Creativity Exercises

They say that to keep yourself motivated and on your feet with creativity and the process of designing, is to do some short exercises to get yourself in the mood. I thought it would be a good idea to compile them all to one place so I could refer to them whenever I needed the boost.

1) Logo Design

Go to a crowdsourcing website, find a brief, and timebox each step of making a logo. You have twenty minutes to think of as many ideas as possible relating to the brief. Shoot and go!

2) Typography

Design a quote you like with typography and timebox it. You can use different typefaces, styles, and colours. Illustration is optional. (Instead of quotes, interesting facts can also be used)

3) Photomanipulation

Choose a photo from royalty free sites, and manipulate it in two different ways. Again, timebox for twenty minutes! You can change composition, add to it, subtract from it,

4) Album Cover Exercise

I've seen this floating around the web somewhere, and have attempted it myself a few times. First, generate a random article from Wikipedia. This will be the NAME of your band. Second, go to Quotations Page and take the last 4/5 words from the last quote of the page. This will be the TITLE of the album. Lastly, go to Flickr and the third picture on that page will be the main image. Put these altogether on Photoshop, and arrange it how you like.

5) Seamless Patterns

Make seamless patterns in illustrator, using type and illustrations of different elements. Follow a particular colour scheme if you like. Again, give yourself a twenty minute timebox.

Tips

>Using quick thumbnails on paper to determine the different compositions helps before moving to digital media.

>Timebox every step! It's really amazing how effectively this works if you do it properly. Though I gotta train myself to do this better >o<

The first two could ultimately become finished pieces, if you complete the exercise in the timeframe and then later decide to develop them further. In fact, if any of these exercises turn out better than initially thought, they could be building blocks for a more advanced design.

Sources

PSD Tuts

CD Cover Exercise