Foreword

First of all, thanks for taking the time to check out my book! The ideas and ways of thinking that I present here are skills I have personally lived with for quite some time. A lot of it is a gradual collection of ideas that I have found to make sense over time and found they mix well together when presented in a abstract yet linear model of focusing your mind to do what you’re passionate about. This book is pretty much laid out the same way my mind works on a daily basis. When you learn to take control of the way your logical mind works in conjunction with your inspired mind, the truest form of productivity and idea generation is much easier to see and immerse yourself in. 

I primarily do things to, first and foremost, impress myself and surpass my own expectations. Being able to push my creative mind past the limits of what most people would say is “crazy” or “too tiring” is all I know. The reason being is that I generally like to learn things. When I see someone working on an awesome project or a launching a finished product, I recognize that it was only made as a result of hard work and passion. I often say to myself, “How awesome would that be if I could do that too?” I sometimes like to imagine myself in their shoes. I try to picture what they must feel like after they’ve gone off and made their vision come to fruition after spending all that time and effort making something worth being proud of. 

That’s the key word here, proud. When you can take a step back and look at something you just created that took real time and effort to make, and you honestly feel the feelings of being proud to say you did it, that’s when you know it was all worth it. Being able to set aside your fears of failure and replace them with excitement and inspiration and a vision of how the end result will turn out on any project you work on is the key to being able to produce quality work and the feelings of being proud of yourself. 

While I primarily make things for myself, my main goal for doing a lot of what I do is because I ultimately want to be seen as a source of inspiration to those around me. Not for any selfish reason but because I genuinely wish that everyone around me can gather up the courage to pursue what they really want to do. The fact that I do so many different things and the fact that I am very open about my process through social media has the great side-effect of being able to instill the creative spark in a person’s mind that makes them realize that a thing I know how to do might not be as hard as they first thought. It’s happened numerous times where because of the constant flow of work I produce, many people have asked me for tips or have gone on and started up their own projects after seeing my work. And that is what I aim for. It’s not something I initially intended on happening, but it sure as hell is awesome that it does. If I can help out someone who genuinely wants to break into the design world or illustration scene or doing something relating to music, then I will do everything I can to point them in the right direction and guide them along.

So as you can see, my reasons for writing this book are pretty straight-forward. I want to give you all a glimpse into how my mind works and how I’m able to manage doing so many things in what seems to be an incredibly sort amount of time. The flow of this book will be directed in a way that makes sense from a beginner’s stand-point. First it will start off by laying out the foundation of what this book is about with an introduction to the mindset you should actively be seeking out. Then each section after that will lead into the next phase that builds upon the previous phase.

Now that you know what to expect, let’s get started!

Introduction

Creativity is one of the most common things in society today. Yet it is also one of the hardest things to truly grasp at a personal level. When you’re stuck trying to find ways to get into that creative state of mind, you feel as though it’s something that’s just out of your reach. Sure, it can come to you over time with practice and determination. But the truest form of creativity does not come from only practice. Practice is merely a way to build your skills and allow you to execute what it is you’re attempting to create. True creativity comes from knowing how to think and how to live in an inspired state of mind. It is what separates the good artist from the great artist. 

The reason this is true is if you take anybody who is just starting out in a new line of work, take graphic design for example. Chances are they got interested in it because they were inspired by a certain type of look, style, feel, etc… That person already has the makings of becoming great at that style they’re interested in because it is their taste in design that made them take the plunge and pursue that knowledge or career in graphic design. If they manage to hold onto that initial creative taste that got them started, the chances of them quickly becoming a great designer are much higher than for one who lets that taste fade away. The reason being is that their awareness of what looks good and what doesn’t is at the forefront of their mind at all times as opposed to someone who isn’t aware of this. If they can make it well past the stages of self-doubt and the frustration that comes along when their work isn’t looking as it does in their head, then that clearly shows passion and dedication to their craft. And as a result, the fundamentals of what hard-work and a sharp attention to detail can give you becomes engraved in their minds.

Once you get past the stage where you honestly just suck at everything, you start to notice things a bit differently. It’s a gradual effect but over time, your awareness of what truly interests you starts to become more apparent. Lots of people tend to look for inspiration online either on Pinterest or just regular ol’ Google Images. At this stage is where you need to be careful though. There is a period of time where you can easily fall into self-doubt because you kind of have the basic knowledge to create stuff you like but its not quite there yet. If you ever start to feel this way, my suggestion would be to stop looking online for inspiration. Sure, looking at inspirational imagery can get your mind racing and will make you want to create cool things, but too much inspiration can damage your willingness to create and the inner drive to keep going. And this is where most young creatives fall short. They allow their imaginations to get way ahead of their abilities to produce the kind of work they want. Thus resulting in the self-defeating attitude that sadly I’ve witnessed my friends go through too many times. 

The only way to prevent this from happening is to constantly be in the mindset of creating to improve your skills rather than just living in the mindset of gathering inspiration in the hopes that it will ultimately make you want to create something. Really, its all nothing but wasted time. Say you spend an hour looking at stuff online that will get you into the mood of creating something cool. That’s literally an hour you could have used to instead make something. Anything. Doesn’t have to be great. It can even suck. Horribly. But thats the thing. Most young creatives don’t allow themselves to suck at making bad art willingly when they start to realize they are understanding things a bit more clearly than before. You need to allow yourself time to make bad things in order to know what works and what doesn’t work. You can’t expect to know everything from the get go. Spend some time tinkering around with random projects that will help you exercise your skills so that you can master them when the time comes to use them in a real world setting.

But sure we all need that push or little boost when we are out of ideas and have nothing in mind to create. If anything, you can set a limit on yourself of 5-10 minutes max on the time you spend looking for inspiration to get you going. Here is what I usually do when I’m looking at inspiration online. I rarely ever actively look for it. I usually just browse around a design blog to read articles and then find an inspiration round-up post and check it out. Usually if the work in there is in my general area of interest, I keep looking. If not, I just click out and do something else. But if I see something that does interest me, I let it sit in my head for a few seconds. After which I immediately close the window and start thinking more. The reason being is because if I get just an inkling of a possible idea for something I want to make, I don’t want my creative mind to be contaminated with any major aspect of the piece I’m looking at. If anything specific about the piece interested me, then I just have to rely on what I remember. 

Doing this kind of exercise makes your mind work harder to come up with design solutions internally as opposed to an external source. The point here is to place your mind in a position where it will work for you. By forcing yourself to recall certain elements of something you briefly saw and can’t fully remember, your mind will fill in the gaps with things that probably weren’t there to begin with. As a result, you start to build an image in your mind that is loosely based off of an existing piece, but with the majority of the details coming from your mind. Once you have that rebuilt image in your head, then you go off and create something using a similar technique where you think of a certain concept, and start to place things in and around it in your mind. The vision of this does not have to be entirely clear. In fact, it should be as rough as possible. 

Most people at this stage tend to start off by sketching the idea and putting it down on paper. This helps you by getting those important details you don’t want to forget off your mind in order to make room for more ideas to build upon. But really, sketching isn’t for everyone. I usually tend to just go straight into designing stuff. This helps me more because I feel I have a more flexible canvas with options to undo, erase, and move things, unlike pencil and paper. But that’s just me.

As I stated above, the single greatest thing you need to know how to do is think. Clearing your mind of clutter and allowing yourself to quickly put ideas onto a canvas and produce them without as much as breaking a sweat is the ultimate goal you need to aim for. Plan early. Aim high.