In the field of graphic design, where clever artistic solutions must be created on deadline, the creative block is an enemy to be reckoned with, and idea starters are more precious than diamonds.
For this reason, if you explore the Graphic Design section of your bookstore (usually near the Fine Art section), you will find a number of publications which deal with ways to “think visually”. These are intended to twist your mind a little so that new connections might be made between objects and ideas, and you can be off and running with that ad you need to produce by the meeting with the client at 8 a.m.!
The author is one of the most reknowned and innovative minds in international design, Alan Fletcher, a member of the legendary Fletcher, Forbes, Gill design consultancy, and a founding partner of the Pentagram Design Group. This book is a rambling artist journal, if you will, of tidbits he has found interesting over his long creative career.
Here is quote from the publisher about this book: “It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes, memories - all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind.”
I struggled with a way to convey to you the riches and the randomness of this creative treasure chest, and I finally decided that a random approach would be best. I hauled the book onto my scanner and flopped it open a few times. As you can see, just about anywhere it opens, Alan’s book starts stirring the creative soup!
