Not sure about some of these ways, like drinking coffee… but a lot of them are spot on. It’s not enough to watch this. Get out there and live these.

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

Your title or career should never define or limit who you are or what you do. And you should never allow it to. John Jay of big-boy ad agency Weiden + Kennedy gives you a lot to take away in these 2-minutes.

“Sometimes in our industry, our professionalism, we get [put into] silos…it should be all of our goals to break out of those silos. The more you work, the more people want to put you in a silo so they can define who you are by their terms. Our job is to never let anyone define who we are…”

I never met the man but somehow his passing is felt deeply. His Apple computers changed my life. My career literally exists because of the Mac. Mr. Job’s creation gave way to all the software I use on every single image I create. It opened creative doors, it inspired, and to this day his creations are the tools I use to make my art and my living.

He is a genius, an inspiration and an icon. My heart and gratitude goes out to you, Mr. Jobs and your family.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

I love this new Branding campaign for TARGET from Allan Peters, it’s simple, fun and effective. You can see the whole campaign on his site, cargocollective.com

some ideas and sketchbook experiments for new pieces

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

I had a friend who would lock eyes with me as if she were Supergirl about to blast me with her heat vision and ask me, “So, what is your plan?” I’m sure my expression contorted into an ape-like bewilderment as I tried to discern what she meant. Did she mean my plan for the day? My plan for her? Or maybe she was referring to my evil, master plan to rule the world?

The odd thing was that no matter how often I asked her what she meant, she would answer only by repeating her question, “What is your plan?”

I’ve never been one to plan much of anything. I’ve always tried to live day by day and not plan longer than I have to. Her question, however left me wondering: “What the hell is my plan?”

As I rocket past my forties into my future, (with a lot less hair and more ape-like bewilderment), I realize that we should all have some kind of plan—specifically a plan to make you the person you were born to be. Life is short. Too short to spend it wasting yourself away with a lot of hopes and dreams and no actions. Life is too short to not have a plan.

So….

“What is your plan?”

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. ~Fr. Alfred D’Souza

Model Nikki Fuego shot for the Heavy Hitters Fight Calendar. © aguirre photography

Although most think creativity is a fickle mistress, I’ve had enough experiences to know that sometimes all it takes is patience to get the results you’re after. Sure some days you’re going to be full of ideas while other days you’re creative brain my feel duller than a Carrot Top performance. There’s a lot of factors that could affect your “flow” and here’s 5 to watch out for.

1. Working on projects only when you feel like it
I wonder what life would be like if pilots, surgeons and bus drivers only worked when they felt like it? If you’re only working on projects on days you feel like it, it’s a pretty sure bet you’re limiting your time and focus. If being creative is your job, that means you turn up to work just like everyone else.

“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up.”
—Chuck close, Painter

“An artist’s career is a series of peaks and valleys—and I enjoy both equally.”
—Rocky Schenck, Photographer

2. Work only if you’re getting paid
The more successful you are the more important it is to remember to work on your personal projects. Even if you feel it’s taking time away from paying gigs, working on projects that are exciting and close your heart will pay off. It will feed you inspiration and ideas that you can use to enhance your paying work as well as keep you motivated. Think of it as investment in yourself.

3. Limiting the scope of your work
If your creations are based on one subject or medium, your work risks getting stale. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas or directions. It could be as simple as a different format, medium, color palettes, etc. The great thing about being creative is it allows you the freedom to explore and experiment. Make sure to take advantage of it.

4. Not keeping a sketchbook
Your sketchbook is like a forgiving friend who you can share all your unedited ideas, notes, sketches, etc. It’s like a brainstorming session because when you brainstorm, there are no bad ideas. I can’t express how important it is to have box, book, file or sketchbook to store all your great inspirations and ideas.

5. Becoming a couch potato
It’s easy to get sucked into this season’s new shows and episodes. Some studies have suggested that watching television can have an adverse effect on a person’s creativity. I’m not sure how true that is, but I do know that it can easily suck hours, weeks and years of your life that you’ll never get back if you let it. Not becoming a couch potato is more of personal opinion as I found that the less television I watched, the more productive I became. It had nothing to do with TV sucking my creativity into some void. I suddenly found myself with all this extra time from not watching TV which motivated me to do more interactive activities like: visiting with friends an having actual conversations, writing, getting out more and getting inspired with new ideas for projects. (Just to name a few). Program your brain, not the TV!