http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671773/4-ways-to-amplify-your-creativity
Related: Creativity'How Creativity Works': It's All In Your Imagination iStockphoto.com What makes people creative? What gives some of us the ability to create work that captivates the eyes, minds and hearts of others? Jonah Lehrer, a writer specializing in neuroscience, addresses that question in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer defines creativity broadly, considering everything from the invention of masking tape to breakthroughs in mathematics; from memorable ad campaigns to Shakespearean tragedies. He finds that the conditions that favor creativity — our brains, our times, our buildings, our cities — are equally broad.
How To Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 Buy the book: Amazon | B&N | More… Here’s what a few folks have said about it: “Brilliant and real and true.”—Rosanne Cash“Filled with well-formed advice that applies to nearly any kind of work.”—Lifehacker.com“Immersing yourself in Steal Like An Artist is as fine an investment in the life of your mind as you can hope to make.” Researchers discover how and where imagination occurs in human brains Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over where human imagination comes from. In other words, what makes humans able to create art, invent tools, think scientifically and perform other incredibly diverse behaviors? The answer, Dartmouth researchers conclude in a new study, lies in a widespread neural network—the brain's "mental workspace"—that consciously manipulates images, symbols, ideas and theories and gives humans the laser-like mental focus needed to solve complex problems and come up with new ideas.
Motion Graphic: 29 Ways to Stay Creative Creativity is a fascinating concept, one I’ve wrestled with in my teaching and one I’ve debated with my students. Can creativity be taught? Are some people just naturally more creative than others? Creativity Comes from Risk and Effort, Not Going to College As a college professor by trade (if I dare call my profession as such), I’m frequently asked a very compelling question: can creativity be taught? I’ve mulled this one over and over (and over some more) because it seems that in the answer to that question comes a very powerful opportunity: if creativity can, indeed, be taught, and if there is, truly, a formula for teaching it, then within the educator that possesses the formula lies the ability to change the world. A bit dramatic? Perhaps. But if we educators could master the art of teaching creativity, couldn’t we, in all reality, have the potential to spawn the world’s greatest innovations and insights in the minds of our students? Couldn’t we help people develop incredibly innovative ideas that, surely, exist in every human’s brain?
It’s Okay to Fail: How We Can Learn to Be Better Creative Thinkers Our culture has a problem. We’re scared to fail. The reality is, much of what we do in life requires problem solving. And solving problems requires a certain level of opportunity for failure. Fear is boring, and other tips for living a creative life Creativity is a tricky word. Consultants peddle it, brands promise it, we all strive for it, often without really knowing quite what “it” really is. Put simply, there’s a lot of snake oil around creativity. But now here’s author Elizabeth Gilbert (TED Talk, Your elusive creative genius) to cut through the guff with her distinctly refreshing take on the topic. For her, we’re all creative souls already, we just need to figure out how to harness inspiration and unleash the creative spirit within.
You think that it’s a picture of a squirrel! But zoom a bit closer. What the devil?!? Paul Smith died in 2007 at the age of 85 and chances are, you've never heard of him. The first 16 years he spent just learning to speak and walk. He lived his life at his parents' house and, after they passed away, in a nursing home. The reason? He had severe cerebral palsy. You might think that that's the end of a sad little story, but Paul Smith's life was quite the opposite of sad or little.
Want Your Children to Survive The Future? Send Them to Art School Can you imagine a world in which most jobs are obsolete? If not, you are most likely in for a rude awakening in the coming decades of radical shifts in employment. This is particularly true for new parents propelling the next generation of workers into an adulthood that many economists and futurists predict to be the first ever “post-work” society.
Science Reveals Artists Really Do Have Different Brains We might now have neurological proof that artists actually are different creatures from everyone else on the planet. According to a study published in Neurolmage, researchers believe that artists have brains that are structurally different from non-artists. It appears that there's now justifiable support for the idiom "she's just wired differently, idk." The study, titled "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Analysis Of Observational Drawing," included 44 graduate and post-grad art students and non-art students who were asked to complete various drawing tasks.
The Secret of Creativity with Deepak Chopra Description: Deepak Chopra explores the dynamics of a creative life and the relationship between age and creativity (we don’t have to lose our imagination as we grow older!).* How do you keep your creative spirit alive even as you progress further into adulthood? THE RABBIT HOLE features visually-stunning explorations of BIG questions: What is death? Who is God?
5 Creativity Myths You Probably Believe The one thing you learn as a neuroscientist is how awesomely creative every single human being is. It’s in our DNA. Creativity is how we, as a species, have become so dominant. Our gigantic brains have evolved to solve almost any problem that is thrown at us, from how to hunt, to how to farm, to how to find free Wi-Fi. Our exceptional problem-solving skills are ubiquitous throughout the entire species. 50 Must See TED Talks about Creativity and Design If you’re looking for ideas about design or seeking a creative muse, TED talks can be a worthwhile watch to stir your curiosity. From the latest web trends to the meaning of happiness, these 50 Talks are sure to arouse your creative fire. 01. John Maeda: How art, technology and design inform creative leaders Old meets new as designers find balance among the possibilities of technology, the solutions of design, and the questions asked by art. Maeda explores these concepts with attention to how they can inform effective creative leadership.
12 Ways to Defeat Creative Block and Generate New Ideas A lack of ideas – it happens to the best of us. It even happened to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his thirties. “So completely has a whole year passed, with scarcely the fruits of a month.