Chasing the Storm
How to Boost Your Passion and Creative Spark
A friend of mine recently asked me if there’s anything I miss about the Midwest. The usual things came to mind. You know: family, friends, cashew chicken. I’m not gonna lie, the list isn’t overwhelmingly long. But after living in Northern California for the last ten years, one answer came to mind in a flash: I miss the thunderstorms.
I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a Midwestern thunderstorm or not, but they are incredible. Seriously, every attempt I’ve made at conveying how completely exhilarating these things are, falls tragically short. Fingers of lightning flow across the sky, instantly cracking the night into day—the rolling, rumbling, thunder that follows. Sweeping in over you—rattling the whole house. As a kid, I would sit at the back porch, just inside the door frame, locked in awe as the storm would come and go. I do miss the thunderstorms.
Like one of those songs that conjures up goosebumps, the magnificence of a sky full of energy is absolutely inspiring, it can make your hair stand on end. Of course, the static charge that precedes a lightning bolt can also do that, so, you know… maybe we should back away from that door a little bit there, Sparky. This is only a metaphor, after all.
As creative professionals, we need to stay inspired. Inspiration is the fuel we burn in order to deliver our best work. And let’s not kid ourselves, true inspiration has rarely been about money, titles or ambition—it comes from a place of passion. The kind of passion that gives us goosebumps. We owe it to ourselves then, and to our clients to keep our passion brewing. Our love for the creative process is why we first got into this business. And if we don’t love what we’re doing, it shows up, the work suffers. So amidst the Gantt charts, google ad words, status reports and banner-ad-resizes—we can’t neglect our inspiration.
Be a Storm Chaser.
Every Spring, groups of researchers, meteorologists, hobbyists, and thrill seekers head out in search of the atmosphere’s most fascinating storms. They aren’t over-concerned with all the hours and miles they’re investing. They’re not preoccupied with the logistics and the ROIs.
They realize that there’s a good chance they may not even see a storm develop at all. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of the 100,000 or so storms that occur in the United States per year, only about 1,000 are significant. As the Midwest covers over 750 thousand square miles of land, the chances of driving into a storm and actually encountering something truly impressive are pretty small.
Whether driven by personal curiosity, a need for adventure, scientific investigation, or something else entirely — storm chasers all have one common denominator: passion. It’s the thing that gives them goosebumps. It impels them to ignore the odds, manage the logistics and push the limits of safety. It incites them to action, to get in its path, and smack right into one of the most beautiful and powerful forces nature has to offer.
As visual communicators, we’ve always been naturally enamored by the power of design, aesthetics and imagery. It’s our inspiration, our storm—and if we want to keep our passion, we can’t simply sit back and wait for something to develop. We have to chase it. The idea here is to open ourselves up to new and unexpected avenues that will fuel our creative development and better equip us for our industry.
Expand Your Search Grid.
A typical day for a storm chaser begins with preparation. When choosing a target area, they use forecasts, real-time data and satellite imagery for guidance. Graphic designer, design critic and educator, Michael Bierut said it well: “If you want to get lucky… it pays to be ready.” That’s why research is such an invaluable part of the design process. But herein lies a potential threat to creative inspiration.
They say lightning rarely strikes the same place twice. And that’s true for inspiration too. A good joke doesn’t get funnier every time you hear it. So why is it when we’re researching a design solution, we tend to limit our scope of exploration to the specific category of the problem? In my experience, when working on the design or redesign of their visual communication efforts, my clients almost always focus exclusively on what their competition is doing. They put on the category blinders. We need to challenge this instinct. It results in homogeneous solutions across entire industries. It’s not only a drain on our personal creative moral, we could end up failing our clients by producing products that struggle for brand differentiation.
It’s also how so many university seals include oil lamps, flames, trees, books and/or shields. It’s why rotating carousels still linger at the tops of webpages, why lawyer and pharmaceutical ads feel like parodies of themselves, and why ukuleles, beards and selfies suddenly started showing up in marketing #everywhere.
Imitation isn’t always flattery. Clearly, we can’t spark inspiration by simply studying our own industry and then following along obediently. Successful design is centered on people, it requires empathy. That means we have an obligation to seek out solutions that genuinely meet the needs of our audience. Simply cannibalizing existing solutions and operating from preconceptions doesn’t work—it fails our clients, alienates our audience and kills our creativity. Explore outside your own industry, absorb from as many media as possible. Remember, we’re storm chasers, but that doesn’t mean we’re stuck in Kansas.
Chase Your Own Storm.
Another reason to look outside your industry is that it exposes you to new and sometimes surprising sources of inspiration. When the legendary David Carson became a well known graphic designer, it wasn’t because he was imitating another graphic designer. He was clearly looking outside that sphere for inspiration and may have have even been influenced by 1950’s Rothko and Rauschenberg. His unique style quickly blew up and garnered him a lot of attention and success. Which brings me to my next point: Don’t try to be “David Carson.” Be you. This is your storm you’re chasing.
Design is about influence. We want to influence the cultural climate of the world. As creatives, we want to set the trends, not merely follow them. Beware of generalizations and cliches. Reject the first and easy solutions. By seeking fresh and unconventional sources to activate creative growth, we invigorate the community and offer more to our clients.
So when entering the concepting and initial design phases of your next project, give yourself constraints that limit your resources. Work only in 8-bit pixels or no more than 3 colors. Get out of the office. Go to an art museum. Visit a farm. Tour your local recycling center. Force yourself to wear sunglasses for an entire day. Turn off the GPS and try and see if you can actually get lost. According to rock and roll lore, John Lennon’s inspiration was once triggered by an impromptu visit to an antique shop. Force yourself to look at things differently. Radically change your music selections. watch only foreign language youtube videos for a week. Anything to jolt your mind out of ordinary processing will help activate neural connections that would normally have gone unfired.
Weird and Practical Ways to Spark Creativity
- Self impose resource constraints on projects
- Go somewhere off your grid, visit a location you’ve never been to
- Force change to your perspective, wear sunglasses or an eye patch
- Mix up your stimulus, new music genre, language or cuisine
- Add a long walk to your daily, it worked for Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson, explains that the man who masterminded Apple’s success simply used long walks for creative fuel. Believe it or not, neuroscience backs that up. A study by Stanford reports that walking offers a 60 percent increase to creative output. It lowers blood pressure, disengages the mind from fixating on problems and allows for more free association — also known as being creative.
Follow the Storms, Not the Rules.
When we follow rules, we are really just exercising our expertise. We know why the rules are there, we follow them because they make sense, when they’re up-to-date and effective they serve us well. But they too, also come with a potential threat to our creative health: following rules can become a lazy habit at best, and an excuse to avoid risk at worse.
If we sense that we are starting to follow rules simply for the sake of following rules, we need to change course. Our clients deserve our conviction, our confidence and our ability to offer creative direction. This sometimes means driving right into the path of the storm. Is that risky? Yes. Will it always work? No. In the world of marketing, Seth Godin is an established master. He wrote about the importance of going after what we believe in: “If you’re afraid of something, of putting yourself out there, of creating a kind of connection or a promise, that’s a clue that you’re on the right track. Go, do that.”
“If the idea makes you nervous, it’s the one you should run with.” — Tim Bade (the creative director who gave me my first job.)
While in the designing process for the 110-foot sign that would brand the New York Times building, Michael Beirut came forward with the idea of making it white, effectively blind embossing it on the front of the building. In an article from Wired, he explained that as it was hit by the sun at varying angles, only parts of the sign would reveal themselves. You can sense his enthusiasm for this unconventional and bold idea as he talks, “I thought it would be like a dynamic sign without being lit… It would be changing all the time. Doesn’t that sound cool?”
The client wasn’t too excited. “You’re proposing that we put a block-long sign on the side of a building that people aren’t able to read?” Beirut’s response: “They’ll usually be able to read it!”
They ended up with a traditional black on white solution and Bierut would have to compromise on his original idea. But he didn’t let some blind allegiance to “the rules” or fear of being unconventional prevent him from offering his clients his unique brand of passion. He was pushing boundaries, he was getting goosebumps and chasing his storm— and we should too. When passion demands it, we break the rules for the right reasons. Clients inherently shy away from risk, but it’s worth trying from time to time — every now and then you might actually get away with something incredible. Remember: it’s always better when your ideas are in need of being reeled-in rather than in need of being pushed further out.
Learn to Love the Thunder
Let’s be clear. Storms can feel uncomfortable. They’re beautiful, inspiring and worthy of our pursuit, but the truth is, they can also be pretty intimidating at times. In our line of work, the creative process itself can leave us feeling uneasy. We are in the business of challenging ourselves, our teams and our clients. We make a living exploring problems, looking at things from diverse angles, gathering insights that often surprise us, rather than affirm what we thought we knew. All of this produces moments where fatigue, frustration, fear and burnout can develop. It’s the nature of the storm.
The good news is, when we feel that way—it means that we’re on the verge of adapting. And adaptation leads to looking at things in new ways. If you happen to be in one of those moments now, recognize it for what it is—a natural part of the creative process. Somehow, just knowing what you’re going though and remembering what’s on the other side can help you push through. It’s when you don’t feel the storm that you should be worried. If our hairs aren’t rising from the energy of our work, if we aren’t even a little bit uncomfortable, then that could mean our passion is at risk and we should take action.
After more than a decade of working as a visual designer, I believe that our best work comes with maintaining our love for the storm. And when we’re in the storm, when we immerse ourselves in our passion, constantly live in it, everything we see will influence our design approach. That includes the tough times, the self-doubt, the frustration and the concern for keeping our creative fire lit—all of that moves us to action. That’s when the new ideas start to roll in. Chase your storm, your passion is your most valuable asset for the emergence of creativity.
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