We have all been there. You’ve been working on a design problem for a few weeks, but all of a sudden there is no more “spark” of creativity to keep you going. It happens to everyone, despite what many will admit, and the frustration that you feel can overwhelm and stifle your design project from moving forward.
In this article, I will review 4 techniques which I have found helpful from personal, professional, and educational experience.
#1: Word Association Games
I stumbled onto this idea as a sophomore in college, whilst playing the popular game Catchphrase with some friends. When I was tasked with describing the word “forest”, my mind immediately raced with thousands of synonyms, descriptors, idioms, and analogies that I knew would help my group guess the catchphrase.
The strength of this technique lies both within the lightheartedness of the situation (playing the game away from the studio in a low-risk and friendly environment) and the nonvisual attributes of the game (your mind provides the visual imagery based on a written prompt).
During desk critiques, if I notice a student is struggling with inspiration for design, I often ask them to describe their favorite landscape, or the type of landscape they wish to produce, using only a few key words (think of it as a very intentional game of Catchphrase). In doing this, it often helps them flesh out ideas and then further explore each individual word for its true meaning. It can serve as both a departure point for initial design interventions or as means to detangle their thoughts.
#2: Meditation
Yes, believe it or not, meditation does help with design. I won’t go into too much scientific detail, but a quick search through scholarly journals can easily produce a variety of studies like this one on the benefits meditation has on mental health; however, I have found it helpful from a more anecdotal perspective, which I will try to illustrate here.
First, I want you to try an activity with me. There only 3 rules for this exercise.
- Set a timer for two minutes.
- Clear your mind.
- Whatever you do, do NOT think of a giraffe.
Go.
Learning from experience, chances are within the first twenty seconds of the exercise you tried to fight off the idea of thinking about a giraffe, only to realize that by actively trying NOT to think about it, you were thinking about it. Well, how does this illustrate designer’s block?
Substitute the giraffe for your design problem. Often times designers get so bogged down with the intricacies of their design that they can hardly think of anything else. Meditation helps provide a break from this continual distraction and helps focus your mind on something else – often breathing.
So how might this work? It doesn’t need to be a long or arduous endeavor, a quick 15 minute meditation session is more than enough to be useful.
Find a comfortable quite space to sit, with or without headphones (if you have headphones, listen only to white-noise, not music). Breath deeply, but comfortably, focusing only on the aspect of breathing. Breathing will always be the center of your meditation, to which you will always keep your thoughts.
As you are focusing on your breathing, “giraffes” will suddenly and automatically appear. Did you remember to turn off the stove? You need to remember to text Dave for his birthday. What is the maximum slope percentage of an ADA Accessible ramp again?
As these thoughts come, acknowledge them, let them fade away, and continue focusing on your breathing. After roughly 5-8 minutes, the “giraffes” will leave and your mind will wander on its own devices. Shapes may appear, or memories, or colors. It is this part of the meditation that is most useful, as your mind is no longer focusing on a problem, but rather allowing yourself to freely associate from scratch (i.e. be creative.).
A very famous and well-respected engineering professor Barbara Oakley speaks of this type of learning environment in her book A Mind For Numbers. What she discusses is the difference in focused learning versus diffuse learning – essentially arguing that both types are necessary for items to be committed to memory. It is a great book for anyone who struggles to learn difficult subjects.
For designers, meditation acts as the diffusion process and allows your creativity to flow freely. I feel it is always worth trying a few times and if you do not find it helpful, it only cost you 30-45 minutes.
#3 The Daily Doodle
It is difficult to imagine doodling in your spare time, with so many other tasks that need to be done. But taking a few moments each day to allow yourself to draw or doodle mindlessly is something that is not only therapeutic, but also fun!
Find 5-10 minutes each day, which can be done whilst also doing other things (laundry, eating lunch, waiting for the subway) and just start drawing from your imagination. Although you can doodle on anything, I would advise on keeping a nice doodling/drawing sketchbook. The reason being that the older doodles/drawings may provide inspiration to your future design projects when you get a creative block.
Also, doodling is not something that is done for the process of skill development or illustrative technique (for example, aren’t using it to practice perspective or recreate a specific scene). The purpose is to allow your mind-hand to freely associate with one another to develop shapes, patterns, figures, and forms.
Keep your doodles short, intentional, and work with only a few mediums that you find comfortable – for me, I always use a nice fountain pen like this Lamy, which allows me to doodle fine and bolder lines in a variety of colors and inks.
#4 Art & Photography Books
This is a pretty simple concept, but one that is often overlooked. I tell my students on the very first day of my landscape design course that all design is derivative. The more you expose yourself and learn about all facets of design (whether it be graphic design, architecture, furniture, fashion, etc) the greater reservoirs of inspiration you will develop when designing a landscape.
So for those students who often have trouble finding inspiration or creativity when beginning a project, I will advise them to go to their nearby public or university library and spend about thirty minutes to an hour just scanning through the art or photography sections.
Now I never advise this as homework, it should be something that is a relief from the studio atmosphere and not a chore. If you wish to do this, take your time and allow yourself to just make choices naturally.
Perhaps the spine of one photography book looked more interesting then another, so you pick it up and find that it is a collection of portraiture. You notice the high-quality effects of light, texture, moisture, and hue on the individuals faces. Maybe you review another book and it happens to be on old-world craftmanship – and you notice the relationship between materials, textiles, and forms that create furniture or household items.
In other words, let your mind and interest guide you. Do not have a predisposed plan on what you want to look at. Grab a cup of coffee and just have fun. Perhaps you find inspiration, perhaps not – but either way, it will get your mind thinking more broadly about a particular problem that you may have had in the studio.
One personal anecdote: I often like to actually go to the poetry section. For some reason I find much inspiration when reading native poetry specific to a time period or location. The visual imagery of the poetry has always provided a new perspective to take within a design project. I keep an old, rather personally meaningful copy Leaves of Grass on my bookshelf. It continues to be helpful and inspirational, even after twenty years of reading it.
If you haven’t already watched – I will post videos on other books that I have accrued on my bookshelf throughout the years on the Draftscapes Youtube Channel. All of them are great resources for design and may help you break out of the designer’s block you might have.
For more information about starting or running a Landscape Design Business, make sure you take a look at the articles in the Business section of this website.
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