ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

How to generate, capture, and collect ideas to realize creative projects.

2013

Thinking beyond your discipline — Or: Making better Photos

A man’s face is his autobiography.
A woman’s face is her work of fiction.
Oscar Wilde

It is astonishing how blind some disciplines can be for the talents of other disciplines. I’ve already written about the benefits (and challenges) of interdisciplinary work in science (and did an update in the 2nd edition of “Organizing Creativity”), here I take the example of photography. Or rather, of photography and other disciplines that are very helpful for photography, yet are often neglected when it comes to teaching/learning photography.

I am sure there are others, but I focus here on

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2013

Recommendation: INCIDENTAL COMICS

The creative process is a mess of unrealized ideas, false starts, and revisions. It offers more blood, sweat, and tears than your parents’ record collection. Once you experience it, however, it’s tough to live without it.
“The Creative Process” by Grant Snider

I recently stumbled upon “INCIDENTAL COMICS” by Grant Snider. Beautifully drawn comics with depth (literally and figuratively), humor, and inspiration. I also like his explanations below the comics (see the quote above for an example).

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2013

Happy Birthday “Organizing Creativity” 2!

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint … . What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
Henry David Thoreau

It’s been exactly a year since I made the second edition of “Organizing Creativity” available.

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!! :-) :-) :-)

Organizing Creativity 2I wanted it to be read, so I made the double-page (spread) version available for “free” (donationware), and it seemed to have worked. More than 9800 people visited the download page in the last year and Google Analytics counts over 1800 downloads (I guess it misses some, tracking PDF downloads are a little difficult). There were also some great comments, public on Amazon, and private per eMail, — very encouraging and helpful :-)

Not bad for a just-for-fun project. :-)

Regarding the donationware aspect — if the reader finds it helpful there are some ways to give me money for itthis did not work that well. Only a few people bought the book as print version or the high-quality PDF version. Still, I am even more thankful to those people who bought it. I didn’t do it for the money, but it’s still nice that the work is appreciated. After all, feedback is the life-blood of an author and money is actually as honest as feedback can get. I am also very grateful to Dylan Damian and others who offered proof-reading. It helped a lot :-)

To celebrate it’s first birthday, I have decided to make the single-page version available for “free” (also donationware). But note that the graphics are still downscaled — the PDF is great for viewing on a tablet, but not for printing. I need to leave a difference to the single-page version at Lulu.


1 page download Organizing Creativity PDF single-page version — ideal for iPad and other tablets that can display PDF files.1 page download PDF

2 page download Organizing Creativity PDF double-page version — good if you want to read it on your computer monitor or print it with two “pages” per page (although if you want to read it on paper, buying a printed version of the book is probably easier).2 page download PDF

Hope you like it. If you like the book and want to return the favor without paying something, recommend the book in your social networks. Perhaps your contacts like it too.

Thanks :-)

2013

Impressive examples of everyday creativity

To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.
George Kneller

I tried out Diaspora* and stumbled upon this link: 99 Life Hacks to make your life easier!

There are some really impressive and surprisingly solutions to everyday problems.

Highly recommended!

2012

Transform any notepad into a sketching notepad

gluedSome sketching and painting notepads have the paper glued together on all four sides of the notepad. This makes sure that the paper stays in place when you sketch/paint. Given that I love the paper of Clairefontaine notepads and that they do not offer their pads as sketching/painting notepads, I tried to modify one of their normal spiral bound notepads this way.

I opened the cover and carefully applied glue (“Uhu(R) Kraft”) to the sides of the notepad. One side at a time and let it dry overnight. It worked perfectly — the paper got a little uneven, but only minimally. The liquid adhesive dried and did not become sticky anymore. In retrospect I should have left (part of) one side unglued to make it easier to remove a page.

But it’s a nice way to get a sketching/painting notepad with the paper you love.

2012

Book now proof-read :-)

“Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.”
Unknown

A short while after I made the second version of “Organizing Creativity” available, Dylan Damian contacted me and offered to proof-read the book. It was a nice moment — people have called me strange (or stupid) for offering something  for free I worked on for months (years, actually), but I believe that when something is useful and you burn for it, you should make it available. And given that I never intended to earn money with it, why not offer it in a donationware format. If you like it, you pay what you like, if you do not like it, you should not pay for it.

But frankly, I would have never thought that Read More

2012

Two nice sketching Apps: Paper by FiftyThree and procreate by Savage Interactive Pty Ltd

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas

procreate1Having my iPad for about three weeks, I tried out a few sketching apps. While I love Autodesk SketchBook Mobile I do not think that this is the end of the line, and it is not. Depending on what you want to do, two Apps are very interesting:

Paper by FiftyThree

Paper by FiftyThree strives to give you the Moleskine experience on your iPad — you have to buy additional ways to sketch to really use the software, but the ease with which you can sketch is impressive. Not sure how a graphic professional would feel about it, but the sketches look nice to an amateur. Read More

2012

Versions for eBook Reader

During the last few days I had a look at the ePub format — the format to go if you want to offer something on an eBook reader. It looks to me like we are back at webdesign-square-one — only now it’s not a battle between Netscape, Explorer, and Opera, but between different hardware devices.

After some interesting (and time-wasting) experiences with InDesign and its (lack of) ability to help you create ePub files (it can, but you need to edit them manually afterwards), I think the ePub version will take at least two weeks.

What bugs me is not only that ePub makes it Read More

2012

“Organizing Creativity” (2nd Edition) is available!

There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”
Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”

Note: This is a sticky posting that stays on top of the blog for a while.

The second edition of Organizing Creativity is finally available:

oc2coverClick on the image to download the PDF file (about 10 MB — note that the images are downscaled to save some bandwidth)

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2012

Release Date for Organizing Creativity II: Sunday, March, 25, 2012.

“Writing a book is an adventure: to begin with it is a toy and amusement; then it becomes a master, and than it becomes a tyrant; and the last phase is just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude – you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”
Winston Churchill

I am currently doing the “finishing touches” on the second edition of “Organizing Creativity”. It will be available on this site on Sunday (fingers crossed! ;-) ).

All in all, I am very happy about the second edition. It took a huge chunk of time, but I think it was worth it (and I am very, very happy when the work is done).

It currently looks like this: Read More