Design Speaks Episode 135  – Chapter 7: Overcoming the Stubborn Creative Block Between Your Inspiration & Actual Creation

BrandiSea: [00:00:00] Welcome to Design Speaks, the podcast that helps you discover uncommon inspiration so you can make more meaningful work. I’m Brandi Sea my cohost is Julie Haider. 

This week we’ll be talking about word maps and how you can find concepts that will guide your designs. Stay tuned for that coming up.

Well. Hello, Julie. 

Julie: [00:00:31] Hello. 

BrandiSea: [00:00:32] I guess I should say hi, Julie. Got to keep this high thing going. 

Julie: [00:00:36] I’m not picky. 

BrandiSea: [00:00:38] Well, I am. I like–I like consistency. I’m a creature of habit. 

Julie: [00:00:42] Okay, never tell me hello ever again. 

BrandiSea: [00:00:44] Never again. Only hi to Julie Haider. Um, so this week I’ve kind of been thinking a lot about overcoming, uh–

Right now, when we’re recording, the Covid-19 outbreak is basically–I dunno, I’m guessing it’s at its peak. It can’t say that for sure. I don’t–I’m not a scientist, but it kind of feels like it’s at its peak, and so we’re recording over zoom. Which was a challenge in itself. Um, we’ve–we’ve all kind of had to figure out some new things–some new way of doing things, including doing this over the phone.

But I’ve also been thinking about creative block, and, you know, it’s real and it happens. It happens to the best of us. It happens to the not best of us. I don’t know. That’s not good English. Um, so why do you think that, you know, as creatives, we get creative block and, like, how do you–what do you do to overcome it when it happens to you?

I feel like plumbers don’t get plumber’s block. I mean, I guess plumbers block is probably way different. That was a weird, weird angle to go at. 

Julie: [00:01:53] Oh my gosh. Uh, yeah, that’s a really great question and definitely timely. I would say, um, I think that–well, for one, I don’t think that we can be, like, “on” all the time. Like, that’s just not a sustainable thing, as humans.

So it makes sense that sometimes we’re, like, super creative and then sometimes not so much. Like, there’s an ebb and flow and– in everything. Um, but I also think that it happens when we, kind of, limit, um, limit ourselves in, like, the inspiration that we’re consuming. And I feel like it, kind of, happens when we just are, kind of, stuck in, uh, what we’re doing.

Like, in our routine, we’re not getting, like, an outside perspective. We’re not refreshing ourselves. Um, and that just, kind of, happens naturally. Like, at least for myself, you know, it’s great to, like, really dig into your work and be super focused on that. Um, but at some point you also have to, like, stick your head out and, um, you know, take in the rest of the world. 

BrandiSea: [00:02:55] Out of the shell.

Julie: [00:02:57] Yeah. So, I kind of feel like that’s where it comes from. And just, like, getting a different perspective sometimes can help. Obviously, we’ve talked about, um, collecting inspiration through everyday stuff. So I think that’s really important. Um, and also, like, something that’s really been on my mind a lot lately because of current events is taking care of yourself mentally. Mentally and physically.

Um, if you’re not, like, at your best as a person, then you’re not going to be at your best as a creative. Um, so–and that doesn’t just mean, like, you know, exercising and eating healthy, like, yeah, that’s going to put you in a good mood and–and have your brain, like, you know, at its best. But also just, like, knowing your limits and what you need, um, as, like, a soul and your personality, what it needs to thrive and everything.

So taking care of yourself that way, I think will put you in a good position for that. 

Um, and then also, like, you and I have talked  about this before, and we both feel the same way. Like, travel and getting outside is a way to, like, recharge yourself, but– 

BrandiSea: [00:04:05] It’s literally impossible to do right now. 

Julie: [00:04:08] It is.

Yeah. Um, but I was just thinking like there’s, um–since the whole world is dealing with this right now, all these really cool opportunities are popping up of ways that people can be, like, exploring and learning, um, from their home. So, obviously, it’s not the same, but there’s, like, museum tours and national parks tours and, um, all kinds of, like classes are free right now. Even from, like, big Ivy league universities. 

BrandiSea: [00:04:39] Yeah, I saw that yale has, like, a whole bunch of free free things available. I was, like, I just wish I had time. I would just go get, like, the side English degree I always wanted. 

Julie: [00:04:51] Yeah. 

It’s so incredible. So, I love that everybody’s, like, coming together and–and coming up with new ways to, um, to–to overcome this and still, like, provide, um, opportunities to be learning and experiencing things.

So, obviously, like, looking at pictures of the Eiffel tower and, like, doing a virtual tour of that is not going to be the same as actually being there. Right now that’s as close as we can get. So, I think it’s important for us, um, while– while there is value in, like, resting and chilling out and just watching Netflix for awhile, um, don’t spend all of your time doing that.

Like, make sure that your mind is still, like, encountering new things. Um, which is going to, like, spur you on to being more creative and feeling inspired and just, like, awakening your brain for–for getting your–your best work done. 

BrandiSea: [00:05:43] Yeah. And honestly, even if, like, even if you are doing that–you know, I talked about how to find the uncommon inspiration and being aware and being specifically aware of maybe a project you’re working on, or a project you’d like to do, or something like that.

I have, multiple times, just made myself aware in a space of even watching a show on Netflix or a movie or something, and something, sort of, popped out to me from that. So, I think that if you’re just, kind of, in a space where you’re–you’re ready to be inspired, you can still binge Netflix and possibly keep a notebook nearby or something, or take a screen, a picture of the screen if you see something interesting.

I think that there’s–there’s some value to not being on all the time. And I think–what I lecture–I think what I really want to talk about in a little bit is–I wrote it down. 

Now, as we are talking, we’re going to be talking about, you know, word maps and concepting and stuff, but I think that part of this and not being on is being able to have the control over that switch. The flip, you know. Say, like, “when I sit down and do this, I am going to be on,” instead of going, “well, the lights just off, I don’t feel inspired. There’s this block and it’s just not on, so I’m just going to get up and go do something else because I don’t want to feel it.”

You know, being able to be in control of your creativity and knowing when I turn the switch of the thing we’re going to talk about today, then I can be on. And then when I’m done, I can turn it off and go about my day instead of trying to just, yeah. 

Julie: [00:07:25] Yeah. I think that, like, delineation between on and off is really important so that you don’t go through life, kind of, on autopilot so that, you know, like, um, you know, I’m watching Netflix right now, like, purely to chill out because of my brain needs a rest and my body needs rest. Versus, I’m watching Netflix right now and if there’s any inspiration I can pull out of this, awesome. Like, it’s a totally different mindset and it’s important to know the difference and to, like, make that decision on what am I doing right now. Am I on or am I off? 

BrandiSea: [00:07:54] For sure. 

So, the inspiration was a little hard to come by for me. To be honest, I–I don’t even remember where I found this or, like, how I encountered it.

It’s been such a weird week. Like you said, I feel like it has been, like, a month, but I encountered these two really interesting words and they are like–they kind of, like, blew my mind and explained a lot of really interesting things too to me. And so they–they were my primary source of inspiration this week.

And in order to explain what those are, we’ve got to, kind of, get into the topics. I’m just going to leave you hanging for a minute.

Music: [00:08:48] No Time to Die by Billie Eilish

BrandiSea: [00:09:30] That was No Time to Die by Billie Eilish. Something I really love about this song is honestly, I just really have, kind of, always loved the theme songs for the 007 movies. They have this really uncanny ability to give you a feel for what kind of movie you can expect. I’ve always also loved the one for The World is Not Enough by Garbage cause I’m a Garbage fan, but I love the slow, dramatic build in this one. I love, again, the emotion. It really sets the tone for the movie. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it definitely gives a vibe and it’s–it’s really interesting how they are able to do something clever and cheeky with the titles of their movies, which are the titles of the songs, while also maintaining this really crazy mystery action adventure–sometimes really dark, especially with the newer movies. I really love songs like this for the sketching and researching phase. So, that’s another little motivation piece for me is–this will go into my–my playlist for researching and sketching my ideas that I come up with.

I, kind of–I wanted to start the topic today by talking about creative block because I really feel like the word map thing that I do, and that I teach, really helps you overcome that creative block and come up with new and exciting ideas with really complete clarity. Cause it gives you a place to start and a way to keep going.

I don’t know about you, but even though I ha–you know, there’s been times where even I forget that this is the starting place and I’ll sit in front of this, like, a blank piece of paper and just be, like, completely intimidated. Have you ever felt like that? 

Julie: [00:11:34] Oh yeah, for sure. 

BrandiSea: [00:11:36] I mean, the cool thing is that when you know what you’re going to put on the paper and you remember that there is a starting place, it’s, like, so relieving and your intimidation basically just goes away completely.

And so, that’s what I kind of want to talk about today. Before you–before you can start working on anything, you have to have something to guide you to–to get there. So, yeah. 

Julie: [00:12:01] That sounds awesome. I’m excited to hear about this and to hear, especially, like, where you start. 

BrandiSea: [00:12:07] So, the first part of this is–is kind of outside of the word map, but I have to, kind of–just to be clear, where all this really starts is a conversation with, you know, like, we talked about in the initial episode, the conversation with your client and the brief. So you–this–this whole episode is basically assuming that you’ve already done the brief and you kind of have–you have this–this starting place of information from your client.

So the word map is really, like, the secret sauce in the strategy for coming up with these truly unique directions in my work–and people that I’ve taught this to, it’s the same for them. It’s ultimately like it–it really is easy enough for a first grader to understand. I–I don’t know if you saw this on my Instagram, Julie, but I–I saw my son’s homework a few weeks ago and he had done a little–a little mind map.

His class was writing their own miniature version of the book, The Day the Crayons Quit. Do you know this book? 

Julie: [00:13:11] I don’t. 

BrandiSea: [00:13:11] Okay, so it’s this kid’s book, and it’s basically, like, the crayons are writing to the kid that owns them, and saying the reasons they quit. So, for example, the blue is really angry because he’s so tiny cause he’s this kid’s favorite color and he uses him too much.

And the black is really upset because he’s only used for things like clouds and sad things. And yellow gets all the really fun things. So it’s–it’s like this. So, what the teacher had them do was basically choose a few of the crayons that they would like to write a story about as if they were writing– their crayons were writing to them. So, I was looking through his homework, just making sure he had everything there, and I saw this little mind map and it wasn’t something the teacher showed him how to do, it was because he sees me do them all the time. 

Julie: [00:14:01] Yeah, that’s awesome. 

BrandiSea: [00:14:03] And I was, like, okay, this really is so easy and it’s so not intimidating that literally my first grader can do it.

So I know that was, like, a long way around to how easy this can be. I just wanted to, kind of, like– 

Julie: [00:14:17] yeah, that’s so cool though. 

BrandiSea: [00:14:19] It’s, like, so easy, but it can yield, like, the most complex and interesting ideas. You’re really able to combine words that will eventually allow you to create these new executions because you’re connecting things that might not have even come close to connecting if you were just thinking of them on your own, kind of, outside of the word map. Because, you know, even though as–as humans we are able to connect things and, especially as designers–and I’ll talk about this a little bit more later–as designers, we’re able to connect things. But when you have a method for that connection, it’s–it’s, like, mind blowing.

The thing about this really is–I dunno why I–I’m not a cook. I’m not a Baker. But I always–I always try to relate these things to baking and I was–as I was writing up some ideas on this episode, I was thinking that this process of using the word map to find your–you,r kind of, guiding concept isn’t like a lot of other brainstorming methods because I’ve been in a lot of brainstorming sessions.

Tell me if you’ve ever been in these brainstorming sessions where you’re in a room with a bunch of people and they tell you, you know, we have a bunch of post-its. Even, maybe, they’ve got, like, the–the design thinking sort of approach and it’s, like, okay, we’re all just going to have–this is our problem. Here’s our goal. Let’s all just, like, write ideas. Let’s write a bunch of ideas and stick them up on the wall and basically, like, throwing things at the wall and see what sticks. Have you ever been a part of these–these sessions? 

Julie: [00:15:59] Nothing–nothing big like that. But, I mean, I’ve definitely, like, sat down with a friend and been, like, “okay, how can we make this happen,” and we just start throwing ideas out. 

BrandiSea: [00:16:07] Yeah. Like that. That seems like a good approach. If, like, on the surface it’s, like, “well, yeah. Let’s get all the ideas out”. But I feel like when you do it that way, it’s sort of like, I want to bake a cake, but I don’t know what kind. I’ll just grab a bunch of random ingredients and start trying to bake a cake.

Some of them will probably be gross, but it’ll all work out in the end. It’s part of the process, right? It’s like, wait. No. You probably need to know what kind of cake you’re going to make before you can know the ingredients you’re going to need. Right? Yeah. And that–that ultimately–that make–makes more sense to me.

So, in this scenario, the kind of cake is the concept that’s the overarching idea, and then the ingredients are going to be the design elements that you need. It’s really such a waste of time, uh, to just try and come up with random ideas without a guiding concept and, like, the strategic process. I mean, it sounds like fun to just bake a bunch of random cakes, I guess.

Julie: [00:17:09] But you have no guarantee that you’re going to, like, get the end product that you’re wanting. And it also could take a really long time. 

BrandiSea: [00:17:15] Yeah. Or just be really gross. 

Julie: [00:17:17] Yeah.  And also now I really want cake so thanks.  

BrandiSea: [00:17:22] Well, I’ve got some of Kaden’s birthday cake in the fridge still, but you know, social distancing. 

Julie: [00:17:27] Okay, so mail me some please.

BrandiSea: [00:17:29] Oh, that’s so gross. I wonder.–hat would definitely not work out. It would look pre-chewed by the time it got to you. 

Julie: [00:17:37] Oh gosh. 

BrandiSea: [00:17:38] So are you–are you with me so far? Am I like–

Julie: [00:17:42] Yeah, this all sounds good and it–it’s–I mean, just having a a road map of where you’re going, like, knowing what your process is going to be just makes it more of, like, a sure thing and, like, you’re not going to waste your time.

BrandiSea: [00:17:56] Yeah. And I think–I think that overcoming creative block too is–is honestly– Partially knowing, you know, thinking that things will take longer than they will or that they–than they should because it’s sort of like, ah, either I only have so much time to do this, or, you know, I don’t know how long this will take. And that–

Julie: [00:18:16] Yeah. 

BrandiSea: [00:18:17] It’s sort of, like, this huge hurdle to overcome. And when you–when you’ve done this process, of my of word mapping and concept thing, enough times, you have an idea of how long this will take, and you can also set time limits. I’ve–I’ve done word maps and concept things in sessions that only take, uh, the length of a song.

I use a certain song because I know that there’s something that happens in your brain when you’re on a time limit, right? It’s–you were talking before we started recording about, you know–you have some client work that you have to get done by this weekend, and it’s like, okay, if you had till next Friday, your focus would not be as clear as if you have to have that done by six o’clock tonight, right?

Julie: [00:19:04] Yes, for sure. 

BrandiSea: [00:19:07] So I incorporate this literary method that forces you to not think so linearly about your ideas or so surface and obvious, but to really be okay with exploring these, like, weird side roads and detours that you might not have done–which I don’t recommend when you’re hiking, if you don’t know where you’re going, taking detours is probably not the best. I don’t know. You could tell me. I’m not–I’m not big on going off trail. 

Julie: [00:19:35] Nope, not a good idea. 

BrandiSea: [00:19:36] See, even you say that. I’m like, you’re, like, the hiking queen and you don’t even go off trail. So designers often think of themselves as more like artists, and I think that that’s a really big mistake.

I don’t know if, when you were really designing a lot, if you–if you thought of yourself more as an artist, than I don’t know, a strategic thinker. What–what would you say? 

Julie: [00:20:02] Kind of a mix. I don’t know that I went around saying, “I’m an artist.” Because it didn’t feel so, um like, just free to be whatever I wanted, you know. Like, there were guidelines.

BrandiSea: [00:20:13] Yeah. I think that a lot of–a lot of designers really approach what they do as, you know, more of like, I’m just going to have an idea and whatever comes out is going to be my interpretation and my muse and all this stuff. But it’s really–it’s really like we land as designers in the middle of art and science, if that makes sense.

It’s like we have to definitely understand that we are basically the perfect bridge between the left and right brain thinkers where the–which just is gonna kind of be a good intro into the fact that as designers, we’re supposed to be the connectors. Um. It’s really, it’s literally our job to make connections and guide people through our ideas. And the only way where we’re going to really be able to do that is to understand where those connections came from.

If all we’re doing is writing down a bunch of ideas on post it notes and hoping that one just sounds good, we can’t explain that to anybody, why that makes sense. The word map makes everything really easy to connect because it’s literally showing you the connections on paper in a way you can follow, hence map, because you follow the map. Which is funny because I– I’ve not often thought about that word in relation to actually, like, helping you find your way until today for some reason. I don’t know.

I don’t know how that happens after doing this for so many years. So, when you’re–when you’re coming up with concepts for a photo shoot or a style shoot, how do you find the connections to the things that you’re going to be working with? 

Julie: [00:21:55] Yeah. Well, a lot of times I am not the orchestrator, necessarily.

Um, and so yeah, I dunno. I’m having a hard time coming up with the answer to this question. 

BrandiSea: [00:22:08] That’s okay. I don’t actually expect you to have one. I was, okay–I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t. I–I sprung that on purpose because I’m thinking that maybe after I explained to you how this works, that you’ll be able to use it for your process too. Even though you– 

Julie: [00:22:22] And that is what I am also hoping so.

BrandiSea: [00:22:26] I wasn’t–I wasn’t trying to just put you on the spot, but I kind of was. So, as designers, like I said, we’re really supposed to try and, you know, make these connections and be able to connect things that are related and things that are seemingly unrelated. And I think that that’s really the key. And that’s–that’s where a lot of this uncommon inspiration stuff that I build on comes from.

Because, as designers and as creatives, we should have a better ability than the rest of the world to be able to see how things relate to each other. It’s something that we really need to cultivate. We have to be able to look at varying ideas and lots of different inspiration to make these connections in order to come up with something interesting.

Um. We have to understand things like psychology, sociology, history, science. We have to know literature. We have to understand how to use social media, make our own videos, copywriting for ourselves and for clients. And not only be able to research these things, but find the relationships between them.

Because there are these through lines that you can find if you’re actually looking for it. 

Now I’m going to pause. I have a couple of new words for you, Julie. This is where my inspiration comes in. I know you’ve just been waiting. So I, like I said, I wish I could remember where I found these.

I used to have about a million open tabs on my phone on Safari, on my internet browser. And sometimes I go through them and to clean out stuff that I don’t need and stuff I don’t care about anymore. And I found–I found a dictionary page that had the word apophenia and I was like, what? What is this?

And I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why I was looking it up, but. Apophenia is the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things such as objects or ideas. And my–I should –I was like, there’s a word for me. It was–it just kind of like blew my mind. And I was like, there’s a name for how I think, and it sounds so fancy and scientific. It’s just, it was crazy. So then, I kind of scroll down a little bit more, and it was like related word, and it’s this other one.  I’m going to butcher this.

I forgot to put the pronunciation. Pereidolia, the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful, image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. This is basically like being able to see a crocodile in the cloud or a face on the coat hanger or you know, seeing actual like faces or actual things instead of just connecting ideas.

So I feel like between these two words, it’s like this is like the scientific basis of everything that I do.

And I was really excited about it. So the thing that really inspired me was one, I think that this can be learned, which we’ve talked about too. And two, I can’t always just keep connecting and connecting things without some kind of aid. And so, even though I was thinking about these things and thinking like, well, I do have–I do have this sort of built in ability, I dunno to have apophenia, I guess that’s how you would use that. Um, but I sometimes need help too. And that’s where the word map comes in. And I really think that it made me want to do something with these words to kind of connect them into the way I talk about what I do. I don’t know that I will. It might just be a little too heady and sound a little strange if I do that, but it was just like really inspiring to me, and I don’t know that I will create something from it, but it just blew my mind a little bit. 

Julie: [00:26:28] Yeah. 

BrandiSea: [00:26:29] I was really honest.

Okay, so now we get to the–the meat of this, I guess. Now that I’ve definitely over explained why connecting things is really important. So I’m just going to kind of take it a couple of steps at a time. I’ve definitely gone in detail in a different way on other podcast episodes and on my blog, um, with pictures and stuff on how to do this.

But I found a different way to talk about it that maybe explains it a little differently since we are on a non visual platform. Yeah. So this is actually really good that you’re in the other–in the other room–in the other house across the city. Because you’ll be able to tell me if this is making sense as we’re going through.

Julie: [00:27:17] Okay, cool. 

BrandiSea: [00:27:18] Um, cause you are also just the listener. I’m not able to show you anything. So obvious–okay. So, I said that the word map, um, starts with the client brief. Um, the reason that it starts with a client brief is generally speaking, there are some questions that I ask on the client brief that ask for the client to give words, like adjectives, that describe their business. 

So whatever those are, that’s–that’s sort of like the starting place for this. So I always start in the middle of a page with a square around the client name. It’s always about the client or the project. So if I’m doing a book cover, it’s the name of the book, or if it’s a branding project, it’s the name of the client.

So just whatever the subject of your–your design is going to be. I always use a pencil for this stage because later on in the process, there’s going to be color. Color markers or colored pencils or highlighters, things that are going to need to be used. And, um, it’s really important to be able to differentiate that.

But, and the only way to really do that well is with a pencil. So–so feelings, impressions, and visuals, those kinds of things. I always recommend having a thesaurus, which is why I was referencing it before. Cause even though I have this ability to do this and I love words. There comes a point where you only have so many of your own words in your head.

It’s like, okay, I–I–I walked over to the edge and that’s all I got. 

Julie: [00:28:53] Yeah. 

That’s one thing I was going to ask you about is like when you feel like you’re out of words, where–how do you get word ideas? AndI assumed that you would say a thesaurus, but yeah. 

BrandiSea: [00:29:04] Yeah, it’s very helpful. 

It is. And the–the one that I like to use is called power thesaurus.

It’s an app, so obviously a book is fine, like if you have a classic thesaurus, it– it just takes longer and is much as I love books. I don’t love using a physical thesaurus if I don’t have to write them. The app that I use is kind of crowdsourced. So basically, every time you touch on a word that you feel is the most relevant to the one you’re looking at, it takes you into that word next and it also upvotes that word. So yeah, it’s really, it’s a really cool dynamic, um, dynamic app that I use. So that that also really helps keep it going. When you hit sort of this wall, cause you can go, okay, there’s that word.

Okay, I’ve hit this wall. Okay, now there’s all these other words and you can start going from there. It’s called power thesaurus. Yeah, it’s, awesome. And has a nice logo and it’s really cleanly laid out. So that’s a bonus too. That’s how I choose everything. Be honest, like, Oh, this shampoo’s cheaper, but this one’s prettier.

Um, okay. So at this point, this is where it gets a little bit tricky because even though you’re–you’re continuing to find words, you kind of have to set limits and you have to know that you’re also going after certain things. So the purpose of the word map is a few things. So. The first–first most important thing is finding this guiding concept that I was talking about.

Having the recipe, knowing the cake you’re going to make is really–is really key. So that’s the first thing you’re looking for is the concept, and I’ll explain how to do that in a second. The other thing is you’re going to be looking for color words. So you’re gonna be looking for colors. For your design, and you’re also going to need to look for your visual elements.

So that can be, depending on the design execution that you’re going to need. It can be, um, illustrations. It could be symbols or images. I like to call them visuals because visuals can, can be ultimately executed in any number of ways. I could say that I need a rocket ship for my design, and depending on how I decide that’s going to work best for the client, it could be a photo of a rocket ship, it could be an illustration, or it could be a symbol or an icon. And so all of those things are still rocket ships. And the execution is really on me for how I want that to ultimately look in relation to the concept. Does that make sense so far? 

Julie: [00:31:36] Yeah, for sure. 

BrandiSea: [00:31:37] Okay, so those are the, those are the three things that you’re really looking for as a bonus.

You usually end up finding words that will also describe the kind of typeface that you’ll use. And so knowing this, going into it, the word map ends up being sort of like the elements for your recipe, for everything that you need. The next thing I wanted to say about this is knowing that you, those are the things that you’re going to need.

If you look over your word map and you see that you don’t have any colors in the word map, because sometimes you get lost on the rabbit trails of these other words and you go, okay, so then you need to kind of go back through your word map and look for things that, you know, do relate to certain colors.

So is there an emotion here? Like happy? Okay, well what color is happy? Yellows, oranges. Look through imagery, look for imagery things. So if there’s, you know, space, okay, what sorts of things look like? Space, stars, galaxies, all these sorts of things. So, you start with, it’s sort of like done in a few phases.

You go through and you’d get all the words. Then you go through and you make sure that you have related every single thing in every possible way, and I generally either set a timer or I just work till the edge of the paper and everything is filled and I just can’t work anymore. I’ve done word maps that aren’t filling up the paper and come up with great concepts and great visuals and great colors.

It just, for me, makes me feel a little bit more like I’ve delved deep enough if I can fill the paper up, but that’s not, that’s not completely necessary. 

Julie: [00:33:16] Right. I can really see where this would alleviate the issue of, like, copying people and not being very original. Um, because you’re just kind of letting your mind go into all the different directions and then choosing what you think is best versus looking at all the quote unquote inspiration of other people’s, whatever those are, business cards or whatever.

Um, and then making the decision based off of that. So you’re, you’re starting with original content content and then making, um, like, going from there versus looking at content that’s already been created and going from there. 

BrandiSea: [00:33:57] Exactly. Yeah. Well, and the other thing is too, and I think I talked a little bit about this in the, in the first episode of, of this season, is not only are you exploring different things based on words that you come up with, but you’re also in the midst of this being inspired in your own mind by things that you’ve collected, hopefully. And so, it kind of, like, starts to weave in and out a little bit of that inspiration. And you know, I have done this so many times with groups of people and students where I will give the exact same client the exact same starting words to a group of people.

And tell them all, walk them all through the process of coming up with a concept and then finding your colors and then finding the visual elements for it. And every single person comes up with a different guiding concept. Similar colors usually is the one thing that often ends up being sort of a common thing because colors only go so far as far as meanings, but um, and different visual elements and completely different executions of the final design.

And that’s where this is like unbelievably cool is because you and I could be doing this exact same thing together and come up with completely unique ideas. 

Julie: [00:35:22] Yeah. I love that. It’s so cool. Um, back, um, in December, I was a part of a group that did, like, a little wreath making a class with a local florist and it was really fun.

Neat. But we were all in the same room. We were all given the same base things like we had a little gold, um, like circular frame. And we are all given like for, uh, branches. And then the room was full of all kinds of like ribbons and little like glittered stars and yeah, bubbles and um, all these different dried like flowers and leaves and different stuff like that.

And every single person, there’s probably 25 people there. Everyone came up with something completely different because we’re all just different people and we have different things that we like and different ways that we look at things. And it was just really, really cool, um, to see, like everyone had such different wreaths, even though we were given the exact same supplies and we were all in that same room at the same time. 

BrandiSea: [00:36:30] Yeah, it’s exactly like that.

And it’s, it’s funny because a lot of people will see that scenario as different than the scenario that I’m talking about. It’s like, well, that’s not the same. It’s exactly the same. You still have an end goal. You may not have an overarching concept. You may not have a client to please, you know, maybe that sort of leans a little bit more to the artistic interpretation side of things, but ultimately it’s the same.

You’re, you’re trying to execute something unique with all the same ingredients. Yeah. 

It’s so cool. 

So now that we have this word map, so now what do we do? So this is another place where often people get stuck. It’s like, okay, I have all these words. Now what? Okay, so, so, so round one is you go through with one color.

So I always have three different colors. Um. Of markers or highlighters or something. Generally it’s like pink, blue and orange or something like that. Just so that they’re pretty different. And I grabbed the first one. So let’s say blue is our first one. So blue will be our concept words color. So you go through the word map and you circle words that are, um, like adjectives. Adjectives and adverbs kind of words that you could potentially make into a sort of concept phrase. So for example, you can choose words like, um, interesting or flowering or you know, things like that. And so you circle all the words that sound like they could be part of a concept that could solve your problem. So all this still ties back to the brief of your problem, right?

Once you’ve done that, write them all down on a piece of paper. I like to get my sketchbook and separated into three, um, three sections. The first, it’s like the first two fourths is for the concept words. Then the, there’s a third one and a fourth one for the other two. So write them all down. Through them.

And what you’ll do next is get those words and start combining them. So I just finished the one for the illustrated man and the words that I pulled out to start the concept ideating, where I’m just going to go through a few of these. I won’t go through but, through all of them. There’s about 25 words. Um, one is psychological, one is warnings, future symbols, galaxies, connections, stories sketched. Tattoos. Fantastic. Kay, so, those are some of the words. The way I combine them–here’s some of the options that I did. I had symbols of stories, psychological warnings, unreal futures, connected stories, futuristic life, symbolic galaxies, the one I ended up with as my concept. 

So, so what you do then is you continue just randomly combining these things, and this is another way where you just kind of let your mind just mix stuff up and eventually you’ll start to go, okay, you know what? That word doesn’t work and you cross the word off. You crossed the phrase that contains that word off. So one that I checked right off the bat was imagination. Because one, you can’t, you can’t actually see imagination. That’s not something I can show somebody, right? So the concept should be something that you can actually execute visually, right? And you know, when you’re, you’re not like using special effects on a movie or something. It should be something that you can actually execute.

So that one goes away. So anything that I used the word imagination for I chucked as well. So you just kind of do this over and over again until you can’t take away any more things and you’re left with the things that make the most sense. The last two that I was left with were connected stories. I still didn’t feel right.

I’m trying to, so we’ve talked about the illustrated man is this collection of 18 short stories encompassed in one extra story. So there’s a total of 19 stories that are all connected, and so it’s set in the future. And the last one that I literally, the last thing that I combined together is futuristic, storied galaxy.

And that’s the concept now. Whew. That was a lot. Does that make sense? Even though you can’t see it, does all that make sense? Okay. So now I have a concept. So even though I are, I have all these words in the word map, I’m still not touching anything else until I have my concept, right? Because I don’t know what cake I’m baking.

I can’t find my ingredients. So now that I have the futuristic, storied galaxy as a concept, I go, I can go back to my drawing board, so to speak, the word map. And next I will go back with a different color. Say orange this time and circle all the visual words in the word map. So visual words are words like lines, shapes, person, world, dream, bright, things that you can actually, if I were to say them, picture something in your head, right?

There is a literal correlation between the thing. Um, things that you’d be able to search, for example, on an illustration site where you’re looking for stock illustration or stock photos, things like that. Yeah. So circle all those words. Then you put them in a list similar to the way you did with the concept words before.

And then you can go through and do the same thing with the different color of marker or highlighter for the color words. Cool. Okay. Then I’m just talking a lot. It’s okay. 

Julie: [00:42:22] I mean, you’re, you’re telling us the process and giving lots of good information, so it’s fine. 

BrandiSea: [00:42:28] Okay. So then once you’ve identified the visuals via the visual words.

You basically eliminate the words from that list that don’t apply to your concept. Does that make sense? Yeah. So for futuristic story to galaxy, the words short, small pencil people. Words, noise, things like that, that I had written down, don’t really apply to an execution of a concept like that. So I was able to cross those off.

So then you’re left with, you know, a handful, usually five to 10, visuals, and I’ll, I’ll tell you everything that came from that in a second. Um, next you go through to get, you want to compose your color profile next and how you do that as you’ve already listed every single color that appeared right in your , in your word map and what you do next is you basically count for each color that you wrote down, how many times that color appeared in your word map. So for me, I had gray, purple, red, blue, black, silver, tan, green. So I had all these different colors, and when I counted things up, the way it came out was there was six black, six grains, five blues.

And I say blues and greens because there were, there was like yellow, green, bright green, right? And on blues there was like regular blue, dark blue, etc. So the color palette ends up being the culmination of the top colors that can relate back to that concept. Does that make sense? Yeah. So. The, the ultimate basically recipe that came now from all of this by the time I was finished, the concept is futuristic, storied galaxy.

The visuals are symbols, space, planets. Rockets, circles, connections, and sketchy as in like a sketched sort of style. Oh yeah. And so those are all the visuals. Then the colors are primarily black greens and blues, and then there can be some hints of yellow, red, and white, because those were sort of like the next in line.

So now we already have like. Everything that we could possibly need to start designing. And we haven’t even started really tapping into inspiration, hunting or style references or deep research, you know, any of that. How are you feeling about this so far? Yeah, 

Julie: [00:45:04] I think this all makes sense. And is, um, just like a cool way to like, I dunno, crack open your ideas.

In a way that isn’t feeling like forced. 

BrandiSea: [00:45:15] Yeah. So that’s, that’s kind of why I wanted to approach this also with the creative block thing, because you don’t have to be feeling creative to do this. Yeah. If I, if I was like, Julie, I need you to make a word map of, you know, things around your house. I mean, you don’t need to be creative to do that.

You don’t need to have like some sort of spark of inspiration. I don’t think so. Yeah. So at this point now, then you have all the ingredients that you need. Um, the, what’s the why’s, the how’s the type, the layout, the graphics, all the color ideas. You just need to put them together. So the next thing, and the other half of this is the concept statement.

And this sort of pulls everything together, especially when you’re trying to. Either make it, make a little bit more sense to yourself or make it make sense to perhaps a client or a room that you need to present to, right. This is, this part’s going to go a lot quicker. That was like the meat of all of this.

And, um, I’m not sure that I’ve actually taught, I’ve talked about it in, uh, in detail, but different kinds of detail before. Um, so the concept statement is basically. Taking the why, the what and the how. So I, I wrote this example based on my Alison Wonderland book cover. Based on the word map that I did for, for that book.

The concept that I came up with was warped reflection. So this is the why. So why warped reflection? Because the publisher, this is all in theory because this was, this was a, a personal. Project, but you still have to have, you still have to have a problem and a potential like goal to design. So, uh, this is all stuff I made up, but it’s, it’s still applicable.

So why watch reflection? Because the publisher wants to market to people who already love the book, but love a more abstract reference, a sort of fan. Type service to what is happening in the story, and they’re interested in a more engaging and unique cover design that they can add to their collection.

So basically it’s for people that collect Alison Wonderland books, which there are many. The what. My concept will connect with the Lark, with the target audience by showing them a more meaningful design than just Alice on the cover, drinking tea with the white rabbit and the queen of hearts nearby, which is basically what you always see.

Yeah. I don’t have Alice anywhere on my cover. The only place that you see Alice is the title of the book and the how. So this is basically the, the. What I used. I will illustrate the concept. Warped reflection by utilizing blues, greens, black and white, slightly warped, classic type faces and mirrors, trees, and an implied reflection.

So now I took, I took all of the things that I found in the word map and created this really concise, short thing to, to figure out. What I did. This is sort of like the instructions of the recipe. It’s like, okay, now you have all your stuff. Here’s how and why you did it. So in the end, your concept statement and will sound something like this.

The goal of this design was to design a book cover that illustrates the warped reflection that is created throughout the story of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland and Alice through the looking glass, the reflection of herself that changes the colors and images attract the collector because they are different and they appeal to the deeper meaning inherent in the stories contained inside that true fans know and will love.

Now, from beginning to end, you’ve. We’ve, we’ve now gone from the brief, from the client all the way to the explaining of what you did and why it works and how it solves your problem. Said. Ah, 

Julie: [00:49:08] yeah. That’s so amazing. 

BrandiSea: [00:49:10] So do you have, do you have any questions? Is there anything that that sort of was like, ah, that was a little bit too much?

Why, you know, why this or anything like that? No, 

Julie: [00:49:20] I think you explained it all really well on, I’m honestly excited to. Try to implement this into my own work. Um, obviously I’m not like designing, um. You know, graphic design type stuff, but I am designing people’s Luqman days, 

BrandiSea: [00:49:39] which is 

Julie: [00:49:40] different yet similar.

And, um, it also starts in a very similar place. Like I have a questionnaire that I send to my clients and some of the questions are things like, what are three words that you want to describe your lumen day? And like, how do you want to feel on your lumen day? And stuff like that. Um. And so, and I’m always trying to just come up with like new and fresh ideas of cool things that people can be doing on their wedding day, besides just the typical stuff.

Um, and that’s like really tailored to them. And what. Like they’re looking for, um, but they don’t know what those things are. And so I’ve got to figure out what, what’s a good suggestion for them? So I think this was a really cool way of doing that to come up with some just ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

BrandiSea: [00:50:30] Yeah, that’s awesome. And I was really hoping that you would say that because I think, I think that this specific, you know, order of events that I do, it is very much tailored to the design execution. But to a certain point, it’s just a really great ideating tool. And you know, you, you obviously have some sort of guiding concept for you when you’re searching for locations or, you know.

Different sorts of outfits for a styled shoot. Right? Yeah. So I think that, um, you know, I obviously didn’t invent the mind map. It’s, it’s been around for ages and lots of people use it in lots of different ways, but I think that so far as I know, I’m the only one that uses it as sort of a ingredient finder.

And. Recipe maker. 

Julie: [00:51:22] Yeah. So I’ve actually seen this used before, um, in an online class that I was watching years ago, but not like, it was basically making the word map and then just taking some of those words and turning them into. 

BrandiSea: [00:51:37] A 

Julie: [00:51:37] visual representation. Um, but you’re like breaking it down even farther so that it’s like kind of a, a no brainer thing.

And yeah, and 

BrandiSea: [00:51:48] that’s where I wanted to get to exactly where I was hoping this would go, because it’s sort of like, okay, now you don’t have any excuses. It doesn’t matter if you really feel. Like coming up with an idea that’s, that’s the difference between this and sitting in a room and telling people, okay, give me your ideas.

Cause what if you don’t have any? 

Julie: [00:52:07] Yeah, pretty common. 

BrandiSea: [00:52:11] Yeah. And that’s what’s intimidating. And that’s where you start to feel like, Oh, I’m such a loser of a creative eye. All I do is hit walls. I have nothing to offer. Whereas this is like, look, you know so many things and you have so many cool things to offer to this design.

Just getting them out on paper is, is sometimes the hard part. So hopefully this helped you guys out there and you, Julie, to have a different. Perspective, and, uh, an a better, easier, simpler method of coming up with all the things that you would need to create. 

Julie: [00:52:44] Yeah. I think this is great and I’m excited to try it out.

BrandiSea: [00:52:47] Well, I will definitely be asking you how that went, so stay tuned. All right guys, until next time

Music: [00:52:57] No Time To Die by Billie Eilish

BrandiSea: [00:53:44] Again, that was no time to die by Billie Eilish. You can find this song and all the inspiring music we share on our music from Design Speaks playlist on Spotify. 

All right, everybody. That’s our episode for today. If you’d like to support Design Speaks, you can do so by sharing this podcast with a friend or head over to our Patrion page at @patrion.com/designspeaks.

Design Speaks is produced by Kenneth Kniffin and Dakota Cook and me, Brandi Sea audio production by Kenneth Kniffin. Thanks to Colin from Vesperteen for our theme music. You can find Vesperteen on Apple music and Spotify. Design Speaks is a project of Brandi Sea Designs. It is recorded and produced in the shadow of the watermelon, pink Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

You can leave us a note on Instagram at @designspeakspodcast and you can find all current and past episodes at designspeakspodcast.com. 

Thanks again for listening. Until next time. .