A collection of things and places that may or may not encourage you to be more creative:

A collection of things and places that may or may not encourage you to be more creative:

It’s certainly nice to know that creativity and inspiration is not something you’re either born with it or you’re not. It is as a matter of fact something that can be learnt, practiced and nurtured with time and circumstance.

“Fast Company polled its most creative people to better understand their muses, inspirations, and creative processes. The good news is that 73% believe creativity can be learned–but you may have to shake up your routine to get there…
… president and CEO of Syyn Labs, is a strong advocate of letting your inner kid loose, explaining that he is most inspired by “playing with children, swinging on a swing, making fireballs, taking things apart”.

If a few pie charts explaining who inspires it, where it strikes and the most important qualities to enhance your creativity haven’t given you some clarity on the key components of how to proceed into inspiration. Then I recommend that you watch this talk on ‘How To Be Creative’ by John Cleese. If you have a spare 30 minutes, this presentation on the subject of inspiration, is wonderfully engaging with a mix of humour and apparent clear instruction on ‘How To Be Creative’.

Further to this and still on the topic of video and lectures that inspire, have you heard of TED Talks? … Well of course you’ve heard of TED Talks, so I’m not recommending them, instead I would like to introduce you to ‘The Do’ lectures, a series of talks held in a tent in Wales, USA and even Australia. The underlying goal is to inspire those who attend or watch to ‘DO’ to take inspiration and support from the experiences of those who have failed, failed, failed, failed again and succeeded. It’s a simple concept, but if you have a dream the key is just ‘do’.

I’ve chosen one of my favourites ‘What’s stopping you from Doing?’ by Paul Deegan below:

Ok, ok, so you haven’t got 30 minutes for John Cleese and you don’t have 18 minutes for Paul Deegan. You want inspirtation quick, beautiful shot and from a varied range of disciplines, that’s all right, check out these fantastic 3-minute clips by Cool Hunting.

Again I’ve chosen two particular favourites:

For more of these very cool clips, visit Cool Hunting Video, its addicitive so be careful, as time will just disappear.

Moving away from the moving image and into static image, I introduce a list of blogs and websites that are either at the top of their field and have a huge following and or, are just particular favourites of mine.

1. Notcot is a great resource to see what’s new in the design world, updated daily and brimming with interesting snippets. What I like most is that designers, artists and other creative individuals can submit content for review and be part of this collection of images, which link back to an original source. This means you might find things here not featured anywhere else, uploaded by smaller companies with big ideas.

2. Mocoloco aka Modern Contemporary Art Architecture and Design Interiors is a great place to see the trending products and interiors from designers globally. Content is often current and the same or similar to that featured on other main online design websites. My preference for Mocoloco is in its usability, layout/presentation and because I’ve been visiting it since my days of study so a little familiarity and nostalgia too.

3. The Design Files, ever popular, beautifully photographed and a Melbourne local. A staple in design trends and inspiration.

4. Ffffound with four F’s is maybe not as popular as it used to be, prior to Pinterest. But unlike Pinterest, Ffffounds beauty lies in its seemingly curated and equally chaotic presentation of imagery. You cannot search, you browse through the website and funnily inspiration is not found, more often it’s a process of filtration that results in.

I certainly hope this has helped and further I hope I’ve been able to offer some new resources in your pursuit to inspiration.

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbor’s, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.” Voltaire