Creativity comes along with inspiration, and it separates the best from the good.
BUT getting inspired is not a thing which you can hope to come across unknowingly on a dark street corner. If it does not come naturally then you have to practice hard and do your homework to boost your perpetual visual creativity.
However, you might ask yourself, how to boost my own personal Visual Creativity?
You can take classes and classroom courses to improve your Visual Creativity, but that will cost you money and time. Sure, it will certainly yield you benefits but ultimately you’ll also have to agree with the notion that Visual Creativity, or any other type of Creativity, would only work if it comes to you naturally— at least for the benefit in the long Run.
Christopher Paolini says, "Learn to see what you are looking at" visual creativity is all about seeing the things with a different angle. Apart from that, Visual Creativity should be obtained by you organically, so that it becomes an everlasting memory and you can spontaneously apply it to places instantly.
Thankfully, you can also obtain and boost your Visual Creative side without even paying a single penny by practicing and observing a few things over the internet and around your surroundings.
Thus, here are the ten of the best tips on how to improve your Visual Creativity without paying any chunk of money for it.
1. Checking out the Social Media Websites
Social Media Websites can teach you a lot. It is considered as one of the best places from where you can learn and gain knowledge upon several topics and subjects. Similarly, if you want to boost up your Visual Creativity, check out the Social Media sites for tips and ideas.
A) Visit and follow Instagram accounts
You can start by first visiting and following Instagram accounts. There are accounts which can inspire you in terms of designs, object-based art, photography, painting, sketching and other forms of inspiration. In fact, at the Instagram playground, you can even come across some weird but pretty exceptional user accounts that will provide you the creative kick that you had been looking out for.
B) Check pins and board
Apart from Instagram, you can even put your trust on Pinterest to explore and discover a boost of visual creativity. At Pinterest, you can easily find ideas and help across topics like Photography, Writing, and even E-Books. All you have to do is rigorously follow the things that inspire you.
You can even follow interesting accounts on YouTube, as the website is full of creativity. You just have to look for it. There are several users who regularly post the videos which can easily influence your creativity.
Creativity can also depend on learning new things and on getting to know the latest trends the world is following. If you want to stay in the loop of this contemporary world, then you must visit websites like boredpanda.com, diply.com , buzzfeed.com and wittyfeed.com.
These Webpages can easily provide you the latest news, trends, vital topics and happenings that the world of internet is hooked up to. Following them is free and hence these websites can easily be one of the best ‘Following’ bookmarks that you can ever make.
Some of the websites can provide you content on specific topics and subjects, apart from the usual content that they produce for the wider audience. Following them will offer you the chance to get hold of some fine artistically creative content, which would certainly boost up your Visual Creativity requirements. These websites encourage their users to post creative things and artistic contents that people like you can take inspiration from.
In today’s modern and technical world, people have forgotten the real importance of books. Books are the reason why mankind has made it thus far and it will still be the prime reason why we’d survive for years to come. Reading books are always worth the journey. And, this is especially true when you want to touch your Visual Creative side.
Books can provide you the creative boost you need in life to produce some of the best stuff that you can’t even imagine now. Books will provide you the power to dream, get inspired and to give your hundred percent.
Most books are inspirational in some way and are written so that you can derive some form of creativity from them. However, there are certain books which are specifically written so that you can rejuvenate your creative mind again.
Books like Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman can really inspire you to look at the world from a very different angle and point of view. While choices like The Art of War by Steven Pressfield will talk to you about how important it is to work hard rather than to count the chickens.
Of course, the libraries and bookstores are filled with several other inspiring books which can help you on your journey to achieve creativity. However, you must take the onus to read them out in order to transfer the creativity straight to your mind.
You just have to fill the paper with your thoughts and your emotions. Doing this may bring you some content which may inspire you on your next project. It can also give you that ‘Eureka’ moment which you had been waiting for a long, long time. Your doodles can be random or can be something closely related to you.
But whatever you put pen to paper, it will be worth something for sure. Especially the visual images that you make may help you out later on. Besides, the random outbreak of talent would certainly boost up your visual creativity levels.
Many great and famous people have churned out things unknowingly and hence even you should not discount this form of creativity.
Also, if you believe you are struggling to cope with something on your creative plate, then doodling can easily become a unique way to calm your nerves and focus. In fact, if you are lucky you might even end up with an epiphany. Further read here, how doodling can change your life
5. Learn from the best
As a creative person, we are sure that you have an artist or a professional whom you idolize and look up to. If you don’t, then you should start doing that. It is not about admiring someone famous; it’s more about trying to learn from his or her work. For instance, you can easily make a list of all the works and innovations that famous people have created in the past.
This way, you would be able to look at them whenever you need some inspiration. If a designer, artist or a painter has inspired you in any way, then you must try to obtain knowledge by checking out their work continuously and meticulously.
You can even try to keep a collection of works made by the greats like Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, M.F Hussain, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Michelangelo.
You might have a personal favourite amongst them—or may have someone different on mind—but the point is to collect and learn from the best. This will certainly give you more inspiration in the field of Visual Creativity.
So looking for such people, here we have something for you.
6. Look around for art
Art is one such thing that sparks our brains and helps us to be more creative and inspirational. Art is like a drug which allows our body to be more open to ideas and gives our brain the power to execute them.
In an interesting experiment, people were put in a scanner and showed a series of paintings every ten seconds and the change in the blood flow was measured in one part of the brain.
The result was overwhelming- an increase in the blood flow in proportion to how much the painting was liked. It revealed that the art induces a feel good sensation direct to the brain!
Various studies have proven that viewing paintings or any type of art can easily trigger responses in that part of our brain where object recognition and visual understanding is processed. Thus, you can easily guess that looking at art and especially paintings can sync up your mind with a more creative output.
Now, you can find art at almost every single place. But visiting museums, art galleries and famousstudios can specifically be beneficial for your cause. Besides, make a trip to these places won’t be such an expensive experience but the knowledge you’d gain from them would be invaluable.
After taking this journey, you will certainly enhance your critical thinking ability and this will help you to be more visually creative.
7. Use the benefits of typography
If you believe you are good at arranging texts, then you can try your hand at Typography.
It is a form of art which involves making texts and written language readable, prominent, appealing and legible when it is posted somewhere and sometimes (many times) it speaks louder than words.
The process involves the practice of line length, typefaces, line spacing or leading, point sizing, letter spacing (tracking) and kerning. Many top graphic designers, art directors, comic book creators, painters, graffiti artists, manga artists and other visual artists use this form of artistry to make their artwork more significant.
Even you can harness this skill-set and use it in your work to make it much more propounding.
Typography can really help you out if your work or creativity involves using texts and language. Hence try to use this style to make your work more visually interactive and creative. Further, learn how to create visual language through typography.
But this is easier said than done for many people. Having a sharp eye is one thing, but having an equally good brain to decode the images is another. However, if you poke your nose everywhere and try to check out everything first hand, then you may uncover things which can give you your next idea. You just have to keep a keen eye on things.
The same principles can also be used on your creations. If you meticulously check and scrutinize your work, then you will certainly spot things that you might have missed out on the first draft.
Hence, you should always be meticulous, and continuously race your mind up to be the next best perfectionist.
9. Never leave out any colour
The colours you select portray the emotions you want to showcase in your work. And, when it about your Visual Creativity skill-set, you know it is vital to play around with colours. White is considered as tranquil and calm but colours like Orange is considered as optimistic and communicative. While, Red is used for portraying anything important. You see, every colour has its own psychological property.
So, if you are considering making something positive, then you can go for bright colours and use white spaces. Also, to give your visual creativity a boost, use designs and pictures for your content which are compelling and very relevant to the subject you are touching.
Most artists and professional creative people believe in the notion of ‘less is more’. It does not matter how much you know, you must always try to put in what you need. Do not try to clobber your work just because you know multiple things and you want to put everything in just for the sake of it.
In closing
In order to boost your Visual Creativity traits, you have to stick to the basics and then evolve as you feel comfortable. Just make sure you learn from every experience and take it step by step.
So, there you go—now you know how you can improve your Visual Creativity without spending a fortune or even a single penny. If you think Visual Creativity is becoming a hard tiger to tame, then you must practice these tips to make it right.
Sawaram Suthar (Sam) is a Founding Director at Middleware. He has extensive experience in marketing, team building and operations. He often seeing working on various GTM practices and implement best one to generate more demand. He is also founded a digital marketing blog - TheNextScoop.