Reasons to be Creative – Part Two

Following from our first article on the ‘Reasons to be Creative’ design event by Chris Williams, we end with an item by Lauren Kelly (our designer). It makes for an interesting read and highlights the differences between the creative and the cerebral and how powerful the two are when in perfect synergy.

The ‘Reasons to be Creative’ design event hosted in London on Friday 28th February 2014 included an amazing line-up of speakers. Those there included Eva-Lotta Lamm, Mr. Bingo and Brendan Dawes.

This inspirational event was all about exploring your creativity through different mediums. Shared with us were Eva-Lotta Lamm’s sketch notes and Mr. Bingo’s humorous approach on hate mail!

Emphasis was placed broadening boundaries and not restricting yourself to certain platforms. Brendan Dawes encouraged everyone to create something that may be simple and seemingly useless – his take? Put it out there because you never know what may come back.

Eva-Lotta Lamm, UX designer and illustrator had the audience draw alongside her whilst she drew out her birthday party using shapes to create quick sketches. She illustrated a concept which she referred to as Lego pieces slotting together to make the image. Her approach was that people are naturally drawn to visuals and what better way to absorb and spread your notes than through sketch notes? She quoted designer, Jason Santa Maria, in saying,

“Sketch books are not about being a good artist. They’re about being a good thinker.”

Really interesting take on this – sketching is all about your thought process and getting it down on paper. Whether you’re a creative or not, it’s a great way to improve the way you think.

As Eva says, “Sketching is about expressing ideas not creating portraits.”

One of the ways Eva likes to keep her creative juices flowing is by using the word of the day from the Oxford dictionary. Every day, she sketches it into a typeface and then later cleans them up in Photoshop. Eva has compiled an amazing collection of sketches and keeps them as a reference to inspire her work.

Mr. Bingo, illustrator and visual entertainer, won us over within the first few minutes of his talk with a great attitude on enjoying your work and creativity. He began talking about the “free art all around us” and the different things he collects on his travels to inspire him.

He turns ‘free art’ pieces into his own amazingly funny creative work (whether it’s old postcards, lost photographs and hand made signs). His confident attitude and irreverent approach to the creative industry is one to be admired by all young creative people out there.

Brendan Dawe’s talk – “Could Try Harder” was an empowering talk about being confident in your work and “owning your difference”. He told us about some of his more simple and less useful ideas that involved controlling a Kung-Fu movie with Play Doh that happened to be caught by the BBC who loved the concept.

He spoke about creating simple, quirky things and ‘putting them out there’ because you never know what they may turn into. Not only that but it’s a good resource library for you as a designer to refer back to and potentially use for a future project.

The “reason to” event is definitely one I would recommend for all creatives whether you’re a newbie looking to find yourself in the creative world or someone like myself who’s open to being inspired and challenged creatively.

For those of you interested in the speakers I have mentioned, why not follow them on twitter?

@Mr_Bingo
@brendandawes
@evalottchen