I’m finally back with a new blog post. This time I thought I’d share a 3 minute video to motivate you to keep reading:
To kick us off on a week of blog posts all about the challenges of creative work, I wanted to suggest a book I’ve found while researching on the topic. If you work in technology, you’re probably always urged to think and work creatively. But with so many professionals trained to see creativity as an intriguing innate quality, it can often seem like there are constant blocks to your team’s creativity.
At Sketchboard we live for creative challenges. So, “The Art of Creative Thinking” by Rod Judkins was right up our alley. Judkins is a lecturer at the world famous St.Martin’s College of Art, where he helps students from various areas tap into their creative potential.
The book is extremely light and easy to get through. It’s divided into sections of 3-5 pages, and it doesn’t need to be read linearly. Judkins’ point was to allow the readers to jump directly to whatever section they identified with any specific point of their own creative challenge. Alternatively, the book can also be used as a motivational device. Open it on any random section and read a couple of pages whenever you need a boost.
This is not a self-help book. It won’t give you cliches about the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone or thinking outside the box. Instead, it puts forward a set of important questions commonly faced by anyone trying to work creatively. Each section tackles a different question in a clear conversational tone. There is always a short story about a well known figures and how they applied creativity to solve their professional challenges. Yet, there’s never a definitive conclusion. All sections are open-ended to motivate readers to find cues they can turn into creative work habits.
You’ll likely come away with a set of new ways to analyse your team’s creative work. The most inspiring idea I found in this book is that it’s always better to do the best version of my own creative work than a bad copy of someone else’s.
I hope you feel compelled to pick up a copy of “The Art of Creative Thinking”. It’s one of our go-to books at Sketchboard. If you do read it, we’d love to hear your opinion about it. Drop a comment below if you’d like to join the conversation. We’re always happy to hear from you.