An excellent session about design inspiration - what it is, how you find it and how to maintain it. The session was run by 2 excellent reps from Happy Cog Studios (the design studio run by one Jeffrey Zeldman).

Moderator: Jason Santa Maria Creative Dir, Happy Cog Studios
Jason Santa Maria Creative Dir, Happy Cog Studios
Rob Weychert Art Dir, Happy Cog Studios
(Cameron Moll was going to speak but unfortunately he’s got the flu!)

The session was split into 3 main parts - “defining inspiration”, “finding inspiration” and “maintaining inspiration”

Defining inspiration
Rob quickly summarised his interruption of inspiration and highlighted the difference between inspiration and influence.

• Influence is all about “me too” and “photocopying” what you see… basically comparing oranges to oranges.
• Inspiration is like comparing apples to oranges (or anything to that matter). It’s “recognising value and opportunity in everything that surrounds us” and has the “potential for a longer shelf life”

Rob highlighted this with a story about Picasso - how a fan asked for a portrait and he proceeded to draw a line on a piece of paper. The fan was amazed that the line “captured their very essence” and asked how much to buy it. Picasso wanted £50k, but the fan was surprised since it only took him 5 seconds to draw. Picasso then corrected him saying it didn’t take 5 seconds, it took his entire life.

Finding Inspiration
Jason and Rob then covered a number of ways to find inspiration:

• History: “We have to see where we have been before to see where we are headed”. They recommended “The History of graphic design” by PhilipMeggs, as the book covers how social movement has influenced design
• Born magazine (bornmagazine.org): This magazine is an experiment about combining literature and interactive media.
• “Turn off the computer”: Jason highlighted how inspiration can come from outside the digital space by going through his experiences of letter presses and being inspiring by their uniqueness compared to digital fonts. He highlighted that the fonts we use on computers today where influenced by the constraints of that technological era and then detailed how he made unique business cards with differing patterns and strap lines because of this.
• Storytelling: As Jason put it “Designers are there to communicate”. He highlighted how old sci-fi books can be a source of inspiration and also how via wear and tear the books have a story of their own. He liked this concept so much that his website now has a “used” feel to add more emotion.

Maintaining inspiration
As Rob put it “if you don’t put it in the fridge its not going to keep” and there’s of course no on/off switch for inspiration. Due to this Jason and Rob highlighted a number of ways to help maintain inspiration:

• Everything around should inspire - Alan Fletcher (author of The Art of Looking Sideways which they recommend) said “design is not a thing you do its a way of life”. Design should “have real meaning beyond a paycheck” and as such designers should look at everything as a source of inspiration as “everything is a living organism that impacts everything else”.
• Collections - everything we see that inspires should be kept, as we can’t just rely on our brains. Jason recommended setting up aniphoto archive other imagery that inspires you and keeping a sketchbook on you at all times so you can keep on the fly records (”a car driving by could inspire a new navigation design”). The beauty of a sketchbook is that it can instantly bring you back to the moment of inspiration.
• Exercises - we are surrounded by horrific designs and as such we should be “design vigilantes”. Rob recommended we redesign anything we see, such as a missing dog signs (he also recommended we should be some sort of Ninja roaming the streets at night replacing those horrific designs!)
• Puzzles - crosswords can be an excellent source of inspiration as they deal with word relationships. Rob recommended a documentary called Wordplay and went on to say how a crossword creator spotted how “dunkin donuts” could very quickly become “unkind donuts” (not the best design in the world)!
• Personal projects - Jason highlighted the importance of personal projects, but that they benefit from set limitations. He does daily haiku’s based on dictionary.com’s word of the day and mentioned how having this limitation can make it incredibly more creative. He also gets involved in the 48hr film project (a competition to create a short film in 48hrs) and raised how having set limitations (such as genre) gives a project creative focus.
• Find a muse - both Rob and Jason highlighted how important finding someone to inspire you is (whether it be a friend, spouse, work colleague etc.). An example of this was their “Camp naked terror” parties and how having set limitations can inspire people to inspire others. Rob also highlighted virtualstan (robweychert.com/virtualstan), which was inspired by Jason.

Overall an excellent session and definitely inspiring!