Category: design

Generating ideas :: where do ideas come from

photo by desiitaly

The latest podcast from Mars Hill is a discussion on Creative Theology. Jeanette Banashak and Don Perini discuss… including many of the places creative people generate their ideas. Don says the list comes from an ever changing list by Charles Thompson.

Don suggests that creative people try to utilize these times every chance they can. Look over the list and make note of the places where ideas come for you.

  • Taking a bath or shower
  • Driving
  • Sitting on the toilet
  • Falling asleep or waking up
  • During a boring meeting
  • Reading
  • Exercising
  • Waking up in the middle of the night
  • Listening to a church sermon
  • Manual labor

Ideas are gold

Once you realize where many of your creative ideas come from, come up with a capturing machine. Create a system for capturing your ideas wherever you are. If you know where your ideas come from, always be prepared to write your ideas down in those situations. Whether that’s soap chalk for writing in the shower, or a 3×5 card for writing down ideas while driving (please pull over first :-)) be sure and capture your thoughts.

Some other great ideas are in the podcast, such as activities to help improve creativity.

Where do you tend to come up with great ideas?

Related ::
Mars Hill
Mars Hill podcast feed
Creative Theology podcast
Creative Theology notes/slides

Help China – one shirt at a time

Love this!

A graphic designer named Steve has partnered with World Vision to sell 50,000 t-shirts and raise $1,000,000 to help China.

On Monday, May 19, one week after the China Earthquake, reports surfaced estimating that 50,000 lives would be lost in this tragedy—our vision is hope. One by one, fifty thousand hand drawn tally marks create the “x” on your shirt, each one representing a life that has passed, and connecting it with a life that has committed to help rebuild. Your shirt is a symbol how one person, multiplied 50,000 times, can do something amazing.

Love it! “Be the difference you wish to see in the world!”

Love your neighbor – even if they’re halfway around the world.

HT: Churchrelevance.com

Homebrewed Art

Chad interviewed San Antonio artist Paul Soupiset for this week’s Homebrewed Christianity.

Paul did some of the illustrations for Jesus for President (excellent stuff) and also shares a series of personal sketches and thoughts he did during lent in 2007 over on his illustration site :: http://paulsoupiset.com/lentenblog_microgallery.

You can listen to the interview here or view more of Soupiset’s artwork here… including this unused artwork from Jesus for President :: (click to see full size)

Unused artwork for Jesus for President

Green Tip

This came from a co-worker on our office’s Green Team:

The website changethemargins.com is calling for printer owners everywhere to take the simple step of, well, changing their margins from the current luxurious standard 1.25 inches to a the more modest .75 inches. It may sound like a small change, but if everyone in the nation did it, we’d save a little less than a Rhode Island’s worth of trees every year. Does tinkering with Word’s cumbersome preferences scare the fonts right out of you? Another goal of the site is to petition Microsoft to change the default margins on all its Office products.

Changing your margins in Microsoft Word:
Go to “File,” then “Page Setup.”
Once on “Page Setup,” click the “Default” key, and you’ll be offered “Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template.”

Set each margin to .75 and save an immense amount of paper.

Thomas Nelson to produce eco-friendly Bibles

From the Reformergent:

As the first move by a major publisher of Bibles, Thomas Nelson, Inc. has decided to no longer mass produce synthetic bounded Bibles, but switch to a more eco-friendly alternative. Thomas Nelson also were the publishers behind McLaren’s Everything Must Change, which specifically points out that the book is printed on eco-friendly material. I have to say, good job Thomas Nelson for making the switch. So now as Americans we can start buying up the eco-friendly Bibles to add to our Bible shelf, and send away all of our synthetic ones to areas of the world where they can start polluting their environment with materials that don’t decompose.