120 - Ideas Are Infinite

What this episode covers

It's not useful to think about originality. It is useful to think about infinity though. Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED Music and links from this episode Man Alone Chimes the Hour by Nihilore Pineal Gland's Goodbye by Sro And the track playing right now, my new favourite track: Invisible by Camilla North x Jens East Line-by-line notes In episode 118 I spoke about the idea that ideas are infinite That, given enough pressure, we can squeeze out ideas forever We shouldn’t believe the mantra that everything has already been done And nothing is original anymore Because that’s just not true This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess MUSIC In design, we’re already setting ourselves up for a fall Most people on this planet today believe the mantra “It’s all been done before” “Nothing is original anymore” I hate that mindset with every bone in my body It’s destructive and just plain unhelpful It just sets your mind up for defeat before you’ve even tried Why bother trying hard, if everything you’re about to make has been done before? Why bother trying at all? Why don’t I just copy somebody else? After all, it’s all been done before right? This is not the attitude to take when it comes to idea generation It’s a deeply destructive train of thought And just to confuse you more I don’t think the direct opposite is a helpful stance either Trying to be original with everything you do is unhelpful too Thinking the complete opposite sets you up for equal failure If you’re trying so hard to be original, you’ll forget the original purpose of any design To communicate something effectively and efficiently I’ve been there myself And this is why generally designers are so bad at doing things for themselves like their own portfolios Because they want it to be so original, and so perfect, it creates inaction I prefer to believe a much simpler thought That ideas are infinite Your mind and everybody else’s mind are so full of ideas, you can never run out of them There might be days when you struggle to come up with a single one Those days where nothing works And they’ll be lots of bad ideas Yes, LOTS of bad ideas But that doesn’t matter Because ideas are infinite, you’ll eventually, no, inevitably get to a good one This removes the idea of originality completely Originality is important Just as important as it is to develop your own designer’s eye And your own unique way of looking at the world I won’t say a style, because I think designers developing a style just paints you into a corner And that’s a topic for another day... Rather than believing everybody has done everything Or that you need to be a christopher columbus and discover the next big trend Just think about the idea that ideas themselves are infinite It shifts your thinking completely You don’t need to worry about originality anymore Because you know you’ll get there eventually anyway You don’t have to worry about your ideas being rubbish Because the next hour or the next day is full of more ideas Everybody is capable of an infinite amount of ideas You’ve just got to believe it MUSIC This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess Music featured in this episode was Man Alone Chimes the Hour by Nihilore Pineal Gland's Goodbye by Sro And the track playing right now, my new favourite track: Invisible by Camilla North x Jens East For a line by line rundown of this episode, go over to askadesigneranything dot com/ ep 120 I’m back tomorrow Support Ask a Designer Anything Ask a Designer Anything Website Twitter (@craigburgess) Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook Leave me a review on iTunes