A book that speaks of no rules when designing and being creative?! Well this seems like a dream come true and one book I wish I had of read before commencing my final year of my masters!
I would seriously recommend this book to anyone within the creative industry or anyone that wants to be creative.
A few of the these so called ‘rules’ (they are more of a combined set of guidelines) echoed and greatly emphasised what my design tutors were telling me during my tutorial sessions. Reading the book though seemed to have more weight in the words. Instead of hearing a different quote or guide to designing on a weekly basis, it was all complied into this small book as a lot of the ideas are linked and naturally depend on the person. I am a person who seems to work absolutely fine in a ‘bomb has hit’ my office space, my mess is perfectly organised… Hegarty demonstrates there is two types of creative process ‘Chaos vs. Process’. I seem to start out with a set process to designing and producing work each week but as hand-in date looms that all seems to go out the window and the chaotic process takes over…
There was one element which really hit home and also could be a useful conversation to have with design tutors of any industry.
‘Originality is dependent upon the obscurity of your sources. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ORIGINALITY.‘
Hegarty finds the work ‘original’ one of the most meaningless word in the creative lexicon, and I agree with him, ‘it is said that God was the last originator and the rest of us are just copyists’. Original was throw around so much in tutorial sessions, so we all as students just thought it was going against the norm, the non-conventional. This debate was even brought up in the external examination visit, ‘what is conventional compared to non-conventional?’ One that nobody could really answer, so do these words have the same obscurity as original?
It is the long old debate that nothing is created in a vacuum; ideas borrow, blend, subvert, develop and bounce off other ideas. FRESH should be the new original, as it has to question, explain and inspire our view of the world.
Creativity can not be booked into the calendar… ‘Every Wednesday at 10am I am creative…‘ NO. Creativity creeps upon us when we least expect it. Most of my ideas for my final project this year have been on my bus journey home from a doomed tutorial session. I was not thinking about my project at all, enjoying looking out the window, watching the world go by… then BOOM! It put me in a good position to get on with work when I got in the door, grabbing anything to get my ideas down before they disappear.
Should our tutorials from the last year been as free as the creativity growth and birth of ideas within us individuals?
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I would have loved to have read this book years ago. I however, am now viewing my last year and time in architecture schools with a fresh perspective. Even now after reading the book I have reflected on things which have been said/done which might have been lost within the blur of university waffle. There was good and bad comments and ideas about designing and being creative, but we as individuals have to be exposed to both to know what is good… no, not good… we have to know what is GREAT to be come GREAT.
Read the book…