Why the iPhone is Killing Creativity

We all love our smart phones. They’ve reinvented the way we see and interact with the world.  But I often find myself wanting to throw it at a wall for that same reason.  I check my iPhone out of boredom or during a pause in a class lecture. I scroll mindlessly through Facebook status’ and Instagram photos that  have little relevance to my life. Often times, I use it as a distraction. I try really, really hard not to be attached to my smartphone. But despite my love-hate relationship with my phone, it’s a gadget I can’t live without. However, all of my unnecessary engagements with my iPhone could be killing my creativity.

By constantly interacting with our smart phones  our minds are always engaged. While that may seem like a good thing, we’re not actually doing any real thinking during these times. In order to be creative, the mind needs time to wander. In other words, since we never get bored, we never get creative. Brian S. Hall at ReadWrite defines boredom as “as a creative pause where your mind can drift, which allows you to integrate your recent experiences into your present state of mind.” Boredom is necessary to expand your creative thinking, and smart phones are hindering that ability. “Spending so much time texting and updating, tweeting and watching, calling and playing at every free moment, from every location, never alone with our thoughts, never allowing our thoughts to drift, impacts our creativity, which in turn can limit our full potential.”

Fostering creativity  through boredom is even more relevant for children. According to Dr. Teresa Belton, kids who are using technology to learn and play are missing out on opportunities to use their creativity and imagination.

Instead of turning to our smart phones in times of boredom, try something new. Read a book, go for a walk, cook, just sit and think – little moments like these can have a bigger impact on your overall creativity than you can imagine. As for me, I won’t through my phone at the wall, but I am seriously considering a technology detox. It’s time to let my thoughts wander instead of my fingers on the screen.

The Other Isaac

“Young people are beginning to feel that science fiction is the kind of literature that a person interested in reality should be reading.”

When I came across this quote from the late Dr. Isaac Asimov – renowned scientist, author and creativity enthusiast – I was immediately intrigued by its meaning. Science, fictional or not, is all about exploring the future. And science fiction puts no limits on the possibilities the future holds. The make-believe worlds created in the pages are closer to reality than ever before. In order to make advances in society, the curiosity-driven thinking in science fiction books is just what young people need to come up with innovative solutions.

“Science fiction, of all the different forms of literature, is the one that most easily accepts the notion of change. Things are changing very quickly, and any kid who thinks about it knows that the world in which he or she will be a grown-up — which he or she will be helping to run — will be considerably different from this one,” says Dr. Asimov in his 1983 interview with Muppet Magazine.

Dr. Asimov believed advances in technology would free up more human thought to be put towards creative, pro-social endeavors. Thirty years later, this still holds true.  Science and creativity go hand in hand. Successful creatives will be able to merge the disciplines in order to strengthen their critical thinking and ability to innovate.

“Science does not purvey absolute truth, science is a mechanism,” says Dr. Asimov. “It’s a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature, it’s a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match.”

Creativity is also about trying to improve your knowledge, challenging yourself, and testing your thoughts, if not against the universe, at least among your peers or colleagues. Advertising is becoming fully integrated with digital platforms and interactive technology. In order to distinguish yourself from the competition it is important to embrace technology. I can remember the science fiction section in my local library, tucked away in a back corner, with old books and dusty covers. I think it’s time to bring those books out of hiding. There is always learning to be had, and science fiction has a lot more to offer than fantasy.

Toy Stories

Puput – Bali, Indonesia

When asked what I bring to the table, I often say I have a child-like enthusiasm. This usually requires an explanation, since most people would rather not work with someone who is anything child-like at all. But kids have a lot of smart and interesting qualities – their uninhibited dreams, wild imaginations, and desire to try new things. Everything is new and exciting to a child, and they’re quicker to try again when they fail. I am far from a child myself, but I have held onto some of those qualities, from my desire to try to things to the simple name of this blog – both a metaphor and a hobby.

Tangawizi – Keekorok, Kenya

Children continue to provide wonderful insights into the world of creativity and they also can encourage creativity in others. In photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s most recent project, Toy Stories, he photographs children around the world with their toys.

These photos provide an interesting commentary on both the children and the parents. The photos reveal that kids around the world love dolls and dinosaurs and trucks and teddy bears. But the toys on display also expose the hopes and ambitions of the children’s parents, as Ben Machell, writer for The Times Magazine suggests. “There was the Latvian mother who drove a taxi for a living, and who showered her son with miniature cars; the Italian farmer whose daughter proudly displayed her plastic rakes, hoes and spades,” writes Machell in his interview with Galimberti. “Parents from the Middle East and Asia, he found, would push their children to be photographed even if they were initially nervous or upset.”

Julia – Tirana, Albania

The photos initially caught my eye because of the way they are composed visually. The toys are orderly, perfectly arranged, creating geometric shapes and lines. In some photos, the kids appear toy-like themselves, with their seemingly unmovable expressions. These photos are both beautiful and displaced at the same time. It is an interesting contrast to show kids with their toys in a way that may never actually occur when playing.

Ralf – Riga, Latvia

Toys are our best friends when we are children. They come on adventures with us and protect us when we’re scared. And playing, whether it be as a child or an adult, is crucial to creativity.

Caution: Women at Work

In a recent interview on 60 minutes, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer for Facebook, discusses why men still run the world. Despite the fact that women have been getting more college degrees than men for 30 years, they still account for only four percent of CEOs in America’s Fortune 500 companies. She also discussed this matter in her TED Talk a few years earlier. “I think [women] are stalled,” says Sandberg. “I think we’re stalled. And I think we need to acknowledge that we’re stalled so that we can change it.”

Now Sandberg admits she doesn’t have all the answers, but she believes the reason there are so few women at the top is actually the fault of the women themselves. Sandberg thinks the biggest problem is that success and likability are positively correlated for men, but negatively correlated for women. A woman who works as hard as men is often viewed as selfish and difficult. Sandberg argues this is because women underestimate their own abilities.  We attribute our success to other external factors, including: help form others, luck, and extreme hard work. When men are asked why they are so successful, they will often respond with something slightly more eloquent than “I’m awesome, duh.”

Now of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s important for both men and women to own their success.  And I believe owning your success has a lot to do with embracing creativity. Teresa Amabile, who has written several articles on creativity. She argues there are six keys to creativity: freedom, challenge, resources, supervisor encouragement, organized support and communication, and workgroup. If applied many of these keys of creativity, could help women get to the top.

Being creative is more than just coming up with ideas. It’s about asking questions, looking for leadership opportunities, and being fearless. Creativity means being uncompromising in order to get the best results. And it means staying motivated and engaged.

This is essentially what Sandberg is telling women to do. Work should be challenging and rewarding, and we should feel like we are making a difference. Sandberg wants more women to “raise their hands, look for promotions, and say “Me! I want to do that.”

Women need to stop putting limits on themselves, conscious or unconscious. And exploring creativity could be the answer. So yes, watch out, because women are about to work harder than ever. I truly believe success is in our own hands and if we want to make something happen, it will.

Hats Off (or on) to Creativity

In fourth grade, three times a week, we had a writer’s workshop in which we wrote and illustrated our own books. I was working on a highly anticipated suspense story. It was widely known as the most ambitious idea in the class, and that’s a lot of pressure for a seven year old. When it came time to read my story, it had all the makings of a spooky thriller, but it failed to impress. And just like that my dreams of being the next Stephen King were over.

Thankfully, I could still turn to my favorite books for the stories I so wished I could write. Among my favorites were the works of Dr. Seuss. Even as a twenty year old, those stories still resonate.

The New York Times recently ran an article about my beloved author and his infatuation with hats. So many of his characters wear hats or some form of headwear, most notably being The Cat in the Hat. But Dr. Seuss’ obsession with hats began long before he started drawing illustrations. He collected hats and would have guests wear them as costumes at dinner parties.

Dr. Seuss often incorporated hats into his advertising work. “[Hats] could give that character a lot of personality,” said Robert Chase, co-founder and president of Chase Art Companies. In one ad for Flit insecticide, Dr. Seuss showed a mosquito bursting out of a woman’s flower-decorated hat. “The ad helped jump start his career as a commercial artist and copywriter,” writes Leslie Kaufman, “And became part of one of the longest-running campaigns in advertising history, built around the line “Quick, Henry, the Flit!”

Dr. Seuss’ ads had a level of personality and creativity that I aspire to have in my own work.  Hat’s not only inspired the drawings in his ads, they inspired the man himself. For him, hats brought a level of playfulness and imagination to his work. They were a way of thinking through his stories and bringing them to life. Michael Frith, editor in chief of Beginner Books at Random House in the 1960s, remembers sitting and working with Dr. Seuss on a book. He said, “[We were] two grown men in stupid hats trying to come up with the right word for a book that had only 50 words in it at most.”

As silly as that sounds, the hats helped Dr. Seuss think outside of the box. The best illustrations, the best stories, and the best advertisements come from that sort of thinking. So if finding the right words for a tagline means wearing a silly hat, do it. If creating the perfect image for a magazine requires walking around with a flower pot on your head, so be it. Great work is inspired by great play, and that is what Dr. Seuss proved with his love of hats.

Dr. Seuss was much more than a marketing juggernaut or a pillar of the publishing industry, but an inspiration to your inner creative self. And with that, I leave you with a quote from “Oh the places you’ll go”

“You’re off to great places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting

So . . . get on your way!”

When High School Identities Come Back to Haunt You

Oh high school. Personally, I’m glad the days of homecoming queens, lunch table hierarchy and nine classes a day are behind me. But according to the New York Magazine article, Why You Truly Never Leave High School, the memories of those days will have lasting effects on my career and the decisions I make in the future.

Will my high school identity come back to haunt me?

Our adolescent life is crucial in the development of our self-identity. Any cultural stimuli we are exposed to during that time make more of an impression. They either become a part of our self-concepts or we reject them. But these decisions are not so easy to make when trapped in a factory-made school day where popular kids rule and the girl who plays the cello (or has a tea part in the kids section of a book store) is seen as a loser. Both the regimented curriculum and the pressure to fit in prevent us from fully exploring our interests. “Our self image from those years is especially adhesive,” writes Senior. “So too are our preferences.” And the emotions we experience, such as embarrassment and shame stay with us long after we graduate.

Homeschooling has become a more popular option for parents. Some believe homeschooling is the answer to the creative development of their children.  At home, they can learn through life and they are not forced work out their identity amid other soul-searching students. According to the article Homeschooling, City-Style, homeschooler’s in New York City learn American history by working with actors in Oklahoma. At Robofun kids work in pairs to build robots and learn computer programming. “One of the most popular programs among New York homeschooling families, and one that fulfills the city’s phys-ed requirement, is Wayfinders,” writes Lisa Miller, “a role-playing fantasy program in which kids run around Central Park in teams with large foam swords playing an epic version of capture the flag.” Now that sounds like fun.

Me in high school playing with chalk.

There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m still influenced by who I was in high school. Luckily, creativity did not escape my high school career, and my friends supported, if not encouraged doing things a little differently. If anything, I think high school may have had the opposite effect on me. No one’s stopping me from playing a childhood fantasy game in Central Park, or at least the Emerson accepted equivalent, Quidditch (I don’t play, yet). I can explore new parts of the city or go to a museum. My creative career has just begun.

Thinking Made Visual

In The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, she encourages artists that are trying to find their way to make lists of their imaginary lives – who they wished to be in the past, who they wish they were now. A part of me has always wanted to be a designer. Not necessarily a graphic designer in the marketing sense of the term, but in an “art for art’s sake” type of way.  One of my favorite designers was able to combine both the beauty of art and marketing as one. Saul Bass and his breakthrough use of illustration and typographic design continue to be a source of inspiration.

For a long time, I thought I would be attending the Rhode Island School of Design, but my business-minded parents combined with my less than stellar skill set landed me at Emerson to study Marketing. I still do graphic design work in my free time, but I often find myself feeling like it’s a lost cause. The technical skills of some designers are outrageous. And with Photoshop at their disposal, they can make anything look real. Personally, I like to experiment with type and I have recently started drawing illustrations again. But that can feel so passé in a field saturated with high-tech images and designs.

One of the most notable graphic designers of the mid-20^th century, Bass was a master of illustration and typography. He is best known for his movie posters and title sequences, but is also responsible for the design of some of the most iconic logos in North America. “I don’t give a damn if the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that a client thinks it’s worth anything, or that it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me, ” said Bass when speaking about the importance of beauty in good design. “That’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make things beautiful even if nobody cares.”

And that’s just what he did. Only lucky for him, people did care. Bass created beautifully crafted movie posters including West Side Story, Love in the Afternoon, The Shining, Vertigo, and The Man with the Golden Arm. He used kinetic typography in a way that had never been done before when making the opening title sequences for Hollywood’s greatest films, including Psycho, Ocean’s Eleven, Goodfellas, and Around the World in 80 Days. Many modern designers, most notable in the design of the American period drama, Mad Men, have emulated his work.

Bass once said, “Design is thinking made visual.” So while I may not be able to design like Saul Bass, I can certainly inspire myself to think like he did. If I enjoy doing design and I think it’s beautiful that’s all that matters.

In looking into Bass’ work, I stumbled across this example of kinetic typography in the style of Bass. The love message and the design, especially for those of us trying to be more creative, but I’d watch it without sound, I think it’s stronger that way. Enjoy.

Created by Japanese motion graphic design studio TO-FU