Think Creative

This is the first of hopefully many debates inside the Creative Thinking arena. You can participate or view the outcomes as they unfold. Please contribute, as most people have an opinion and it would be good to hear it. I have moved the discussion here as it has the opportunity to create a wall of discussion. When leaving comments please add your name. You don't need to have an account, simply choose "Name/URL" and supply your FaceBook ID as the name. Couldn't be easier! First subject in this two weeks will be 'censorship'. For many years as a youthful creative I was always an advocate of non-censorship. Remembering the hidden religious control of the British Board of Censors as they deemed things inappropriate due to their middle class, church going attitudes. I thought that there was nothing wrong with showing things that were viewable in real life, in the confines of adverts, films and television shows. However, as I have grown older and a little wiser I ...

When I first thought to do the final post of this discussion on clients, this was the picture that came to mind. However the humour involved in today's encounters has turned a little more cynical, with a better rendition being this funny video found on  youtube ! Is it true that the 'customer is always right?' Can a designer have any control of the visual outcome of a project or is it the plain truth that all aspects are under the control of the guy with the purse strings? How can clients be influenced as well, and how can become clients? There are a great deal of questions associated with this area of design control it is again a large subject. I am a big fan of ' Mad Men '. Not only a well crafted tv series, but also delivers the dream notion on what graphic design and client relationship should be like. It is however, set in the 60's, which makes an amazing difference in the understanding of the way this relationship works. They are treated like they know w...

One of the things I see when I am teaching is the great deal of nervousness that occurs when the students are about to do that simplest of actions, of putting a pencil on a piece of paper. After twenty odd years of doing all this drawing and sketching and the like, I find it odd to observe, or at least funny that someone has that nervousness. There can be many reasons for this to occur. I have thought about it whilst sitting and trying to encourage the students to leap right on in there. One possible reason could be that there is a daunting task of seeing how to fill a large expanse of white space with something. Another, and especially in the classroom environment, is the fear of embarrassment in making a mistake in front of people. This is odd, as I have always stated and affirmed, people can only make progress by making these mistakes. However, the one problematic area that can easily explain all these in one form or another, is the way in which we use our brain. I mentioned befor...