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Show of hands, who remembers reading Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are when you were a kid? The story begins when our main character Max misbehaves, his mom calls him a “wild thing” and he’s sent to his room without supper.

He’s so angry his bedroom turns into a jungle, a boat appears, and he sails to the land of the wild things. Max, who isn’t afraid of anything, tames the wild things, becomes their king, and decrees “Let the wild rumpus start,” and everything goes wild dancing in the moonlight.

Eventually, Max misses his mom and even though the wild things beg him to stay, he goes back to his bedroom to eat his supper. Where the Wild Things Are has always been a classic in my mind but when it was first published some people thought the anger and monsters would traumatize children.

The lesson I remember taking away from the book as a kid was to channel my emotions creatively instead of destructively. Everyone else caught on eventually and the book’s a beloved classic across the board today.

I was thinking about this story while browsing kid’s books for all the niece’s I seem to have racked up in the last five years. It makes me really excited to share stories with them that I loved as a child.

My world opened up when I discovered books and people often ask me who shaped/shapes my life as a writer and I usually answer with one of the following:

  • My mother, who cultivated my love of books (and is a brilliant artist/creative herself)
  • A handful of authors from my childhood including but not limited to E.B. White, Maurice Sendak, C.S. Lewis, Robert Frost, and J.R.R. Tolkien
  • All my friends and relatives who I constantly draw inspiration from whether they’re aware of it or not…now you know

Naturally curious person that I am, when I decided to write this post I hit up Nick to find out who he would say shaped/shapes his life as a designer. This is what he texted back:

  • As a creative, I would say an old friend named Kristen Montgomery
  • As a photographer, Instagram
  • As a designer, my first boss at my first design job
  • As a content creator/marketer, I would say you (Paige)  

*awww, thanks buddy*

This made me realize something. We’re both good at keeping the nonsensical part of ourselves alive and we’re good at sharing it with other people because other people help us keep that wild thing in us alive.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start

When I discovered stories, and when Nick discovered design, we both found a way to channel our emotions creatively. Not everyone is so lucky and we both try not to take it for granted that the wild things within us were never fully tamed.

We are both storytellers in our own right.

I just prefer to use words while Nick prefers to use visuals.

And I may be biased but I don’t think there’s a more beautiful and creative gift than the ability to tell stories. The world is sewn together with stories and the people who learn to trust their intuition in a world full of logical and analytical thinking are the storytellers.

It’s a privilege to be one of the storytellers.

But it isn’t always easy to trust your intuition; to listen to the wild thing inside you…if you’re not a storyteller that is.

Storytellers don’t have a choice. You can’t fight it no matter how much you’re encouraged to try. No matter how many times you’re told to “settle down.” To “not be so weird.” To “be quiet.” To “stop seeing it that way.”

That gut-feeling, that child-like wild thing, that intuition, if you’re lucky enough to never lose it…if you listen to it…feels like a North Star calling out to you from the sky, asking you to follow closely. When you spend your whole life defending the wild thing in your heart, sometimes make believe makes more sense than the real world.

It’s not a bad problem to have. It’s unusual, sure, but it makes life a lot more fun.

It’s good to see the world through your own eyes. To question people, places, things, and processes. To let your art run wild and free.

I suppose I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone, especially you, to ignore the wild thing in your heart just because it makes you different.

The wild thing in your heart makes you special and you can learn how to channel it, use it properly, and do something beautiful with it.

Can You Live A Life As Wild As Your Art?

Absolutely!

Sometimes the real world isn’t big enough for you to express the magnitude of an experience or a thought or a feeling. That’s okay. When that happens it signals it’s time to create something. It’s time to let the wild thing within you tell a story.

It can be with words. It can be with pictures. It can be a new workout routine, starting a new business, or trying something new in the kitchen. You can tell a story however you choose to express it. There’s art in everything when you open yourself up to be filled with creative potential that wants to speak in new languages.

Think in form and color.

Think in imagination.

That’s why we have books, music, medical advancements, sports, art, technological advancements, the list goes on.

The important and necessary work of creating and imagining is very real. We forget, as we grow older, how easily in reach the portal of the imagination is because we forget how to defend the wild and creative things inside us.

Or worse, we remember imagination is at our fingertips but we try to hide it. I call it “pretending in secret” and I think it’s an awful way to live.

You can be serious about playing pretend and it can be embraced in all disciplines. Playing “what if” helps us uncover the hidden mysteries of the world. Daring to go and think beyond everything that has been done and thought before is how progress is made.

If we embrace this though we have to be brave every day. We have to blur the boundaries between the created and the real. We have to invite others to actively dream and imagine with us.

All You Have To Do Is Begin

If you’re struggling today, maybe you’re stuck on an assignment at work or you’ve been staring at a blank page of a paper you have due tomorrow for the last three weeks, I want to encourage you to LET THE WILD RUMPUS START.

The beginning of this post was inspired by a children’s book but the conclusion was inspired by Tobias Van Schneider and an article he wrote recently titled You Only Have to Start.

I thought Van Schneider’s post presented an inspiring idea to be productive/creative every day when you’re not in the habit of living a life full of imagination.

It begins with taking the pressure off yourself and your work. It’s much easier to create and complete something when you aren’t overwhelmed with reaching an end goal. When you have a project and you don’t know where to begin the best thing you can do is just start. It’s better than doing nothing at all and you never know when a little research, brainstorming, or doodling will make the lightbulb in your head go off.

Dig deep and fight for the wild and creative things inside you.

All you have to do is start:

  • Trust your ideas, imagination, and creativity. Believe in it no matter how crazy.
  • Allow the nonsensical to stay open when you share it with others. Be brave.
  • Remember how to step between make-believe and the real world.
  • Defend the wild thing within you; the creative thing; the childlike thing; the dreaming thing; every day. Fighting for it is the only way to hang on to it.

Give this post a like if you’ve ever read Where The Wild Things Are and leave a comment telling us about a favorite book from your childhood. It’ll only take two minutes. “Let the wild rumpus start.” You can still make it home in time for dinner.

–Paige & Nick

I was following a #bufferchat on Twitter earlier this month about idea generation and it got me thinking about my own idea generation process, where we go for creative inspiration, and why it’s important to free ourselves from the mundane thoughts that hog our brain space the majority of the time.

Side note: If you’re not familiar with #bufferchat you really should get involved. Buffer hosts weekly “chats” on Twitter that center around specific topics and anybody can participate in the discussion. It’s pretty cool.  

As creative entrepreneur’s, we’re always on the lookout for inspiration. Ideas themselves come and go pretty frequently but you can’t ever predict when something will inspire a great idea.

We read books and blogs, watch movies, listen to podcasts, and follow YouTube playlists hoping something will spark the flame of creativity when we’re stuck because generating ideas on demand isn’t always easy. And that’s why I loved the idea generation topic on #bufferchat a couple of weeks ago.

The whole point of the chat was to share ideas, inspirational resources and encourage fellow creatives on their innovative idea journey. The whole chat inspired this post and gave us the idea to share the 14 most amazing idea generation techniques and resources we could put together. Thanks, Buffer!

 

use-these-7-techniques-to-jumpstart-your-creativity

Use These 7 Techniques to Jumpstart Your Creativity

We hope these tips spark some innovative ideas for you no matter what you’re working on today.

  • Brainstorming. I know, I know, this isn’t anything you haven’t heard before but it’s a tried and true method for inspiring new ideas. The point of brainstorming is so people can speak freely about their ideas. There’s no assessing anything so there’s no fear of criticism when sharing thoughts. Even the weird ones. Taming your thoughts is a lot easier than expanding your mind.

    Next time you’re stuck, get together with at least one other person and bounce ideas off of each other. When you’re brainstorming, 1+1=3 so you’re allowed to think outside of the box.
  • SCAMPER. This one is a personal favorite because SCAMPER is an idea generation technique that uses action verbs to stimulate your imagination. It’s a technique that was developed by Bob Eberie.

    SCAMPER is also an acronym. Each letter stands for an action verb which in turn serves as a prompt for creative ideas:

    S – Substitute
    C – Combine
    A – Adapt
    M -Modify
    P – Put to another use
    E – Eliminate
    R – Reverse
  • Storyboarding. Storyboarding is fun! If you’ve never created a storyboard before you should try it. When you storyboard, you develop a visual story to explain and explore ideas. Storyboards are especially helpful when you need to represent information you gathered while researching a topic.

    To create a storyboard all you need is a whiteboard or corkboard, whichever you prefer. Pictures, quotes, and other pertinent information is useful as well because that’s what you use to stand for scenarios and assist with comprehending the relationships between all of your ideas.
  • Attribute Listing. Attribute listing is more of an analytical approach used to recognize new forms of a product or system and identify areas that need improvement. Basically, you break something completely down, like a blog post, for example, note all of the different directions it could take, and see whether any change or combination to the topic idea would improve it or make it a complete flop.
  • Visualization. Visualization is an idea generation technique that gets you to think about challenges visually in an effort to better comprehend them. Nick does this all the time so we promise that it works.

    Picture prompts are particularly helpful when you’re using the visualization technique to solve a problem. Drawing things out or looking up literal pictures help your brain establish connections as well as surface emotions, feelings, and intuitions.

    Bryan Mattimore suggests that you use images that are visually interesting, portray a multiplicity of subject matter, and depict people in varied kinds of relationships and interactions. It also helps to tailor the photos to the character of the problem you’re trying to solve.
  • Daydreaming. Seriously. Let your mind wander from time to time. Daydreaming is a great way to trigger innovative ideas. Just keep a notebook nearby or download an app like Keep or Evernote so you can quickly jot down ideas when they come to you.
  • Brainwriting. Similar to brainstorming, brainwriting is an idea generation technique that has you set a timer (like 5 minutes) and jot down as many ideas, thoughts, or questions relative to your perplexing topic. This particular technique works best with a group of 3+ people.

    After time’s up, everybody passes their paper to the person on their right (or however you choose to do it) and then you add more ideas to the list you received. Once everybody in your group has added on to everyone else’s ideas, collect the sheets and open up discussion in the group.

    It’s almost impossible not to generate some creative ideas to act on when using this technique.

 

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7 Websites for Creative Inspiration

The techniques above are great for generating ideas with a team but sometimes you  just need some personal creative inspiration. We don’t want to make this list obnoxiously long so we’ll just share 7 of our go to places when we need some creative inspiration:  

  1. Creative Bloq. Creative Bloq is full of fresh thinking, expert tips, and tutorials guaranteed to help flex your creative muscles. They’re great at providing creative inspiration for creative people.
  2. SitePoint. Well-known among web designers and developers, SitePoint is the perfect place to learn things like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and more. The community is rich and engaging too, so you’re bound to stumble upon some words of inspiration every time you visit.
  3. JUST Creative. Technically, JUST Creative is the design portfolio of Jacob Cass but it’s also a pretty inspiring blog to keep up with. Cass specializes in logo design and brand identity so his posts are always full of inspiring info about topics like typography, SEO and web design, and storytelling techniques to name a few.
  4. Red Lemon Club. Red Lemon Club was founded in 2009 by Alex Mathers. It’s a great website that regularly showcases tips about branding, productivity, and business and it’s a great resource when you’re stuck on a project.
  5. Awwwards. If you’re ever in need of a little design inspiration, go to Awwwards. Awwwards is an organization that recognizes and promotes the talents of the best web designers, web developers, and web design agencies around the world.
  6. Speckyboy. Speckyboy is an online magazine for web designers. The mag focuses on exploring new techniques for inspiration and highlights a lot of cool and interesting resources for you to use.
  7. Ultralinx. They’re one of the best online magazines out there. Ultralinx covers high-quality tech, art, design, gadgets, and photography. At the time of this post, Ultralinx is my favorite go-to inspirational resource and they’ll probably stay that way for a long time. Highly recommended.


What are some of your favorite idea generation techniques or go-to resources? Let’s inspire each other and talk about them in the comments!