Can I Learn to Be Creative?

A few years back, I came across a question on the Graphic Design forum of the StackExchange network. One user, a programmer, wanted to be able to design his own web and user interfaces, and he asked a great question. He wondered: “How do I learn to be creative?” Hidden in the subtext of his question is the common misconception that creativity is some mystical quality that exists only in the field of the arts. Not so! Programmers, engineers, scientists, woodworkers, cooks, and a raft of other professionals are often intensely creative people. So the question became: “How could this programmer channel his inherent creativity into the field of visual design?” The answer isn’t at all mysterious, it’s not difficult, and it applies to anyone starting out as a designer or wondering how they, too, might “become creative.”

Where Does Creativity Come From?

Creativity is the direct product of imagination. Imagination is the process of combining your experiences, ideas, and knowledge into something new. Without these ingredients, imagination would starve. And without imagination, there can be no creativity. We all have experiences, we all have ideas, we all know stuff, and we all have an imagination (without one, you couldn’t plan a trip to the supermarket, much less a magazine layout or a great photograph). Add the ability to learn new things, and there’s no reason anyone can’t become more creative in any field, as long as they’re willing to put in the time and effort.

Collaborate!

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Diversity is important in a creative team. Studies of varying quality support this assertion, but if you consider the three factors of imagination—experience, ideas, and knowledge—it becomes obvious. Everyone benefits from working with people who have differing backgrounds and ideas, and their diverse experiences and knowledge will fuel a team’s collective imagination.

Life and art would be boring if everyone agreed all the time, and it’s almost a truism that every new trend in art or design began with one person or a small group who bucked the current norm.

Fuel for the Imagination

So how does a beginning designer acquire the right ingredients?  Let’s start with knowledge. Like knitting or rocket science, visual design has fundamentals and techniques. These learnable rules and teachable skills will at least get you to a competent level, even though they might not turn you into a world-famous designer overnight. How far you go after that is up to you. There are many great resources for learning the basics of design, but here are my recommendations for beginners: 

• John McWade’s excellent books Before & After Page Design and Before & After: How to Design Cool Stuff
• The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams
• “Designing for People Who Have Better Things to Do With Their Lives,”  by Joel Spolsky—probably the best and most succinct exposition on the Big Thing All UI Designers Must Know 

If you didn’t go to a design school (and even if you did), these resources contain rock-solid fundamentals you can’t do without.

You Can’t Get Much Done If You Don’t Know Your Tools

What painter wouldn’t know how to prepare a canvas or clean and care for brushes? What mechanic wouldn’t know how to use a torque wrench? If you’re going to work in design, you’ll have to learn how to use a large and quite complex set of tools. Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign aren’t so much tools as they are complete workshops, each full of tools suitable for specialized tasks. These applications take time to learn and a lot of practice to master. Resources such as Adobe Creative Cloud Tutorials and LinkedIn Learning are packed with great lessons for almost any skill level, and anyone serious about design should be spending quality time with them. User groups and online forums let you learn from peers with a diversity of experience. And, of course, CreativePro offers abundant training materials, forums, and online and in-person conferences.

Ideas and Experience

You must be able to duplicate (re-create exactly what others have done) before you can originate (create your own stuff). This truism applies to design, painting, music, programming—any kind of creative endeavor.  If that idea makes you feel uncomfortable—you might think you’re plagiarizing—a couple of quotes from Salvador Dali might help:

• “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
• “Begin by learning to paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.”

You will know when to break the rules and go your own way only after you have mastered the “right” way. Learn the basics. Find examples of great design, and infer how the designer approached the work. Pick out a few aspects of the design that impress you, and re-create them exactly as a practice exercise.

The Art of the Steal

For more on “stealing” great design ideas, see Nigel French’s article in issue 144 of InDesign Magazine.

Although it’s fine to pay attention to what other people tell you is great design, it’s much more important to develop your own judgment. Your voice as a designer will come from what you accept and reject in the designs you see around you and in your own work. In the process, three things will happen:

• You will associate the design fundamentals you’ve been studying with real-world examples. When principle and application come together, the principle buries itself subconsciously and informs your work automatically.
• You will build a vocabulary of craft techniques and a visual library of ideas that you’ll put into practice in your own projects. Your imagination can draw from all those Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign tricks you learn (or develop on your own).
• You’ll start to gain confidence in your own ideas. I guarantee you’ll have at least one “Aha!” moment, when you look at some successful design and realize, “Hey! I could do better than that!” Your own designs will come alive, and you’ll be on your way.

You’ll have acquired enough knowledge, experience, and ideas to fire up your imagination, and your creativity will follow. And you’ll build your skills and confidence through work experience, swapping ideas with other designers, nonstop learning, and the challenges of new projects. From there, the only limit is your (now thoroughly equipped!) imagination.