Everyone wishes for boundless creativity at work or in their everyday life so they can constantly create something exciting in their life. But “creativity” doesn’t grow on trees. You must spend time cultivating your concepts and building up your knowledge every day! So how do you learn about creative concepts? What databases can you draw on? G!VOICE has drawn up a list so your creativity can stand on the shoulders of giants!
Book
Kashiwa Sato’s Ultimate Method for Reaching the Essentials – Kashiwa Sato
Japan’s famous designer Kashiwa Sato tells us that creativity must be “organized” and “polished”. There are techniques for this and they need to be practiced as well. Using his own design studies as an example, Sato divides his “Ultimate Method for Reaching the Essentials” into three phases. From the tangible to the intangible, these are: spatial organization, information organization and thought organization. Follow the steps and constantly hone your organizational skills. The doorway of creativity will then open for you!
CLOUS: Strategies for Idea Management in Marketing, Advertising, Media and Design – Mario Pricken
The name of the book seems very wordy at first and might even turn off some readers. Still, once you open the book and read carefully through it you will realize what a rare find it is. Management guru Mario Pricken has over 20 years of experience in the creative industry. In the book, Pricken offers many useful insights on the process of creativity management complemented by 230 examples of great ideas from around the world. This is a great book from recent years on creativity that combines pictures, text, theory and practice all in one package.
Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others – David Murray
The author David Murray had served as the chief innovation officer for well-known Silicon software companies and in the book he continues to emphasize that good ideas are all “borrowed”! Borrowing doesn’t mean plagiarism however. Plagiarism is considered theft but borrowing might make you look like a genius. Once you have read through this book, you’ll agree that creativity is indeed about “borrowing” and it’s really easy to do. Knowing where to borrow your ingredients and how to put them altogether is the key to your creative ability.
Inside Steve’s Brain – Leander Kahney
The author peels back the layers to reveal the secrets behind Steve Jobs’ unbelievable achievements. In this book, Kahney collates and analyzes the principles that Jobs have always lived by. He then transforms the Jobs’ proven and much sought after creative management and business philosophy into the “Seven Lessons from Jobs”.
Magazine
《PPaper》
This is a design magazine that nearly everyone in Taiwan is familiar with. Despite its relatively low circulation and accessibility, it can help you get up to date on the latest creative brands among international brands: What can you do with a brand? How do you go about design? What’s the deal with marketing? When you look at the case studies from top international brand experts you might even pick up a few tricks! There is also the PPaper BUSINESS which has a more commercial slant and is well worth looking at too.
《brain》
This is the most famous advertising magazine in Taiwan. If you want to know about the story behind the marketing success of each brand, what ideas went into product advertising and how advertisers work out what consumers really want, flip through brain and your skills will get a boost as well.
《Monocle》
Each issue of Monocle contains information from all around the world including finance, economics, design, fashion, entertainment and art. Readers can also pick up the latest trends earlier than everyone else. Each issue includes environmental protection as well as new lifestyles and attitudes that not only provide you with a window to the world, but also give you a better understanding of the environment we live in as well as how we relate to the world as a whole.
《The Big Issue》
First published in the U.K., 18 years ago, this magazine’s Taiwan edition has now been released at last. Leaving aside its charitable aspect, The Big Issue has quite extensive content as well. The magazine targets topics that young people today (25 ~ 35 years old) are interested in: global issues, environment, 3C technology, culture, art, design, fashion… etc. You can quickly chew through all the latest soft topics that are making a splash around the world.
Website
roodo！（www.roodo.com）
Roodoo is an online literary platform divided into six parts: lifestyle, creativity, multimedia, knowledge, fun and baby. The content comes from leading bloggers and brings together all kinds of lifestyle topics as well as interesting ideas.
TED.com（www.ted.com）
Why is it called TED? It’s in fact an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED.com attempts to use these three fields that have become an integral part of modern life to influence people’s thinking. On TED.com, you can see the leaders in each field from around the world use 18 minutes to share their thoughts and insights on technology, society and people. Each speech will give you many new ideas and different perspectives.
