Unusual challenges developed to push your imagination and sharpen your skills. The first 1,000 individuals to click the link will get a complete year of Premium subscription to Woodworkers Guild of America for only $1.49:
Imagination isn't practically talent, it has to do with how you challenge yourself. In this video, I'm sharing 10 non-traditional workouts developed to push your design skills, break imaginative ruts, and assist you think in totally new methods. These challenges will require you to approach making and designing differently, opening originalities and perspectives along the method. Whether you're a woodworker, artist, or just someone looking to be more creative, this will alter the way you create.
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10 Innovative Difficulties to Sharpen Your Design Skills
1. Work Within Ridiculous Restraints
Set severe constraints within your job to force creative issue resolving and unexpected concepts.
2. Sketch an Idea Every Day (Terribly).
Daily rough sketches construct creative thinking. No pressure, no judgment. Just concepts.
3. Gather Inspiration in the Real World.
Get out of your house. Find ideas in the physical world that you can see and touch.
4. Make Something Deliberately Ugly.
Break design guidelines on function. Ugly teaches you what in fact makes something work.
5. Usage Random Chance as a Guide.
Flip a coin, roll dice, or pick blind. Eliminating control triggers unexpected imagination.
6. Start a Job with the Wrong Material.
Utilize a material entirely inadequate for the job and require it to work.
7. Use Tools Incorrectly (However Safely).
Press tools beyond their meant use and find brand-new techniques. Security initially!
8. Develop a Task Utilizing Just Found Things.
Usage scraps, junk, or disposed of items. Creating around them unlocks creativity.
9. Give Yourself a Rubbish Rule.
Add an absurd restraint for the day to challenge your procedure and stimulate originalities.
10. Remix a Past Failure.
Take an old task that didn't work and turn it into something totally new.
0:00 Intro.
0:51 Work Within Absurd Restraints.
2:08 Sketch an Idea Every Day (Badly).
5:20 Collect Motivation in the Real Life.
8:44 Make Something Intentionally Ugly.
10:31 Usage Random Chance as a Guide.
16:02 Start a Task with the Incorrect Material.
18:03 Use Tools Incorrectly (But Securely).
19:54 Learn to Cove Cut.
21:39 Develop a Job Utilizing Just Found Things.
23:26 Offer Yourself a Nonsense Rule.
25:00 Remix a Past Failure.
26:05 Honorable Mentions.
28:09 What's Next?
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You were so out of the box creative you didn’t even button all your buttons!
So far, EVERY SINGLE THING you have said reflects and resonates in my brain and my life. DUDE! 😮😊
When I was a freshman mechanical engineering major (30 years a go) my advisor required us to keep a sketch book and turn in one sketched design per week in with a one page written summary. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could say I had 30 years of sketches! I don’t, it’s a habit I go in and out of, but it definitely helps me be both creative and productive when I am doing it regularly. I’d be curious how you establish and stick to this sorts of habits and how they’ve evolved over the years.
Well now! I feel so much better. Sometimes all the things i need to make ( like kitchen cabinets to mount my new microwave on, which is currently in its massive box on my kitchen table) can get in the way of my joyful creative time and I get grumpy and blocked. My fire is relit and I have a ton of random ideas. Thanks Dave! I need a copy of those rules.
So excited for this one after hearing about it on making it!
Speaking of nonsense rules – try building a project with unfamiliar measurement units without converting them to what you know. I tried making a chair once using inches and fractions, after using metric units for my entire life. Even bought an imperial measuring tape for that. It’s so hard to actually “think” in inches without converting them to mm in your head
I love this! Great idea.
THANKS FOR THE GREAT VIDEO.
For your Found Objects video, find a piece of furniture that someone has set out at the curb. Rebuild it, add your creative style to it… and then take it back where you found it and ask if they want it back.
That’s a great idea!
Most of these ways fall into the Bend, Blend, Break approach to creativity. I don’t know who invented it, but it has helped me a lot over the years.
Excellent and thought provoking video David! The moral is to just keep making things! 👍👍🔨🔨
One I use frequently is to deliberately not design the entire project, so that as I make progress I have to design to accommodate constraints imposed by my earlier decisions.
Your ability to share the creative process is perfect. I listen to your podcast and have been watching your videos for quite some time now, and your growth is pretty amazing.
Thank you! ❤️
Engineer here. My design process starts with a giant white board, my computer has pictures of random stuff that i use for inspiration.
I spend as much, or more time, in this stage than designing an actually prototype
I am so looking forward to the series for this!
I find the idea that people are born creative is often used as a crutch by people who haven’t or don’t want to put the work in to learn it, often because they’re afraid of the failure that necessarily comes with learning. “Dang, I wish I could do that, some people are just born talented”.
I love this! You continue to inspire, friend!
Your shirt reminds me of the couch in my childhood home. It fills me with a feeling of nostalgia. Maybe that should be part of a project for me haha.
1:04 is one of my favourites when I’m out doing photography. I remember once saying “only square, only black and white” for a multi-day photo trip. It was an amazing constraint to work in. So much fun, and such good images.
See this is why I love your channel. While everyone else is doing tool reviews and projects, you push creativity. I love it. When I was taking music composition class in college our professor would give us boundaries one I remember distinctly was only using fourths to compose. It was one of the hardest assignments but definitely stretched my imagination to come up with something good. I love your passion and creativity. You, more than any, really push my thoughts process. Thank you Dave.
Oh man, thank you!
I’m from the Old West End on Parkwood so I saw the tire swing at the TMA every day. I used to go there for inspiration as a teenager into now my 30s. My brother launched a whole international jewelry brand based on an inspiration we found during one of our art walks. I’m glad I grew up in Toledo where my love of art was nurtured.
LOVE THIS!