Creative Something

Nine must-have books for corporate creatives

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:00:00 -0600

Working for any medium to large sized business as a creative type can be challenging.

Ideas have to be evaluated before they can be explored. There’s red tape covering most of everything. If there’s not enough money to fund an idea, it gets put on the back burner or ignored altogether. And, most importantly, innovation is risky; too risky for immediate action.

There are, however, ways to beat utilize creativity no matter what your role is in the giant corporate machine.

Here are my top picks of the must-have books for any corporate creative.

Orbiting the Giant Hairball

The full title of Gordon MacKenzie’s corporate cult classic is apt: “Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace.” Full of quirky commentary on Gordon’s true (or so he says) experience working for Hallmark, the book elegantly covers everything a creative needs to know about staying sane in the work place in a remarkably funny way.
It’s Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be

Paul Arden captions this book as “The World’s Best Selling Book,” and he does so for good reason. Packed with sporadic (but creatively insightful) wisdom, Arden helps shine light on otherwise dark and daunting situations in corporate life. Particularly useful for designers, the advice inside is easily adaptable for other creatives in any industry.
Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)

Insights, inspiration, examples, and facts about unleashing your creative potential, all from creative genius George Lois (the original Mad Man of Madison Avenue). Similar to “It’s Not How Good You Are” (the previously mentioned book), this one is broken into bite-sized chunks of insights that are sure to help a creative in nearly any business environment.
How to Get Ideas

With more than 40 years of experience under his belt, Jack Foster shares his insights for staying creative and coming up with ideas in this classic book. Scientific America once described this book as “Quite simply, the best book on creativity I have ever seen.” What more is there to say?
A Technique for Producing Ideas

Coming in at just 38 pages, this book by James Webb Young explores how to generate ground-breaking ideas for whatever your goal may be. It’s a handbook-sized guide to doing exactly what it says on the cover.
Rework

The book from esteemed software agency 37signals is one that rattles traditional corporate knowledge and provokes time-tested ways of conducting business. Targeted more at the entrepreneur: the book is a great case-study for what a creative could do to flip process upside down at any company.
The Accidental Creative

While personally not a favorite book of mine, The Accidental Creative has received rave reviews from almost everyone I’ve worked with. The book takes a look at the processes that author Todd Henry has used to bring innovation into companies, including how to maintain creative rhythm, spotting elements that distract from creativity, and more.
Manage Your Day-to-Day

The second major creativity book from 99u, author Jocelyn Glei tackles the topic of managing your daily work life with insights from some of the top creative minds of our day. From the description: “With wisdom from 20 leading creative minds, Manage Your Day-to-Day will give you a toolkit for tackling the new challenges of a 24/7, always-on workplace.”
Do More Great Work

Undoubtedly a modern classic on how to spend your time working on the work that matters, author Michael Bungay Stanier collaborates with the likes of Seth Godin, Leo Babauta, Chris Guillebeau, Michael Port, and Dave Ulrich to define what it means to spend your time working on the stuff that matters (and less of the stuff that doesn’t). With plenty of insights and tips on how to find the motivation or inspiration to get it done.

Disclaimer: If you click on any of the book links above and purchase any item as a result, I will get a (very small) kickback.

The best thing vs the thing that matters

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:39:19 -0600

Those that get past creative blocks often aren’t the ones who necessarily have the capacity for more creativity. Nor are they consistently the ones with the right tools or more resources.

No, those that excel when it comes to ideation, to getting past the creative block, who find solutions that work, are typically the people who focus on the thing that matters most.

It’s easy to get consumed with what we believe is the “best” thing. The best thing requires more tools, more ideas, more input, and ultimately more risk. But the best thing isn’t always the thing that matters, the thing that will move the needle.

In our efforts to find the solution that wows us we overlook the one that actually matters.

Fortunately it’s easy to shift away from the best thing and re-focus on the right thing by looking at the impact each is expected to have. Taking the few extra minutes to evaluate your path can make all the difference in not only how you come up with ideas, but the quality of them as well.

If you find yourself stuck often, or moving slowly, unable to come up with enough of what feels like the right ideas, first take a step back and consider the fact that you might be searching for the best thing rather than the thing that really matters.

The two aren’t always exclusive, but more often than not one distracts from the other.

Work worth doing

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:10:43 -0600

There’s a story of a very successful businessman who is on vacation in Mexico and encounters a single fishing boat docked at the pier with a large catch of fish.

When the businessman asked the fisher how long it had taken to catch so many fish, he told him that it had only taken a little while.

The businessman was surprised and asked why the fisherman didn’t then stay out and fish longer, since he apparently was having such success that day. To which the fisherman replied: “this is enough for my needs. I’ll now go back home and spend the day with my family, playing with the children, cooking dinner, dancing, drinking, and laughing.”

Again surprised, the businessman began to talk to the fisher about how he could fish for longer every day and make enough money to buy a bigger boat.

If he bought a bigger boat he could catch even more fish and make even more money, which meant he could hire other fisherman to help him on his boat. With the money he’d make with all of the help he could buy a whole fleet of boats and make enough money to start a large business.

At this point the fisher asked the businessman what he would do then. The businessman replied: “That’s the best part! You could sell the business and make enough money to never have to fish again. Then you could spend your days with your family, playing with your children, dancing, drinking, enjoying good food…”

The fisherman just laughed and said “But I’m already doing that now!”

There are a few important morals to this story, but the one that is often overlooked is the impact of the fisherman’s work itself.

Yes, he could have continued fishing and built up an empire of fishing ships, but that wasn’t what the fisherman set out to do everyday. Even if he did work that hard and achieve that success, for him the work itself was his personal reward.

For creative work it has to be the same way: the work is a big part of the reward. The process of creative work is what makes it worthwhile, not always the results.

Even if you were to sell a painting for thousands of dollars, or if you were to sell a million copies of your novel, or to reach some other height in your creative work: what then?

Success isn’t the end, the work has to continue.

So, whether you’re heading in a direction that you’ll hope will bring you wide success or not, remember that the work you do is something you need to find fulfillment from itself.

Whether you reach a perceived finish line or not, there’s always going to be work to be done. Make sure it’s work you enjoy doing.

Knowing where to look

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:05:51 -0600

We’re often drawn to the thing that makes the most noise or moves sporadically or flashes on and off.

It’s in our nature to look when something like this happens, because that’s where danger or benefit often come from. When you’re browsing around the Internet and something bright and animated comes into view you’re going to take notice. Often the reward is entertainment, occasionally it’s wonder, sometimes it’s disgust. But it lasts only a minute or two and then the feeling is gone, no matter how long the thought stays with you.

Sadly the same is true for when you’re searching for creative inspiration.

Occasionally you’ll find yourself desperately searching for something that inspires you. Only you’ll be looking for the wrong thing in the wrong places, because what you’re drawn to is the thing that makes noise, or moves, or flashes.

Sometimes the thing you should be looking for to feel inspired is the thing that you aren’t noticing, the thing that’s not at all flashy.

Maybe it’s the flaws of a hand-made, ceramic mug. Or a sudden change in pitch on one of your favorite songs. Or the way an author purposefully chose the wrong word to invoke an emotion, rather than opting-in for the proper one.

If you’re looking for inspiration don’t just rely on the next flashy thing that captures your attention. Instead, focus on the thing that doesn’t immediately make you stop and look, and really dig into it’s details.

Photo via Flickr user.

The easiest way to get unstuck

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:17:00 -0600

It’s hard to move on anything when you don’t know which direction you’re heading in.

So we wait until the path becomes clearer, until a lightning bolt of inspiration strikes us and we know which direction to take.

That reason alone is a big one when addressing why we’re stuck: because we’re waiting for something external to push us forward. We’re stuck because we are too busy looking for the right motivation or searching for the clear direction towards success.

But the easiest way to get unstuck is to move in any direction, to simply start.

You may head in the wrong direction, but knowing which direction not to go in means you’re closer to moving in the right one.

It doesn’t mean you’re going to find the best possible solutions, or the biggest idea, or the perfect result, but it’s the easiest way to move. If you’re feeling stuck, just start with what you know.

The real trick is to not just start, but keep going, to never stop moving.

Like this post? Share it on Facebook or post it on Tumblr.

Photo by Thomas Bresson.

How expectations hinder and help creativity

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:20:52 -0600

When you go into a project (or start working on something) with any expectation of how it will turn out, you’re limiting your potential.

Creativity thrives in the unknown. Expecting anything (good or bad) as an outcome of your efforts is locking you into those expectations.

Rather than thinking about how you could try something differently – incorporate something you encounter along the way or even seek outside help, as two examples ” you’re going to be thinking about how to align what you’re doing with what you’re expecting.

Which is a straight path to creative failure.

Instead, envision a broad direction and start moving towards it. If things change half-way through, at least you can adapt. Go into the process of creating with a big healthy dose of uncertainty and be prepared to adjust as necessary.

A better expectation for creative work would then be to simply explore, learn, grow.

The best ideas you'll ever have are the ones you've already had

Wed, 08 May 2013 09:10:02 -0600

Because the only ideas you can have are founded on what you already know.

You can’t dream up things that don’t exist if you don’t already know about the pieces required to make them up.

This explains why ideas rely on a certain state of culture and readily-available resources to come to fruition. The Internet wasn’t invented in the 1800s because the sum of it’s parts didn’t exist yet. Similarly, the iPhone, war drones, flower delivery services, the Nintendo Wii, and your grandparent’s famous oatmeal cookie recipe, all weren’t created before their time.

What you know is more powerful than your imagination, but imagination and having a lot of existing ideas is what makes it possible to have really big ideas.

Two great quotes come to mind on the subject, both from Steven Johnson’s 2010 book “Where Good Ideas Come From”

The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.

So yes, the best ideas you have are the ones you’ve already had, but you can get more by consuming more. Read more, walk more, talk to strangers more, click on weird links, share your ideas with others and invite them to share their ideas with you.

If you want to really have good ideas you’re going to have to consume and experiment occasionally too. Johnson’s second quote reminds us of this:

The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank.

Fear of the critical finish line

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:37:00 -0600

I’m always afraid of finishing anything.

Hours or days or sometimes even weeks go into a project and, when I’m there at the end where the big picture is starting to seem a lot clearer and I’m only making small changes, I’ll start to get scared.

Like a runner who sees the finish line but doesn’t want to know his time or whether he’s in first place or last place, fearing it may be the latter.

When I’m just about to finish a project, I’ll start to run hypothetical scenarios through my head. I’ll think: what if nobody likes this? What if nobody wants it or understands it? What if I only hear about how awful it is or how I shouldn’t have wasted my time?

I feel like the cook who made all the preparations for a big dinner but then stopped and didn’t take the food out of the oven, fearing that I might have burnt it.

Undoubtedly the biggest fear I get is that of the critic, of the person who will say that what I’ve made is terrible, that it shouldn’t have ever been made. That my time was wasted.

I have to remind myself that the critical review isn’t important. What’s important is that I did the work, I made something. Something nobody else could have (or would have) made, because it’s got my unique stamp on it. So there’s value in getting it done, shipping it out, crossing that finish line.

Nobody else is going to create the dish you can create. They don’t have your experiences to build from, or your hands to build with, or your thoughts and perspective. You didn’t build the thing for the critics, you built it for those who want to enjoy it. So there’s really nothing to fear. The critics will come, but they always do.

What matters isn’t that they tell you what you’ve created is worthless. What matters is the people who love it telling you (and everyone they know) that they do.

To quote Seth Godin in his recent article The critic stumbles:

The math is simple: no matter how big a critic’s platform, what moves markets are conversations. And we are far more likely to have conversations about something we’re raving about than something we didn’t like (because when we don’t like it, our friends never experience it and the conversation dies). The win, then, is creating raves, not avoiding pans.

What to do when you get createstipated

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:30:00 -0600

Sometimes I get really fueled up to create something, but don’t know what to make.

Usually it’s after I see something else that leaves me inspired. Like an episode of A Show by Ze Frank or something from a post by Tina Roth Eisenberg.

But I won’t know what to make yet. It feels like I’ve got so much fuel to burn but no engine to put it in.

Or, better yet, it feels like I’ve got an itch on the one part of my back I can’t reach on my own, and it’s driving me crazy. What do we even call this feeling? Anticipation or anxiety? A blend of the two?

James Gunter suggested on Twitter that we call it “createstipation” because it’s the feeling you get when you’re creatively constipated.

@tannerc “createstipation” = creative constipation
— James Gunter (@jamescgunter)
May 1, 2013

Whenever I get this feeling, I have to remind myself that the best way to get the ideas out is to just do something. Anything, really.

Just like when you get an itch you can’t reach, finding a tool to help get the itch can be all you need. Or if the itch is really bad you can ask someone to help you get it, they might have an idea that’s ready to go and just needs your energy.

Whatever you do, don’t just sit on the itch. If your creativity gets stuck for too long it could be bad for your health.

Will you take this short creative success survey?

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:18:25 -0600

Are you a creative person? Of course you are.

If you do creative work (either for a living or as a student) hep us in gathering responses to a confidential survey looking at what it takes to become a successful creative.

Submissions are open for the next few weeks, so get your input now and help us get a scope for the creative industry today.

If you know of any other creative professionals – artists, dancers, designers, entrepreneurs, anything – send a link their way too!

You can enter here: Google creative survey.

Do something already

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:00:29 -0600

We are our greatest creative enemies.

When it comes to finding what we’re passionate about, becoming what we dream of, combating our demons, or doing any sort of work, the one thing that really stands in our way is ourselves.

Let’s say you want to become a writer, what do you do first?

Some people would answer: “I don’t know where to start.” Great, that’s at least a start.

The problem is that the people who say that will still not recognize it as a start. So we’ll give them a hand and say: if you want to be a writer you simply start by writing. It doesn’t really matter what right now, just write. Every day, preferably in the same journal or app or whatever. Write until you physically can’t write any more.

The same approach goes for becoming a painter, or a dancer, or musician, or entrepreneur, or whatever. You have to start doing those things. Even if the task at hand is a bit more ambiguous, like figuring out what you want to do with your life (in which case you need to start finding things to do and then go do them).

But a lot of people stop at this step too.

Common problems at this phase are: I don’t have the right tool for the job, or I don’t have enough time/money/support/creativity.

Those are excuses though. They’re bricks you’ve setup yourself, enough to create a wall that is both daunting and strong, it’s a wall you’ve built between where you are and where you want to be.

But you built the thing yourself, probably without even realizing it. Which means you can tear it down, if you recognize the tools you have to do so.

Your best tool is to just go around the damn wall. Forget about excuses and actually do something.

If you want to write but don’t own a typewriter or a $2,000 computer: congratulations, you don’t need that stuff any way. A napkin and a $1 pen will work wonders for getting at least a few words out.

If time is an excuse: learn to schedule in what it is you want to do. Even if that means you have to wake up ten minutes earlier than usual tomorrow. No excuses, you’ve got things to do.

No matter what it is you want to do - become the President, open a watch factory, write a novel that later becomes a TV series, anything - you have to just start. Preferably right now. Do something.

What you end up working with right now may not be perfect, it may even feel crummy or stupid, but guess what? It’s something, and that’s a million times better than nothing.

When you ignore your inner excuses and start: there will be you, running head-first to the goal line, and every one else will still be way back there at the start wondering which foot to put out first.

Photo by Steven Depolo.

How to do almost anything

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:27:06 -0600

Too often we restrict ourselves from doing what needs to be done, but the process for creative work is almost never as complicated as we make it out to be in our heads.

People typically fall into two categories when it comes to creative work:

Not knowing what they want to do.
Knowing, but not knowing where to start.

Often those who fall into the first category are there because they simply havent’ invested enough time to sit and be in their own heads long enough to determine a direction for their work and talents.

Those in the second category are either slackers or unaware of just what comes next.

The proposed solution to the second category? Reverse stair step the process.

Look at what you want to do (be an artist, start a business, sell a thousand copies of your novel, make a world-famous blog) and ask yourself if you have everything you need to make that happen right now.

If you don’t, look at what comes before that (paint, find an audience, finish that novel, setup a blog), then ask yourself if you could do that thing right now. If not, look at what’s preventing it, that’s your earlier step.

You’re bound to get to a point where the next actionable step for you to take is something you can do right now, today. So go do that thing.

How to convince your boss that your ideas are any good

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:04:12 -0600

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” – Howard Aiken

So now what?

You get it: most companies are not in the business of trying something new, they’re in the business of making money.

Even though you’ve got good ideas, they’re new and that means they’re risky, which makes them scary from a business perspective. Your boss is going to have a hard time listening to the idea, let alone giving you the go-ahead with it.

You’ll have to be creative in convincing anyone that the ideas you have for the business are any good. Here’s where to start.

Find where your ideas align. If you don’t know where your boss wants the business to go, ask him/her. Then find ways to have your ideas align with that direction. It’s going to take some creative engineering, but remember that, at this point, it’s all in the presentation.
Forget about convincing anyone. Instead, focus on sharing the idea as more of a curiosity. Asking your boss: &8220;How do you see this idea playing out…” No matter the response they give, prod further by asking why they feel that way. By approaching the idea out of curiosity – and seeking insights – you’ll expose glaring holes in your ideas and also get your boss to almost convince themselves that the idea is worth pursuing.
Tell it as a story. Everyone loves a good story, and presenting your ideas in a story format can help capture the attention of your undoubtedly busy boss. Get them bought-in before you reach the crux of the story and you’re better off. How do you tell a good story around a business idea? Start with the problems your boss (and their bosses) might feel, explore the pains of those problems, then describe how your idea helps alleviate them in a creative way.
Run it like a science fair. In a school science fair you have a lot of students doing small experiments and then presenting their findings. There’s no heavy lifting involved, just simple experiments done with whatever resources were available. Do the same thing for your ideas: run small experiments with them in order to gather data which you can then present to your boss. (This not only gives him/her data to make a decision on your idea, but also shows that you’re willing to take the initiative to get something moving.)
Do it anyway. If you don’t need a lot of resources to get the idea going, go forward full-force. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for approval. Besides: if the idea is a success, everyone wins.

Twyla Tharp on the ideal condition for creativity

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:09:48 -0600

This from Twyla’s book The Creative Habit.

How to instantly and painlessly get a dozen or more ideas

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:21:21 -0600

New perspectives yield creative insights, no matter what. It’s practically a magic equation for having new ideas: just change your perspective.

I read some time ago about a really elegant way to do it too.

It works almost instantly and is completely painless (you don’t have to stand on your head or try to walk while looking through binoculars).

It’s simple: whenever you encounter something – a table, a project at school or work, a friend, food – say something random out loud that it is not. That’s it.

For example: say you’re out and about at your favorite coffee shop. When you first get your coffee (or tea, or whatever) look at it and say, out loud, something random. Like: “shoe!”

Apart from the strange looks people might give you, something really surprising will happen.

Ideas will flood into your brain. Suddenly what was once a cup of coffee is now something completely different.

How could you take an empty coffee cup and recycle it into a shoe? Why hasn’t anyone tried that yet (or have they?) Could you heat shoes in the winter by having a small compartment in them to pour hot liquid (keeping your feet dry still, of course)? What about building a “sleeve” for shoes, like there are for coffee cups? Could coffee spilled onto a clean pair of white shoes make a shoe worthy of New York Fashion Week? Could you build (and maybe sell) a type of coffee carrier that weaves in and out of the cup like shoelaces on a shoe?

By saying a random word aloud any time you encounter something you’re forced to view it from a new perspective.

Try it, right now. Close your eyes and turn around once, then open your eyes and the first thing you see say something other than what it is out loud. Try it with a person, or a blank sheet of paper, you’re going to have ideas.

Photo by Suren Manvelyan.

Tips for selling your art online

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:00:00 -0600

Written by Calonie Johnson

Have you ever tried selling your work online?

If you’re a photographer, artist, or graphic designer, selling your work on the web means exposing it to a large, active audience, many times larger than if you were to simply frame your work at a small gallery or hang it in a cafe.

But the market for good creative work is saturated, it’s hard for novice photographers to succeed.

There are, however, a few ways to increase your odds of success as a digital seller:

Offer variety. People like choices in both subject and style, varying your work increases the odds of someone purchasing one of your photos.
Focus on popular sites. How much traffic a site gets depends on it’s popularity and tag/keyword targeting. Focus on big sites and you’ll have a lot of competition, but focus on small sites and you risk nobody ever seeing your photos anyway.
Define your needs. There are some photo sites that offer vast customization and social networking, other sites are not as liberal. Figure out what features you want and have time for before you signup for any sales site.
Price competitively, but fairly. Some shoppers will spend a lot, while others will want a bargain. Checking photo sites for the average prices other, top sellers use can help you find a good middle ground, but be fair to yourself, too.
Consider self-hosting. By getting your own domain you cut out competition, but limit your marketing options and will have to pay fees (for hosting, payment processing, etc.). Though there are plenty of options for selling on your own, so it may be worth at least exploring.

If you’re selling digital artwork, consider the fact that you may want a site that prints and fulfills orders. Of course, also make sure to check sites for safety, security options and licensing/copyrighting terms.

Say hello to the new new Creative Something

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:04:00 -0600

For the past five years Creative Something has been exploring creativity.

Every once in a while over the past half-decade I’ve made an effort to improve the site. Not only to encourage more interaction and to make the face fresher, but to make it easier for you to discover new ideas, more inspiration or motivation, and become more creative.

I’m happy to announce that the latest version of the site is now live. There’s a lot that’s new, and more coming very soon.

There’s a new design that is a bit cleaner and hopefully easier to read. It even works great on mobile devices, so you can read on the go from your iPhone or tablet.

Now each post is being tagged by category, so you can explore all posts along one subject if you want, like all work-related posts.

Commenting has been enabled. If you want to ask a question, add some insight, or just say “thanks,” you can do that now by visting the article’s URL. Share your ideas with the community!

In the coming weeks you’ll start seeing and hearing more about the Creative Something network, which is a series of other websites offering products like mobile apps, eBooks, free guides, etc. exclusively for Creative Something. More ways for you to grow, and a definitive way for the site to make money and keep going.

I’m also in the process of interviewing co-authors to help write more content here every day. So you’ll start seeing a lot more goodness.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope to keep inspiring and motiving you, keeping the site fresh is one step towards doing that.

Photo via Library of Congress.

Selling your work at your price

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:19:50 -0600

In most inherently creative fields – drawing or painting, sculpture, photography, video, game design, etc. – there’s a problem between what the creator (you) wants and what the consumer (your customers, shoppers, and fans) want.

On one side, you want to create.

In traditional fields, however, what you’re creating isn’t a necessity. Nobody has to have that Monet painting. Nobody has to buy a vase made of recycled newspaper, or a marble sculpture of Aphrodite. There’s certainly nobody who has to buy the latest music album from their favorite band.

Because nobody needs what you’re creating, they feel as though the cost of that thing should be minimal to nothing. And they’re not going to scour the Earth to find it either.

A movie for more than $20? That’s absurd. An app for my phone that costs a dollar or two? Is that really necessary? A painting from an artist in my neighborhood, for more than the price of the frame it’s in? Why?

The result of this landscape is that independent creators – small bands playing bar shows, the painter who hung her works up at a local cafe, a publishing business trying to get their first series of books out the door – are forced into charging less for their work than they invested into it.

This model doesn’t work.

You can’t succeed as a painter if you’re not selling your paintings at a price higher than what you paid for the materials and the time you put into creating the work. How will you afford to create another painting? But nobody wants to pay more than what they think a creative work is worth.

One way to resolve the issues is to get paid for the work in advance. Rather than creating and then letting customers tell you how much they want to pay (and risking failure), you could crowdfund the work. People show how much they’re willing to give you for your work. If it meets your costs, you win.

But that’s a temporary solution. You can’t crowdfund every single painting, every album, every sculpture.

The trick, then, is to convince your audience that the work is worth it. That the additional cost they’re paying is for the quality, the originality, the fact that what you’re selling is exactly worth what they’re paying. To convince your customers that the next photograph you take is the most beautiful, and worthwhile photo that will take place in the next ten years, is to show them that it’s worth the price you’re asking.

You can’t convince customers to buy your work by simply hanging it in a gallery, selling it on Amazon, or setting up shop once a year at the State Fair. You have to really sell the value of your work.

If you can do that, you can do practically anything for a living.

So if you want to live a creative life through your work, learn to sell. Here is a collection of books that will show you how to do just that.

Photo by Kevin Dooley.

Combining what you love into creative work

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:00:24 -0600

Jessica Pettway is a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and she’s done something simple yet .

While studying photography in her pursuit of fine art and editorial photography, Jessica got an idea to combine the things she loved – flowers, patterns, rich colors, friends and family– into a single project. Capturing a contemporary piece of human and nature interaction.

Jessica says:

“All of the subjects are my friends and family and most of the photographs shot in this project were taken in my dorm. I think it’s really interesting to combine the colors, textures and patterns of the different fabrics, skin tones and plants to create a photograph.”

The result of her combinatorial creativity? Work that you’ve likely not seen before. It’s a “Jessica original” approach. By combining the things she’s loved, Jessica creates intriguing works that satisfy both her creative passion and her pursuit of a creative life.

For more of her work, visit Jessica Pettway’s portfolio.

What if you combined the things you love into your own creative work? The results will be undoubtedly creative, but there’s going to be more than than just creative artwork.

Call for creative student submissions

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:09:00 -0600

Are you a student studying a creative field who wants to have projects spotlighted in front of more than 60,000 people? Whether it’s writing, design, manufacturing, dance, music, anything, I want to feature you and your projects on Creative Something.

Submit one project with photos, video, or sound, by email to: tannchri at gmail.com.

Be sure to send your name  , what you’re studying, where you’re studying, what year you are currently in, and a short bio (no more than 150 words) or description of yourself and your work.

Student work will be featured right here on the blog starting next week.