[image via jaxestudios.com]

So you see an ad, it’s got one of those cool anti-gravity poses with water or paint flying off the person. Look cool huh? But what is that ad saying? If done right simplicity can be very effective. Copying trends can be a huge “oops.”

There are a lot of way to avoid these problems, lets explore a few:

1. don’t fall into what everyone else is doing. bad johnny, bad!

You tend to see a lot of art that has all the same stuff over and over. This is a total baddy. There is a good reason real artists are apposed to this kind of design.  The reason is, it’s just not effective among many other reasons.  You can use it as a case study, but its not recommend as a final product for an ad.

2. Be creative.

Being creative is hard to train at first and it certainly takes many years to stay consistent at effective creativity. But once you do, you got it and you just keep rolling with it. It’s very liberating to be creative even when you’re first starting out and no good at it. There are also lots of great methods to realizing a creative idea.

3. Take risks.

Some people might have you thinking that it’s a safer bet to be in the safe zone when it comes to design, concept development and so on.  This is definitely not true. What this doesn’t mean is that you create some gratuitous campaign just to turn heads. It does mean going into the unexplored and thinking about things that people usually aren’t used to seeing.

4. Read read read….

I cannot stress enough how important it is to read daily, even if its a few minutes.  Read weird stuff, sci-fi, philosophy, science– whatever you can get your hands on. Reading is a unique medium to derive creativity, it isn’t bias to any kind of prior aesthetic, you’re brain is the only one that will create it.  That makes it a very important tool in a creative arsenal.

5. Have a process

Have a creative process.  This is in no way a limiting exercise, in fact its one of the most liberating. It doesn’t have to be the same processes over and over, there is always room for rearranging.  You don’t always have to follow the same process, but have one.  You can write it down at first, then expand it. After a while you wont need to follow any plan, you will just innately know how to do what your project calls for. There are times that every single project will call for a slightly different process too, so don’t be afraid to explore.

6. Step/roll/flop away from your computer.

Really… don’t depend on your computer to make you creative. It’s a fantastic tool, but the real stuff starts with your imagination. The computer can spread you thin so quickly, you wont let you live in the idea. Sit back with some coffee and just let your imagination play with some ideas. Make make some doodles. Perhaps even thumbnail.

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