unwind your thoughts.
5. Find someone to bounce ideas off of
When you’re just getting started, not having a team of creatives to bounce your ideas off can be difficult. But you’ve already got a group, and they don’t need to be in the creative world. It’s sometimes superior if they aren’t. So please speak with your friend, spouse, or mother about it.
They’ll most likely propose some wacky ideas that may lead to a new, unforeseen concept for you. There are no wrong ideas or suggestions when it comes to creative concepts. Allow these concepts to develop into more refined notions.
This is also a fantastic technique for obtaining input on any area of your design where you may have missed something. Perhaps there’s a notion with darker (and perhaps unintended) undertones that you weren’t aware of.
Conclusion
Your brain is far more versatile than you might imagine. You need a little social media discipline, self-care, and a rhythm that works for you to produce ideas without a creative team. You teach your mind to think outside the box by regularly exercising and caring for your brain, and coming up with ideas will become second nature to you.
What’s the most crucial bit of advice I can give? Always remember to take breaks and relax your mind. Make notes anytime an idea strikes you and being creative will be easier than it’s ever been!
