Idea Generation : My Way

Idea generation is something that I believe all creative people struggle with at some point in time. It is something that I have found hard in all elements of my creative projects so far. I have found it is something that cannot be forced upon me. The majority of the time if you tell me I have 30 seconds to generate a quick initial idea my mind just goes blank. This is something I am trying to improve on as it is a skill I am likely to need in the future. However, I have managed to figure out some stimuli that help trigger my creative thinking and ways in which I can speed up my creative thinking. These are personal to me and just some of the ways I find help me generate ideas:

1. Location is key! - Personally, where I spend my time generating ideas is very important to me. I prefer silence to allow me to concentrate however, I like being surrounded by people and daily life to keep me thinking about the consumer and the people involved in the idea. I have found having my headphones on with no music playing drowns out enough of the background noise, allowing me to focus, yet still keeps me involved in my surroundings. My favourite places are the park back home and coffee shops. I always go for the window seat too.

2. Brain dump - Before starting to generate full ideas I must start with a clean slate and an empty mind. In order for good ideas to flow I need to get rid of anything that could keep me from having an open mind. I do this by taking a minute or two and having a blank piece of paper in front of me and getting rid of everything that I am thinking. These thoughts can be triggers for ideas and I can often develop them further, however they can also be complete nonsense. I have learnt that this is ok and not to panic when this happens.

3. Mind maps - For me, mind maps are how I generate and explore my ideas. Each branch often triggers another, leaving me with a never ending expansion of an idea. Some of the branches are often discarded further down the line leaving a more refined mind map, illustrating multiple components of each idea. I have found mind maps are also a way of clearly illustrating ideas and are easily understood by other people.

4. Collaboration - collaborating on ideas is a useful tool and one of the benefits of working in a group. This can cause some conflict, however, it can also help push forward ideas that you may have exhausted through tools such as a mind map. Collaboration has been an important part of task 1 of my current perfume project and has enabled me to see various interpretations of the same idea.

5. Research - Research is a key part of generating ideas. I like to wait until my research is exhausted before putting pen to paper. There is nothing more frustrating to me than having to scrap something because it already exists and isn't original. Primary and secondary both play a key part in idea generation and this is a stage I thoroughly enjoy in a project.