Friday, November 14, 2008

Habits to increase your creativity

Creativity: "… capacity to create, produce new and valuable things, it’s the capacity of a brain to get to new conclusions and solve problems in an original way."

I’ve seen this topic from the point of view of a designer in thousands of blogs, but almost always they forget something, the psicological point of view. As you may know, appart from designer i’m licensed in Psicology, so i’ll talk about both points of view: the designer’s and psicologist.
Are you creative?

Take a look at the psicological profile of creative people.

Cognitive characteristics:

* Refined perception.
* Intuitive capacity.
* Imagination.
* Critic capacity.
* Intelectual curiosity.

Affective characteristics:

* Grace and freedom.
* Enthusiasm.
* Depth.
* Tenacity.

Freedom? Interesting, huh? According to this, the best design, the most creative, would come from freelance artists, since we have a free life, creative, original, contrary to the norm… and that at the end should be seen in our work.

But, does it surprise you to see that there are personality factors such as tenacity, critic capacity, intelectual curiosity…? Those are factors that implicate concious effort, so we can train them, which is the base for the next point.
Break the mith

If you follow this blog, you should know that i don’t believe in talent, talent is a plus, the difference between noticeable and exceptional. I believe more in tenacity and preparation, if talent is something innate and i don’t have it… why should i worry?, let’s better worry in getting the best version of ourselves, in the worst of the cases we’ll get to noticeable, which is a big achievement.

That’s why we have to end with the mith of the muses, divine inspiration, innate talent or spontaneous ideas. Creativity, as any other side of life, can be trained, success depends on preparation.
Believe in you

Who believes in itself is certain that it’s mission will succeed and knows how to focus productively in learning. When they make mistakes they consider it as a chance to improve, not to abandon.

If you want to become a good designer, try not to make the same mistakes you already did, be confident that as the time passes you’ll get better. Our goal is not to be the best, but to be a little better each time.
Study the rules… and after that break them

Creativity is not other thing than breaking the rules, but to be able to do it, you need to know them. That’s why it’s important to study the classics… if you’re a writer, painter, or designer. Example: if you want to be a good abstract painter study first realism.

Designers take this point to the process of design, the first thing we do is study the client (know his rules) to later force them, stretch them, break them… when we do it right, we get a great design.
Movement is demonstrated moving

I don’t know even one designer that before starting working knows exactly what it’ll create. The first thing to do logically is to know the client, elaborate information, asimilate it, and then… rest, disconnect, relax, good ideas appear when you’re doing something else.

When you come back to your desk, always, always, always, start doodling in a paper (or Photoshop). The idea is to face the white canvas relaxed, that way you disconnect your rational brain and activate less consious areas, where ideas aren’t managed by logic; ideas will start to unify, taking form.

If you can do this in some place or with someone that makes you feel good, a lot better.
Against creative block

After it comes, it has a difficult solution, just try to relax, walk, read a magazine, go out with friends… it’s better to lose 2 hours this way than losing the entire day in front of the canvas.

It’s better to prevent it, just organize your life so work isn’t a nightmare.

1. Don’t pick last-minute orders, or too much work.
2. Don’t work for people that doesn’t agree with your way of understanding design.
3. Plan work so you can have leisure time.
4. Make some short break every 1 or 2 hours.
5. Start your day with routine tasks to warm up, later, before you get tired, change to creative tasks.
6. Try to have varied orders: logos, websites, illustrations…
7. Take a nap every once in a while, the best ideas come up when you’re in that state between sleepy and awake.

Unfortunately it’s not easy to make this in the real practice of a designer. I guess that managing stress is another quality of a agood designer.
Feed your mind

A lot of people think i’m crazy when they see me playing a videogame and ask “You don’t work today?”… and i answer… “Can’t you see i’m working?”

We have to cultivate our visual culture, it’s part of our job, so from now on playing games, reading comics, going to the movies, visiting exhibitions or theme parks… that’s working. Everything that surrounds you can inspire your next design.
Don’t unattend your body

If you’re a designer, some of your biggest problems will be sedentarism, lumbalgia and the back pains will go with you your entire life, i guess i don’t even have to say that’s impossible to be creative when your back hurts.

That’s why i recommend you to make some time to play some sport, go to the gym, practice your favorite sport… try to be fit.

Same with the diet, eat varied, lots of fruits and vegetables. If you’re obese try to lose a little weight (i got up to 96 kilograms!!! now i weight 80kg).

To be creative you need to be happy, and this happens when you’re well phisically.
Technics to promote creativity

This technics normally need some training, and if possible, the presense of an expert to help you out, if it’s in group it’s better.

Here you have a website very complete about technics to promote creativity. Even if you don’t practice all of them, i suggest you to take a look, i’ll surely give you some good ideas.
Enjoy your work !!

It’s fundamental to implicate emotionaly with the design, like it, love your work, enjoy, take the order to your territory, make it a life style. If you don’t learn how to be creative in your personal life, the chances of being a creative designer are very few.

At the end everything is summed up in this, be happy with what you do, if you enjoy doing something, you’ll keep doing it.

www.sosnewbie.com

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Friday, July 4, 2008

Aliran Seni Rupa

Aliran Seni rupa

1. Seni Rupa Barat Klasik
dari zaman yunani kuno, dewa2 dipatungkan dengan wujud manusia, tetapi lebih besar dan sempurna, misalnya seperti patung Perikles, Plato, dan Aritoteles...
Lukisan Yunani banyak ditemukan pada jambangan keramik yang beremail. Hellenisme adalah kebudayaan Yunani yang menyebar ke Timur dan mempengaruhi seni arca buddha di India (Seni Gandhara). Dan banyak juga tokoh2 yang dibuat patung seperti Caesar Agustus, Hanibal, dan Konstantin.

2. Seni Rupa Klasik Baru ( Neo-Clasisme)
seperti karya Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Monalisa
karya Michaelangelo(1475-1564 ) >> lukisan tempera di kubah gereja St. Pieters dan membuat patung Nabi Daud dan Nabi Musa dari marmer
karya Rapahel (1463-1520) >>>Madona

3.Zaman Barok
disebut juga klasik akademis. Teman lukisan berkisar pada keagamaan, raja2 dan kel. Salah satu cirinya ialah mengandung kesan mewah.

4. Aliran Seni lukis
a. Romantisme
muncul kisah2 heroik dan dramatis dlm bentuk roman.. pengangaruh dlam seni lukis melahirkan romantisme
pengikutnya Delacroix(Prancis), William Blake ( Inggris), Raden Saleh(Indonesia). Patung La Marseilaisse adalah patung aliran romantisme

b. Realisme
adalah lukisan yang bertolak belakang dari kenyataan
Gustava (1819-1877), Hendra, Abdullah, Basuki, Sudjojono.

c. Naturalisme
Kenyataan yang ditangkap oleh panca Indra
kelompok yang terkenal dengan BARBIZON.
Julis Dupre, Charles Prancois, Jean B. Theodora.

d. Impresionisme
kecepatan dalam menangkap bentuk yang dipantulkan cahaya, walaupun hasinya tidak mendetail>>>Realisme Cahaya
Monet, Pisaro, Manet, Renior dan Degas.

e. Pointilisme
dipengaruhi oleh teori warna

f. Ekspresionisme
luapan perasaan, dalam mengolah pengalaman hidup, penderitaan batin, perasaan /emosi bukan hanya dari indra tetapi dari kejiwaan. Affandi, Popo Iskandar, Vincent , Paul, Die Bruke.

g. Fauvisme
Hendri Matisse, Derain, Vlamick, Rousult, Marquet, Van Dongen, Dufy.

h. Kubisme
pengaruh dari bapak pelukis modern, Cezane lahirlah >> George Brague dan Pablo Picasso
Kubisme Analtik >> memecah objek -> bentuk2 geometris
Kubisme Sintetik >> membentuk objek dari bentuk geometris
Juan Gris, Firnand Leger.

i. Surealisme
hal2 yang tidak nyata atau berada di mimpi
Surealisme Fotografi >> realistik meskipun tidak wajar
Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Odilon Redon
Surealisme Amorphic >> lukisan abstrak tanpa didikte dari pikiran >>.>>>> Joan Miro, Andre Masson

j.. Futurisme
menonjolkan gerak dlam lukisan, pengaturan warna yang baik sehingga terkesan gerakan maju>> G. Bella, Duchanp, Boccioni.

k. Abstraksionisme
Ekspresionisme Abstrak >> Wassily Kandinsky
Abstraksionisme Geometrik >> Piet Mondrian

l. Dadaisme
kejutan baru>>monalisa dibubuhi kumis, susunan karcis dibuat usang...
Marcel Duchamp, Thristan Tzara, hans Arp

m. Aliran Pop
berpandangan utk masa kini dan masa yang akan datang
Tom Wasselman >> lukisan kamar mandi dan kakus
George Segall >> Patung Rock & Roll dari gips
Yoseph Beny S>> bekas cat yang dipagar
>>>>> Popular Images>> memanfaatkan barang2 rongsokan

n. Aliran Optik
pengulangan bentuk geometris atau garis2 yang teratur dan tapi dan terperinci, kadang lukisan tampak menonjol keluar atau mejolok jauh ke dalam >>>sepintas gambaran optik

Vassalery, Richard, Yulian, Andy
bertentangan dgn Jackson Pollock dengan menggunakan teknik kaleng bocor...

http://id.answers.yahoo.com

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Comeback for Hand-Drawn Animation

At Disney, a Comeback for Hand-Drawn Animation

By REUTERS
Published: February 9, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 (Reuters) — Hand-drawn animation, out of fashion in the computer age, experienced a rescue worthy of a fairy tale on Thursday, when Walt Disney animators announced they would bring the art form back to the big screen.

“We will be bringing back hand-drawn films,” said Edwin Catmull, the president of Pixar and Disney Feature Animation.

Animators refer to hand-drawn animation as “two dimensional,” as opposed to computer-generated animation, referred to as 3D. Pixar, which created “Toy Story” and other computer animation hits, was acquired by the Walt Disney Company last year.

Speculation has swirled since then over whether Mr. Catmull and John Lasseter, the chief creative officer, who took control of the ailing Disney animation facility, would reestablish the art form that made Disney the world’s pre-eminenent animator.

All of Disney’s feature animation films in production at the time of the Pixar deal were computer-animated.

“Now that’s we’re a year into it, people want to know how it’s going,” Mr. Catmull told analysts at a Disney conference monitored by Webcast. He said Disney would do both computer animation and hand-drawn animation.

Mr. Lasseter spent several years as a Disney animator, but left over creative differences to form Pixar, where he was considered the main creative force.

He revered Walt Disney, who with a group of legendary animators known as the Nine Old Men, made such hand-drawn classics as “Cinderella” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” When Disney bought Pixar to try to revive its flagging animation program, Mr. Catmull and Mr. Lasseter took charge of both studios, which are run separately.

At least 300 Disney animation staff members were laid off or reassigned in the months after the leadership change.

Mr. Catmull and Mr. Lasseter gave the first descriptions on Thursday on how they reshaped story lines of Disney films already in production, canceled others and restructured how the Disney artists work.

“Pixar is still Pixar — nobody left,” Mr. Catmull said. “At Disney, you have these remarkable artists there. ...they were not kneaded together in the right way. At the heart of it there has to be a director and the director has to have a vision.”

Mr. Catmull said there were no plans to merge the studios or to limit them to a certain type of animation. “We always believed that quality is the best business plan,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/business/media/09disneys.html

Dr.Osamu Tezuka

Jumping, 1984. A 6 minute animation film (not anime style) showing the world from the point of view of a bouncing ball (or jumping child). Each jump of the camera goes higher, each landing is a visual surprise (i.e, a city setting, a jungle, the ocean floor, a battle field in wartime, the depths of Hell, etc.). The amazingly moving perspective was all drawn by hand. "Jumping" won the won the Grand Prize at the 1984 Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008