🔮 Navigating Creative Blocks
Discover more from Creative Currents
🔮 Navigating Creative Blocks
A newsletter about design and creativity, and how they contribute to a better world.
Welcome to Edition #43 of the Creative Currents newsletter!
In this week’s issue of Creative Currents, we cover the issue of overcoming creative blocks during our design and strategy process. Here, we asked our team what they do when they have hit a creative block and take you through the three key techniques for re-inspiring your creative process.
We also give you an inside look into Vera van de Seyp’s creative process and insight on the role of generative AI in design. Finally, we cover how the Quiet Luxury trend may impact brands and take you through a new typeface developed by Amsterdam-based designer, Johnathan Castro.
Navigating Creative Blocks
In the fast-paced world of design, staying motivated and creatively inspired is crucial for producing exceptional (and timely) work. However, every designer and strategist, regardless of their experience, encounters creative blocks from time to time. These periods of stagnation can be endlessly frustrating, especially when we are on a deadline. So, in this blog post, we will explore three effective tips and techniques for overcoming creative blocks and maintaining creativity throughout your projects.
Seek Inspiration Beyond Your Category: Falling into a mood board spiral can happen to anyone, where every image or trend starts to blend together, stifling your creativity. This is exacerbated by algorithms that perpetually feed you similar imagery and concepts, limiting your perspective. Also, creativity is infectious, so it can work well to go listen to a lecture or panel discussion of other creative people who you admire and who speak with passion about their discipline. A seemingly unrelated topic might lead you onto a good path in your own project and inspire new ideas
Take a Walk for Fresh Perspective: Sometimes, the best way to break through a creative block is to step away from your workspace and go for a walk. Getting outside and changing your surroundings can help clear your mind and reset your focus. During this time, you might stumble upon unexpected solutions and ideas that can provide the inspiration you need.
Change Projects or Tasks: While not always feasible, if you have multiple projects to work on at the same time, consider switching between them when facing a creative block. Changing tasks can provide a mental break and allow you to approach your initial project with a fresh start later on. This shift in focus can help you see your work from a different perspective, facilitating innovative ideas and problem-solving.
What do all of these tips have in common? They all require you to take a break from what you're currently doing. Stepping away from your work for a while is not a waste of time; it's an investment in your creative well-being. By giving yourself the space to recharge and explore new sources of inspiration, you'll find that creative blocks become temporary challenges, not insurmountable obstacles.
Do you have a design or creativity-related question that you would like to have answered? Mail them to us at hello@wonderland.studio and we’ll take it from there.
It’s Called Tactile Coding! Look it up! With Vera van de Seyp
In our most recent edition of Look It Up, senior creative account manager Ruth Walsh interviews Vera van de Seyp, a creative coder, designer, and research assistant at MIT Media Lab. In this interview, Vera shares insights into her design journey, her passion for experimentation, and discusses the role of generative AI in the future design landscape.
You can read the interview here.
This week’s interesting design, creativity, and green initiatives finds from the web.
‘An appalling instinct for branding’: designers react to Twitter’s ‘X’ rebrand.
What Airbnb learned after a year of letting employees work from anywhere
Expert tips to build resilience and help you survive the design industry
Lego creates interactive workshops with influencers and creatives to empower children
Launching a climate startup? A climate tech VC shares what to know about funding
The Cultural Significance of Quiet Luxury
Amidst a cost-of-living crisis and growing economic disparities, society's perception of wealth and luxury is undergoing a transformation. The display of affluence through logos and extravagance is gradually giving way to Quiet Luxury — a lifestyle that involves consuming expensive materials in muted tones that lack logos and anything that hints at their exorbitant price tags.
With a remarkable surge in popularity, averaging 330,000 monthly searches and an increase of +6775% since January 2023, Quiet Luxury has reached its peak online presence. Initially confined to the realm of fashion, it also acts as a lens through which we assess our culture's relationship with wealth.
Curiously, Quiet Luxury simultaneously embodies both a romanticisation and a distaste towards the wealthy. On one hand, affluent individuals may downplay their wealth to avoid standing out during economic instability. On the other hand, many people have embraced this aesthetic. Why? In the current economic climate, for many people, the chances of home ownership and social mobility in the near future, let alone accumulating wealth, are increasingly unlikely. Therefore, emulating the aesthetics of wealth is a much more obtainable way to dabble with this unobtainable lifestyle. Second, people are participating in this trend because they are exhausted from the never-ending, rapid, extravagant trend cycle. Embracing the allure of minimal, versatile, trendless items serves as the antidote while instilling a sense of stability and longevity.
What does this mean for brands?
Authenticity Over Extravagance: Consumers are growing skeptical of unsubstantiated claims made by brands, and the Quiet Luxury trend emphasises the value of authentic, high-quality products over superficial displays of extravagance. Brands that focus on craftsmanship, durability, and proven claims will resonate more with consumers seeking genuine experiences and lasting value.
Embrace Subtlety and Storytelling: Quiet Luxury avoids loud branding and is more about telling a story through the product and the brand's values. Brands should instead invest in crafting compelling narratives around their products, emphasising the authentic storytelling approach can help create a connection with consumers.
Our data and strategy team will cover trend insights on a biweekly basis. See an insight or trend you'd like us to explain? Email it to hello@wonderland.studio and we'll take it from there.
Surrealism Typography with Remi Volclair
What better experience could there be for a designer than to play around with the alphabet, the wellspring of modern communication?
Type design and shapes constantly evolves, mooring only for a short time. “Recently I have been inspired by surrealism,” Remi says. But he still finds himself returning to David Rudnick’s intricate designs and the work of Amsterdam-based designer Johnathan Castro. “Favourite projects for me are those that allow me to keep learning and evolving; work that stretches me and allows my artistry to continue developing,”
Staging of a typography on the effect of colors, textures, materials and surreal compositions. Surrealism is a poetic and artistic movement of the 20th century directly resulting from the revolt embodied by the Dada movement at the very end of the First World War.
