Creating New, Not More

Lately I have gotten the itch to really push my design skillset. It has been a slow burn of feeling like the work I do is…bland? I think that feels like the right description.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I have been making poor designs, but they feel well used. Which can be a positive! When you're making software for a business, a lot of times, predictable patterns are the best patterns.

However, there is room for pushing predictable patterns in small and delightful ways and those areas have been overlooked.

As I have ventured down this path I starting asking myself some questions.

• How do you train your creative muscle?
• How do you improve taste?
• How do you make people say, “Oh, that was nice” when they use your product?

And this is the answer that has solidified in my head:

Studying people who are great at product design just helps you create more. Exploring work outside of your medium inspires you to create new.

I have a Pinterest board with…honestly an inappropriate amount of pins on UX/UI examples that I use as references. It is one of my most used resources and possessions. At the beginning of my design journey I needed it. It was my North Star, my taste meter. I would ask myself daily, is the work I output the level of the great design I was filling that board up with? However, +2,000 pins in and almost a decade into my career (that feels disgusting to say) I see the same patterns. The same taste. The same “interesting” elements to each design.

This path of drawing inspiration and creativity only from the medium you work in is a easing curve that looks like this:

Early on your ceiling is so high, you are rapidly increasing your skill through reps and references from great designers work. However, as you continue on the journey your progress begins to slow and then flatten.

Your meter for what is possible never left your local maximum. You're just creating MORE of it. What you need now is a muscle that helps you explore and create NEW. To be a taste maker instead of an imitator.

This is what I want to do. I don't think it will be easy. I think some people are just built with that muscle. The ability to observe what is around them and have that translate into new ideas and directions in their work. I will have to build it, and this is how I have been doing that.

Exploring Other Mediums

There are UI designers out there who are great at, not only, looking outside of our medium, but synthesizing that exploration into meaningful work. So, I asked them two questions about this topic and this is what they had to say:

Jonathan Kim

Creative Director @ o-ii

Where do you gravitate to when you're looking for inspiration?

The truth is, I'm dipping my bucket in so many different wells when it comes to inspiration. I'm regularly consuming films, art, comics, fashion, books, anime, TV shows, photography, chef culture, internet culture... the list goes on and on. I could easily write an essay on each of these and how they contribute in some way to my creative practice. I think the key is developing the muscle for observation and a system to filter and catalogue between usable fuel and noise.

If I were to share 2 surefire ways to get me inspired when I'm in a creative lull they would be:

1. Travel. In particular, nothing gets my creative mind going like when I'm in Asia. I highly recommend regularly thrusting yourself into different environments that shake up your routine and known reality.
2. Community. Talking with other creative friends or colleagues always leaves me feeling inspired. There is power in spoken word and discourse.

How do you process external inspiration and integrate it into your work?

To me, this is the more important question. More than "where", I think cultivating the "how" is critical. It's a skill that I believe takes a lot of practice. Here are a few things that come to mind:

1. Archive everything. I've become a master archivist in everyday life. I'm religiously taking reference photos and using my Notes app to log ideas. This helps me keep inspiration at a low simmer at all times.
2. Copy. There is a lot of taboo around copying in the creative world but I'm a strong believer in mindfully replicating work you think is good. Through the act of replicating, you will naturally throw your flavour and twist on it. We can all draw the same tree and no two drawings will be the same. Perhaps this might be different in the UX world but I still think that in broad strokes, the principle holds.
3. Inspiration is nothing without practice. You must find a balance between how much you consume vs how much you create. When the scale tips too much to the consumption side, I find it starts to clog up and bloat my senses. It's like over-eating. I aspire to keep the balance 50/50 if possible but it's extremely difficult with the amount we consume today. Get in the habit of regularly taking things from your inspo catalogue and integrating them into your work.

Understand the Materials

It doesn't matter how much discovery we do in an effort to broaden our taste if we do not understand our own materials. This is the foundation. You cannot synthesize the inspiration you find and apply it to your work if you don't have a firm grasp on the fundamental building blocks you have to create with.

In case you want some proof to back up this concept check out these quotes from some of the great designers and artists of our time.

To limit yourself to a particular material may mean limiting your creativity. But to understand that material, to understand its essence, means to understand what you are capable of doing with it.Isamu Noguchi

It is the understanding of the material at hand that opens up the process of discovery. Working with material is not only about shaping it, but also about being shaped by it.Richard Serra

The nature of the materials we use, the methods of their treatment, and the results obtained are the most important factors in the success of our work.Gustav Stickley

Reps and Loops

This is is not a new concept but is required to solidify new information for me. I wrote something more about this concept over in A Pattern for Growth, but the main idea is that to learn something you first expand out and gather as much information as you can about a topic, and then compress that information by putting it into practice and finding the sharp edges. Find the places where the information you gathered has gaps then start the process over again.

Hope that this rabbit hole has helped inspire you on your search to strengthen your creative muscle with some practical examples and practices to put into place. Let me know what you think over here, I answer everything: Message Me