Inspiration vs Influence
I’ve played guitar for 16 years and have been a graphic designer for 8. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with and reading about both guitarists and designers. I’ve been able to make lots of connections between these two creative worlds, and this often comes out in my writing; I like to describe visual design in musical terms.
I love making links between music and design because I understand music better, so it makes it easier for me to learn design when comparing to music. There are lots guitarists and designers have in common but, there’s one major difference I’ve noticed; the way they talk about influence and inspiration.
Guitarists have a clear picture of the difference between influence and inspiration, where many designers do not. For some designers, there may not be a difference at all. For guitarists, that separation is usually defined by “who” and “what”.
Influence To The Guitarist
A common question posed to guitar players is “who are your influences?”. The typical response is a list of other guitarists who have laid the foundation of their own musical language. Meaning, they name other guitarists whom they learned to play the instrument from, and sometimes even directly taken “licks” and “phrases” from to use in their own playing.
When you’re learning to play guitar, you copy someone else’s work directly, note for note, as accurately as possible. (and accuracy in playing can be a big deal — if you use a different finger to fret a note than the original composer, someone on the internet will tell you about it).
At some point, after you learn a certain amount of chords, scales, and tricks you might want to compose your own music. When you decide to do that, the tools you have at your disposal are all things you have taken from those other people and songs you learned from. You might take an Eddie Van Halen thing and twist it into your own thing. A guitarist would then say they are “influenced” by Van Halen. When a designer does the same, they usually say they were “inspired”.
Inspiration To The Guitarist
Ask a graphic designer what they’re inspired by and they’ll likely list names of other designers or artists, or even online galleries as the axe-slinger does his influences. Musicians usually talk about more conceptual, abstract, or even very personal things in terms of their inspiration. Many players are inspired by the instrument itself, some by culture, some by war, current events, the struggles they face in life, or even the environment they live in. The desire to create their own original work doesn’t stem from other players as much; they’re only there to guide them on the path of musical knowledge, not to be the soul reason they play.
I’ve been asked the question as a designer, “where do you get your inspiration from?”. It’s always confused me because I probably approach it from a guitarist’s perspective. Where the questioner may want to know what I look at on a regular basis, or how I come up with ideas, the question gets me thinking about anything other than design that motivates me to create my own designs.
I believe the truest form of inspiration is not to be confused with influence — it’s not looking at something created by someone else and putting your own spin on it.
It is 1.) creating something that expresses an idea relative to the project, formed from your own vision and skills. 2.) looking at something that is really good and feeling the need to create something original that is also good. 3.) solving an issue or addressing a need.
To use a real band as an example, Metallica’s musical influences are King Diamond, Black Sabbath, Joe Satriani; but what inspires their songs are war, religion, addiction, and even 80s hair metal bands which they despised. Hate can be an inspiration too, give in to the dark side!
My Influences
As a logo designer, some of my major influences are Kris Bazen, Fraser Davidson, Marc Verlander, Joe Bosack, Massimo Vignelli, Jan Zabransky, Saul Bass, David Carson, and Olly Moss. These people (and note they’re not all logo designers) have shaped my skills and design styles by either learning directly from them or by studying their work on my own.
Other things like muscle cars, vintage sports design, Bauhaus, and Constructionism are all things that I pull from to add to my own toolbox too. Not so much in forming ideas, but in styling them.
My Inspirations
What inspires me to create graphic design is something about the project at hand, the energy of other creative people, exploring a new city, the high octane exhaust of a race car, a great idea, movie, song, or even the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the beach. It’s things that make me feel alive or spark an idea so good I can’t ignore it, and I know that sounds really odd, but I can’t really explain it any better. My source of inspiration to work comes from all over, even the absence of work. It’s hard for me to not work; I constantly feel the need to create something.
Still, there are some specific peoples work that does inspire me to create. These people inspire me not to copy their work, but to try to make my own that is as good, even if our work looks nothing alike. Their skills are far beyond mine, but I regard their ideas and level of craft as the very best. That includes artists like Banksy, Sheppard Fairey, RONE, Vhills, Derrick Castle, Marie Bergeon and graphic designers Jon Quintin, Gert Van Duinen, Jon Contino, Nick Slater, and Brandon Rike.
Conclusions
Coach Klein: “Bobby, where was the intensity I saw yesterday?”
Bobby Boushea: “That was no intensity, you said it was alright to fight back and I just started thinkin’ about all the people that had been mean to me over the years”
Coach Klein: “That’s it! I want you to think about all those mean people. They’re gonna be your . . . tackling fuel!”
Bobby Boushea: “Tacklin’ fuel”
Coach Klein: “We’re gonna use them to play football!”
Bobby Boushea: “Tacklin’ fuel”.
In the simplest terms, inspiration might be defined as what makes you want to write a song, while influence is the primary thing that helps you construct it.
What inspires us as designers should not be confused with our influences. It’s perfectly fine to let the influences show in your work (there’s a difference between that and directly copying) but when you look for inspiration, look for whatever it is that makes you want to sit down with paper and pencil and sketch ideas of your own. Because the best artists I know of any medium do not ask for inspiration from other artists, or wait for it to strike them. There is always something inside them or around them that fuels their work. You have to find your “tacklin’ fuel”.
