Roots of Creativity

I was just tucking in to some Sunday soup today (it's the same soup for every other day but on a Sunday instead) and spotted this new post for Jacob Cass at Just Creative Design.

image taken from: Brian Yerkes

"I want to get your feedback on Just Creative Design and as an added incentive I am offering a prize to one lucky random winner!" Jacob Cass.

He's a nice chap Jacob and so we thought we'd help out (it was the possibility of free book goodliness that finally swung it for us though ;) ). Anyway, here was our feedback, including our category rankings and suggestions for improvement:

(1) Creativity (with a name like Kooji Creative, it had to be our No 1 really didn’t it?)

(2) Inspiration (It’s one of our main reasons for browsing the web)

Image © Tablefy

Tablefy Water Lantern

(3) Tutorials/ Knowledge Transfer (Lifelong Learning is a priority for us)

(4) The Online Design Community (Networking with other creatives is incredibly powerful)

(5) Giveaways & Competitions (Let’s be honest if we hadn’t spotted this post with a freebie book we wouldn’t have been as inclined to post feedback :D )

(6) Anything Programming related (Don’t get me wrong, without programming our stuff wouldn’t work, but we’re more interested in the design/ the front-end - CSS, XHTML, SEO, - all these things are important, but we prefer to focus on the design side)

Image © Yasny Chan

Labyrinth


FEEDBACK - This is a wonderful resource Jacob, and it’s where we began our search for online design info (we found you through your free ebook). There are links that branch out across a network of designers, blogs and social media sites - it’s fantastic.

It’d be great if you could add more visuals and interactivity to your website (flash is good for this and it’s less confining). People tend to skim read and images are read faster than words. Video content would be a great addition - Maybe something showing how you work?

One last point - Digital art is incredible and a superb result of today’s creative technologies - but it’s important to remember that it’s still just one of many tools available to us, and that we must always acknowledge how it all began: with a pencil, with paint and a canvas or a stick on a cave wall. Maybe a post about the Roots of Creativity would be beneficial for all?

Thanks for JCD :D

Katherine and Johnny

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image taken from: http://www.myspace.com/seaorchids

So that was our feedback for JCD - which ended up being a being a full blown epic novel instead of just a children's fairytale (a bit like Lord The Rings eh? Okay, maybe not :P)

We'd really like your opinions on this. Do you think it's important to acknowledge your creative roots? Do you care about where creativity all began? Is the computer your only tool as a creative or do you like using traditional mediums aswell?

Blog Action Day 2008: The Domino Effect

Yesterday, while Johnny and I were having a quick break from decorating, I came across this post from Octwelve, a design blog written by MaryLuc Melgar. Luc has written an article as a contribution for 'Blog Action Day 2008.' What's that then I hear you cry? Well...

"Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. " http://blogactionday.org/

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

This year's topic is poverty and bloggers everywhere are encouraged to write about this subject, giving it their own unique spin.

Today, I was reading through an email from Just Creative Design, a fantastic design blog written by Jacob Cass. Jacob has a weekly feature called 'Designer in the Spotlight' and this weeks focussed on a really talented designer called Doug Cloud. I took a look at Doug's blog and found another post, similar to the one on Octwelves called Poverty of the Heart. It's strange I thought that I hadn't heard about this before so I looked at JCD and sure enough Jacob's written about it too, here.

BAD:08 was on 15th October, so although we're a little late here is our contribution to this year's Blog Action Day.

Just over a year ago we both got involved in an International Volunteering project called 'Leeds Met Poland 2007.' With only a couple of weeks to prepare for the trip we were able to secure sponsorship from many companies including Dean Clough Art Gallery in Halifax, The New Technology Institute in Leeds and Yorkshire Forward. We travelled to the city of Lublin on the East side of Poland (one of the poorer areas) to work within two arts therapy centres: Matki Teresy z Kalcutty (Mother Teresa of Calcutta) and Fundacja Miedzy Nami (The Among Us Foundation). For two weeks, along with a team of volunteers and staff, we worked with adults who have physical and learning disabilities.

During our stay we took part in various indoor and outdoor workshops including ceramics and painting. We even had the opportunity to help put an exhibition together to celebrate the work of ‘Stash’ one of the artists from MTK.

This is our diary from the Leeds Met Community, Partnerships and Volunteering webpage. Here’s what I wrote about our experiences after we returned last March:

Nine months have passed since our first visit to the arts therapy centres. The experiences we had and the friendships we made during our time in Poland were extraordinary. The artists are so talented and the people running the centres, so visionary that when we were asked for our help in promoting their creative endeavours we both eagerly accepted.

Working with disabled artists was at first a daunting prospect but after seeing for ourselves the warmth and kindness that they have to offer the nervousness just melted away. Our first visit was incredible but returning to visit our friends for a second time was a real honour and a joy. We entered the centres believing we were there to teach them something when in fact the opposite was closer to the truth. They taught us more about ourselves, how fortunate we are and what we have to offer the world than any amount of teaching we could offer them.

Me, with my new friend Agnieszka who's sporting a Fundacja T-Shirt. We had these made to hand out as gifts.

When the opportunity arose to give them something back, to help them in their creative endeavours and to raise an awareness of their pioneering work we both leapt at the chance. We felt that this could be best accomplished by integrating this project with the final year of my BSc and in parallel through our branding and promotions company, Kooji Creative. The end of the degree is now within sight and it has been a hugely rewarding project but it doesn’t end here.

I wrote several reflections after this trip as I felt I needed to let everyone know how eye opening it had been. Here are some relevant snippets from the ones that were published:

It's amazing how one decision in your life can affect so many others. The experience was so fulfilling and really opened our eyes to new possibilities. It made us realise how fortunate we are and how important it is to make the most of what we have. This single opportunity began to branch out and when we were asked to help them by promoting the centres and their artwork we were very keen to do whatever we could. By integrating this with the final year group project on the BSc and also through our business, Kooji Creative, we were able to involve so many more people.

However impossible something may appear it is important to reach out and grasp opportunities, to make the most of every day and to see how in turn, you can make a difference to the world around you.

International Reflection – 26th March 2008

Community Reflection - 21st April 2008

It was an incredibly rewarding experience and our involvement is ongoing. Most importantly we learned to appreciate what we have and to remember that there are always others less fortunate than ourselves.