One of the reasons I love what we do so much is that our work draws on so much inspiration. Every project requires us to get to the heart of our clients’ business, get inspired about where we could take the brand and use all our powers of creativity to produce something fresh and inspiring. We use books and magazines for inspiration that’s for sure, but more than that, we keep our eyes and ears open to the inspiration that’s all around us. And from a simple walk up the High Street looking at window displays to a visit to a garden taking in nature’s colour combinations, inspiration is everywhere.
In preparation for a very colourful project we have coming up, I dug out one of my Tricia Guild books, Private View. I’m not sure whether you’ve seen or heard of it but it’s a really inspirational book. It shows how Tricia (head of Designer’s Guild) sees the world and finds inspiration in the things around her for her interior and fabric designs. You can literally see how a trip to India inspired a particular collection or how the shapes in her garden reflect her love of soft formality. It’s such an inspirational book that I wanted to share it with you and also ask you to share what things inspire you?
Tricia Guild’s Private View
If you run a creative business, as I do, you’ll probably be pretty tuned in to the idea of keeping your mind open and looking to understand what inspires you. In my case, from shapes, pattern and colour to texture, type and layout I never close my mind off to ideas. I’m sure that creative ones amongst you are the same? What inspires you though? What do you notice? And where do you find your inspiration?
And I’m really interested to understand whether those of you that don’t run creative businesses – lawyers, accountants perhaps find your inspiration? Is it even important to you? I can’t imagine running a business that didn’t inspire me or didn’t tap into my own inspiration on a daily basis, but I know that for me, inspiration is a really core value of mine and it may not be quite as important to many of you.
I’d really love your thoughts though! Do share below…
Hi Fiona
Inspiration is very much something that applies in my own business, in my case it relates to business and changes in markets.
I find inspiration in both observing other businesses and trends, that can be shared with my clients and others online to assist them in their own businesses.
My inspiration doesn’t just come from other related businesses and clients, it can come from my hobbis such as aviation or other industtries going through changes.
I think it’s important for business owners to keep up to date and look to the future – as someone said at one of my presentations yesterday in Essex ‘If you’re not moving forward constantly in business you are actually moving backwards.’
Looks like the new keyboard I installed this week needs some running in!
It should read hobbies & industries.
Thank you so much for sharing James, it’s really interesting to see where your inspiration comes from because I think it just goes to show the diversity in business that makes life so fun! Look forward to seeing you on Thursday.
Hi Fiona, the main source of inspiration for our digital media business comes from what you have said, keeping your mind open and looking to understand what inspires.
I think the main problem with doing that is tuning in to what inspires in the midst of the ‘noise’ and ‘static’ of every day life that distracts us. That is difficult to do, but maybe we should all be creating space in our weekly calendars to pause, think and be inspired. For me that could be taking a walk or reading a book, but could equally be watching a TV programme, listening to music or even browsing the Internet.
Of course things like TV or the Internet can be a massive source of ‘noise’ and distraction, but maybe the secret when you have time outside of the general busyness of the day is to be a selective watcher rather than being a passive viewer, choosing what you tune to rather than being tuned by all that’s around.
Hi Peter, I absolutely agree. And certainly when we’re coming up with ideas for a new project, knowing what to leave out is almost more important than finding inspiration in the first place.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments.
Hi Fiona
I get a lot of inspiration from this blog. It’s in my reader and I try to keep up with posts. However, I work part-time in a very creative environment surrounded by bottles of cosmetics and merchandising from 5 super brands. So I get a lot of inspiration from there. I spend time browsing the internet for ideas as well from Etsy to Colorlovers. I treat myself to magazines regularly and also spend time reading Cbeebies to my little one – that helps too.