How to be a creative sponge - John Hicks

Hicksdesign, based in Witney outside Oxford.
Famous for Firefox and Thunderbird Logos

How do you do it? How do you get te ideas to actually design something?

Lots of parts of the design process - colour, grids.

"Designers need to be visual leeches, constantly cataloguing and recording information - Jason Santa Maria

Creative Sponges - collect creative juices

The 3 stages of the creative sponge

1. Collect
2. Catalog
3. Create

Collect

Everything you collect is relevant to the design progress
Observe life, how does the light reflect off the walls?

• Collect Books
• Penguin books - a design classic, good typeography - cheap!
• Collect Magazines - weekend supplements - good ideas for quotes, headers and side boxes, typography.
• Found Typography - Take pictures of signs
• Stuff off the internet - very easy to drag and drop
• Print and Pattern blog, johnsons thought of the day
• Veer - good for type - try the flont
• Freebies - Sign up for mailinglists - T26, Burbank
• T Shirts - threadless t shirts, great t shirts, colour schemes
• Leaflet Racks - oooh, lol they are the designers buffet lol take everything, one of each, take even the bad ones.
• Clothing labels and tags
• Packaging - breakfast cereal boxes - dorset cereals - american typewriter
• Photos that go wrong: Photos using other objects - take photos through a beer glass
• Doodles from you head - let out the stuff in your head
• But, don't collect websites! Approach doesn't work.

Catalog

"Designers are magpies..."
The good old sketchbook - use Moleskine, and letraset, writing notes is as important as images

John Hicks used to spurn Moleskine but now actively uses landscape Moleskine Reporter notebooks. These have great paper, and fit nicely between you and your computer keyboard.

• Binders
• Box files
• Not an easy way to get it out again
• John Hicks uses iPhoto. Create hierarchical Scrapbook Folders
• Yojimbo - takes everything

The "killer app" for the web creative sponge: flickr

For the first time peoples personal collections are being shared, great groups - Pictograms and Pucblic Space Typeography

Create

Peter Blake, famous for the sergeant pepper album - goes to markets, buys objects nad rearranges them.

The Fear : blank white paper

The process of collecting can stimulate

Creative Cataysets

• Deadlines!
• Change of environment - walk/drive
• Go to bed!
• Peace and quiet (go for a wee)
• Take a shower - hot water stimulates the brain
• Mind Mapping

Critique it!

Shows example of the London 2012 Olympics - and Daily Mail readers versions - any better?
Mood Boards are your friend!
Create a British Theme - not the empire and stuff. Italian Job, Mr Ben, Coldstream Guards, Sgt Pepper Album - look for common elements eg Red.
Someone else would do it and get a totally different mood board

Advantages of mood boards

1. Concentrates on the concept/mood
2. Stimulates concersation
3. Quick
4. Clients can make their own

Design Patterns

Patterns are optimal - collect design patterns - check out tab design patterns on flickr

Sample colors

Dodgy phtotos can create color patterns

Finally a couple of examples

Open Doors student site - slanted text, copied colors

"Soak up everything, you never know when you are going to need it"
- John Hicks

• http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/be-a-creative-sponge
• http://del.icious.us/jonhicks/sponge