Hidden Network's High Five - Get your inspiration rolling with these 5 ideas

A list of 5 ideas to help your creativity

As artists, we need a clear state of mind to work properly. It's not like you can ask an artist to be creative on demand, because this usually brings bad results (maybe not bad per se, but most probably not optimal) and this may lead to the feared art block (if you are not an artist you may think art block is a joke, but to an artist, an art block is like being an adult performer and not being able to get your d*ck ready on set). Also, when I'm talking about bad results, that's when doing the creative part of the job; if you are doing stuff like cleaning lines or adding text to speech bubbles or other menial jobs that don't require much creative effort, then you are good.

And that's why in this post I'll list 5 ideas of stuff you can do when searching for that inspiration that sometimes seems to evade us. For sure there are more than 5 ideas out there, but I'll just list 5 because it's a nice number and I don't want to bore you with a non-ending wall of text. If you keep reading until the end, I'll add an extra tip that might seem obvious, but we sometimes forget to do. So without further ado, let's get rolling:

1. 1st idea: Watch a livestream

   Preferably one with a lively live chat. Watching and listening to someone do stuff while interacting with their audience can lead to reactions that may trigger that one dialogue, that one design or even that story waiting to be told. Or simply someone might say something funny enough to be captured in a T-shirt. So at least I'd recommend the stream topic to be of your interest. You can even do this while you are working on more mechanical parts of the creative process.

2. 2nd idea: Play a video game

   But don't get addicted to it, because then we're not going anywhere. This is a more interactive evolution of the first item in the list. The point is that while receiving audiovisual stimuli there might be a line of text or the appearance of a character that might open the inspiration stream. If nothing rings a bell at least you had a good time.

   

3. 3rd idea: Browse merch sites

   And I can help you with this one thanks to both my Redbubble store and my Threadless store. There are a lot of creative designs in those places and one of them is waiting for you to spark that idea in the back of your head. From funny quotes to breathtaking compositions, there's a bit of everything for everyone. And cats, it's the internet we're talking about and it's full of cats.

4. 4th idea: Meditate

   But not traditional meditation as in "do not think of anything", but more as in sit or lay and let your mind flow. I, for example, like to lay in my bed when I have some free time, I close my eyes and mentally relive moments from my day until some idea gets my focus and then start thinking about it, twisting it, and just like a rabbit hole one idea brings to another.

5. 5th idea: Go for a walk

   The key for this point is to find a place where it isn't too crowded (in people) but it isn't too deserted (in buildings). Too much people makes for a lot of noise and, at least in my personal experience, makes it difficult for me to concentrate, but if I go for a stroll in nature where there's not much to see, then it's hit or miss if I'll end the walk with some new idea or not.

   

I know that most if not all of them seem pretty obvious, but we tend to forget that a lot of the time ideas come to us when we less expect them, so the point is being receptive to new ones at any moment. As for the extra tip: take notes!

Why taking notes is so important when looking for inspiration? Because when you take notes you do so after exercising your brain, so the next time you look at what you noted on paper you'll do the same process you did when you wrote your idea down but in less time. Also, because writing an idea and reading it a few days later sometimes leads to revisiting a creative prompt that wasn't very good to make it better, or just helps you come up with more ideas related to the first one. And third reason I can think of, because having an excess of inspiration is better than having none at all.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, leave a comment if you found this article helpful or to share other ideas that you use to get inspiration that might help other people, and see you in the next Hidden Network's High Five.