Every Monday is Tip Day! Grab a cup of coffee and get over the Monday morning bump with tips, tools, and inspiration from Perch.
This Week: Build Your Aresenal
One of the things my husband does incredibly well and has taught me to do is to constantly gather “resources” for creativity. He maintains what is essentially a stash of cool papers, textures, old cameras, light sources, letterpress blocks, old film reels, and who knows what else. Although I have to admit I wish he kept it more organized, I am constantly amazed by the creations he is able to conjure up from his arsenal of resources. More often than not, when a client asks where a prop or an idea came from, his answer is, “Oh, yeah, I found that a while back …”
Seeing Creative Potential
There is a certain sense of adventure whenever my husband and I decide to go “exploring” – whether we’re checking out the junk shops of our own small downtown area, driving around our favorite parts of Little Rock, or visiting a new city. Wherever we go, we’re looking for creative potential. We look for color, unique texture, artistic detail, and anything that’s vintage or classic. We take pictures and bring found objects home with us, knowing that they’ll play a unique role in a future project.
Traditional Resources
There are more traditional resources that we keep in our creative arsenal as well, including magazine subscriptions, books, paper swatches, Pantone swatch books. We also keep a wide array of mediums available, including sketchpads, canvases, conte crayons, regular crayons, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, oil pencils, permanent markers, India ink, watercolors, acrylics… You name it, we’ve got it.
So, what’s in your creative resource arsenal? Do you maintain one? What is your favorite resource… or source of creativity? Please share in the comments!
Related posts:
- Every Monday is Tip Day! This Week: Maximize Resources
- Every Monday is Tip Day! This Week: Identify Yourself
- Every Monday is Tip Day! This Week: Changing Vision
- How to Keep a Stockpile of Creative Resources
- How to Be an Innovator, Part 26: Build Support
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Great idea. Impressed every time I come across people who really has this resource collectors going for them.
As a photographer I´d love building my own storage room with inspirational resources for making cool shots. Now we´re loaning the stuff we need – well like most of us do…
Actually my profile photo was done inspired by an old raggedy leather chair. Look closely and you may spot it… But ofcourse I had to throw it away after the shoot – no where to keep it. Makes the image more unique tough
@macstian
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Dee Wilcox Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
So true! We did a photo shoot in a daffodil field once and found the coolest vintage yellow chair. I wanted to bring it home with me, but we had nowhere to put it. Our garage, office closet, and shelves are currently overflowing with our collection! One day I hope to have a studio space or warehouse to store and organize all of our finds.
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My wife despairs at all the interesting items that I collect and file using the gravity filing system. I call it “composting”, where I collect items and then let them sit for a while before they inspire me. To me the process is invaluable, because I get so many ideas from all the weird stuff that I collect. But it does take up so much room!
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