Inspiring "Creativity" Quotes

I wouldn't say I find many quotes that really inspire me, but there are many quotes that I really relate to and agree with, and therefore account to my influence of creativity. These are the ten quotes that particularly stood out to me.

Leo Burnett - "Curiosity about life in all its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people"

Steve Jobs - "Creativity is just connecting things, when you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they really didn't do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after while"

Albert Einstein - "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"

Erich Fromm - "Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties"

Charles Mingus - "Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity"

Maya Angelou - "You can't use up creativity, the more you use, the more you have"

Ken Robinson - "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original"

Marcel Dunchamp - "I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste"

Andy Warhol - "You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things"

Hernest Hemingway - "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen"

Mini Creative Task - Coffee Machine

We were told that we had to quickly design a new innovative coffee machine, with the type of product the only part of the brief. I took inspiration from OKGO's music video for "This Too Shall Pass" (Rube Goldberg version). The marble run idea was intended to be new and different from other products on the market, in which it is and therefore meets the initial brief, but I feel my level of creativity was low, as I was struggling to find inspiration and almost copied the idea from the music video, this again links into the argument for what is "creative" and what isn't. 

My Creativity

-What do you understand by ‘creativity’ and to what extent have you been creative? I understand creativity to be on the periphery between creating something with a talent, or large amount of work (possibly using already used conventions) whilst also creating a product/idea which is different, imaginative and unique. I think I have been creative when creating many products within my Media and Product Design A levels. Creating ancillary products e.g. Digipak and Album poster for a band, creating a point of sale product to influence children to participate in sports and when creating a music magazine for a rock audience. I think the extent of my creativity lies on creating products that are effective for their function but aren't necessary "new" or "different".

- How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity? When designing or trying to think about new ideas for products I have always used methods such as Inspiration Themes. For example taking images from either Nature or Architecture and then designing products around them, experimenting with different shapes and colours. 
- Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity? At times I have found it hard to be creative, especially under pressure or under a limited amount of time. For example I find myself being more creative in style, shape, ideas etc and in quantity when having a larger amount of time to think about different options.
- How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the brief? I think a brief helps me to narrow down what I the product or idea has to include, it helps me create a list of the elements it has to have and then allows me to be creative around these. It does sometimes however hinder my progress, for example a very detailed brief can be helpful, as this is what makes the product or idea feasible but sometimes it limits my ability to create abstract and new ideas.
- Did working within conventions stifle your creativity? I think it helped me be creative when developing those conventions, giving be the foundations to build on and produce more, but sometimes maybe they limited me on trying new things that hadn't been done before.
- To what extent did you need to work with others and ‘bounce ideas’ off other people to be truly creative? It allowed me to develop on my own ideas, some conventions other people used gave me the inspiration to try something similar but however different, giving me a push in the right direction.
-How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in your mind’s eye? Allot of my creativity was trying to produce something I could visualise in my head, but the other half was a trail and error method when attempting to create ideas which subsequently then inspired me to create something I had visualised. For example I had visualised a text repetition for the front of my digipak, when creating this I didn't think it looked aesthetically pleasing enough with the current colour scheme, so trying different ones randomly I found I particularly liked the in versed colour scheme, with made me visualise the whole product with the same.
- To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your creativity? I don't think a lack of confidence has had an effect on my creativity, I usually have confidence no matter what product I have to create, maybe when first filming my music video (draft) I was a bit unconfident because of my lack of experience at filming, and therefore this stopped me from performing more unique and imaginative shots.

Introduction into Creativity

Creativity has many meanings, the simplest being a describing word to show the "making" of a product/idea. In more complex terms the creation of something that requires talent e.g. music, or the creation of something unique, different and original which may require a collaboration of previous ideas/products.

Many people argue whether a combination of randomised or already used ideas to create a product is "creative. Generating a randomised Album Cover, first taking a random artist name using the random page selector tool on wikipedia, then album name from quotationspage random quote selector tool, and the 3rd picture from Flikr's most interesting page I will have created a possible "Creative" product.

In my opinion the album covers I have created look very interesting and aesthetically pleasing, and could be easily believed to be real products. Surely if the product can fit in with a range of similar products which are deemed "creative" so is this? An example is the band "Swiss Lips" who use material from films and other media products to create their own branding and image. Their EP Album Cover is simple Impact font like "The MED" above and uses an image from a dance film called "Breakin'" (1984).

This film is also used throughout their music video. Response to this album cover is the simplicity of it makes it look bold and inspiring, whilst this simple bold effect is very original and different from the current album covers on the market. The description from the target audience describes what I thought initially of what Creativity meant, which would subsequently make the product creative, but the fact that the product isn't created with much "talent" or "hardwork" deems it uninspiring and copied for the other side of the argument.