A look at what it takes to be creative, and the strange habits that some of the most creative people to have ever lived had.
Semifinalist
Adobe Design Achievement Awards 2016
Credits
Concept, Writing, Design, Animation, Sound: Sam Jones
ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
I spend a lot of time thinking about what it takes to be creative, and why some people are more successful at creative thinking than others. I decided to look back at history to some of the greatest creative minds of our time…
Some creatives prefer the early morning to do their work. Beethoven rose at dawn to his breakfast of coffee. He would count exactly sixty beans one-by-one for each cup. Hemingway, would wake up at 5am and lock himself in the privacy of his own room to do his writing, with only his six-toed cats allowed inside.
While Sigmund Freud, on the other hand, was more of a night owl when it came to his creative thinking. He would come up with ideas while roaming the streets of Venice. Marching along at a terrific speed and puffing away at his cigars.
Steve Jobs enjoyed coming up with new ideas by dangling his bare feet in the toilet, while Yoshiro Nakamatsu (inventor of the floppy disc) would dive deep under water until his brain was deprived of oxygen, then write his ideas on an underwater sticky pad.
Sometimes it’s all about not being afraid of taking risks. This was one of Einstein’s greatest strengths. He wasn’t afraid of failure. He was an avid sailor, yet he didn’t know how to swim. For the years that he summered in Nassau Point, residents would repeatedly have to rescue the scientist after he sailed his dinghy “Tinef” (Yiddish for “junk”) into troubled waters.
Ultimately, it’s up to us all to find the creative habits that work best for ourselves. Kurt Vonnegut put it best when he said: “Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
