By Fiona Mares
Yes, notebooks are an easy place to capture ideas inspired by everyday life, no matter where you are. More importantly though, if you begin to review the daily notes or doodles left in your notebook, you will begin to find trends and themes within your smaller ideas that can be brought together and refined. Being able to connect the dots on the patterns between your work and your life can lead to work you had never considered a possibility before.
In an interview with Stussy, Lyons discloses he has always doodled monsters but it wasn’t until his daughter refused to eat her school lunches before they were really developed. He would include daily notes in her meal with monsters saying crazy things like, “Eat your eggs or I’ll break your legs.” After an entire school year, he had a collection of monsters and began including them in his artwork. Once you start reviewing your work, you’ll begin noticing themes and trends like Lyons. According to author Austin Kleon in his book Show Your Work, this is the way to really make use of all your ideas:
When you detect these patterns, you can start gathering these bits and pieces and turn them into something bigger and more substantial. You can turn your flow into stock. For example, a lot of the ideas in this book [Show Your Work] started out as tweets, which then became blog posts, which then became book chapters. Small things, over time, can get big.
The first step: Always carry a notebook. If you don’t remember your ideas, you can’t revisit them later. Second: Keep all your ideas together in one notebook. As a creative, it’s tempting to start multiple sketchbooks under different themes or mediums. Try to limit yourself so you don’t have to round up multiple books for your review.
By using one notebook, you’ll find a lot of smaller ideas that otherwise might have eventually gotten pushed aside for the meatier, well developed concepts. Those are the real gems. Creative director and illustrator Kevin Lyons explains how he tries to use every one of his ideas:
No matter what I’m doing, I’m not an artist. I know I say that and people think that I’m being sarcastic or facetious or whatever. But I am really not because I approach things always with a designer’s mentality, even when I am doing so called ‘art’. I’ll do a zine that’s all the post it notes of me making monsters while I’ve been on the phone… Almost everything I do will eventually get seen. I’m like an old time chef that uses the entire animal, you know, cooks every part of the animal.
Alternatively, you can consolidate your concepts on an online platform. This includes the additional benefit of gaining public feedback and the help of others in recognizing trends. Once you notice a common thread, develop it and see where it takes you. Don’t let any of your work go unused.
via 99u http://ift.tt/1IYwddX
No comments:
Post a Comment