Creatius

Posted March 23rd, 2011 / By Timmy Allen in Resources, Tips

As creatives, we’re made to produce produce produce. All day, everyday. We have to. Our livelihoods depend on it. It’s in our bones and in just about everything we do.

With that in mind, how often do we take time to refill the creative tank? How much do we go out into the world around us or our local Barnes & Noble to rummage through the magazines and find some inspiration in the articles and pieces we find inside?

About a week ago myself and the team of guys I work with decided that it was more important that day to hit up a B&N and absorb as much creativity and inspiration as possible. Kind of a silly metaphor, but you wouldn’t drive your car around all day everyday without eventually making a trip to the gas station to put more fuel in it. Just like the car, it’s tough to run on all cylinders producing day in and day out without taking some time to rest and find new inspiration and to refill your creative tank. We called this time our “creatius”. A blend of creative hiatus. Clever, I know. During our time we wanted to make sure to get away from the internet and digital media and specifically wanted to get our hands on magazines and print work so that we could take pictures and cut out pieces we really enjoyed. You could technically scour the Internet and a ton of sites (like Fuel) for inspiration, but sometimes it’s better to get away from the computer and get in touch with a more hands on physical medium.

I personally value print media and this practice of immersing myself into magazines because of the heritage and history of print. If it was not for print media we would not be doing what we are currently doing in our computers. As motionographers and designers, print is our roots. For a lot of us it is where we first got bit by the artistic design bug whether it was sketching or coloring, we were all at one point strictly print artists. There is something wonderful about being able to hold the piece of art in your hands and not simply stare at it on a computer screen. When doing a creatius, you could pick up any random magazine you can get your hands on. As long as the magazine has ads and is trying to sell you something, you should eventually run into something that will catch your eye stylistically. During this last creatius, I picked up magazines as broad and random as Better Homes & Garden, a few travel magazines, some car publication, even Guns & Ammo. You could, of course, stick to print and art magazines, but that’s where you’d expect to find great inspiration that is very current and heavy in what is “hot” right now. Going to a more broad magazine gives you the opportunity to see something that might not be in the vein of “current”, and, thus, maybe helping you to really get a creative blend and use broad brush strokes pulling from the current trends and from something maybe overlooked or older.

So, next time you can spare a few hours of your work day I would encourage everyone to get away and refill your creative tank. Nothing worse than trying to produce when your well has run dry.

Be good.
Timmy.

Hello. My name is Timmy Allen. I’m a motion designer based in South Florida. Not much bio to give at this point, but I look forward to hanging out and talking with each and every one of you then maybe someday I’ll have something impressive to say about the time I’ve spent on this planet. But so far, I started a show called “Keyframe” and I’m a part of Triune Films‘ internet show “Film Riot“. I am blessed to say that I get to do what I love every single day for a living. I love and talking to cool people. With all that, to be continued….