You’ve probably come to a point during the year (especially when deadlines are looming over you) where you can’t squeeze any of that creative juice that you once had at the beginning of the year. Some people call it being unmotivated, although slowly coming to the realisation that being motivated or not sometimes has little to do with the problem at hand.
You want to get things done - you want to because the fear of not ‘finishing’ on some high makes all the work you’ve done so far almost non-existent.
I get that - it isn’t fun at all. Your ideas aren’t making sense to you and you are losing interest in your own projects. They aren’t exciting anymore and you can’t seem to pinpoint why that is happening. And the added pressure of a deadline - whether it is a fixed one for school submissions or simply one of your own doesn’t make things any better.
This lovely phenomenon is commonly known as a creative rut.
And if it makes you feel any better, it happens to all of us. It is simply the peak and troughs of being a designer - you aren’t any less of a person because of it.
Here are three ways that have helped me get out of a creative rut – because it shouldn’t stop you executing your ideas no matter how big or small they are.
1/ Stop working – yes you heard right
You’ve been working for too long – you are not rested, most likely running on very little if any, sleep and food. Ever had your computer or laptop shut down when there are too many applications open and begins to overheat? Well, that is what is happening to you. You need to rest your mind – take a break, save your current work and do something that has nothing to do with your project. Take a nap, eat some food or whatever passive task you enjoy doing to relax. Working for long stretches of time isn’t doing you any good. You can only run on so much stress before you completely shut down in all aspects of your life.
It will look different for everyone, you might simply need a 10-minute break, half a day off or maybe even a whole day off. That may seem counterproductive but you need to recharge so you can come back to your work in a better headspace. You are driving on an empty tank - don’t underestimate how much mental energy you use when you are being creative, it is a lot more than you realise.
2/ Get your sketchbook and start drawing
Wait what? But I need to be drawing up this plan on AutoCAD, why do I need to draw this out? Well you see sometimes you lose sight of the little things when you get lost in the mouse clicking of drawing on a computer or laptop. Is there something you are trying to figure out and it just isn’t coming out the way you want when you draw it on the computer? Take a pencil or pencil and begin drawing out what is inside your head. Nothing you draw has to be perfect, throw that idea out of your head, have no expectation just draw it out. You might spend a long time doing this – don’t rush this process at all. You are giving yourself space to think in a visual language that makes sense to you. It won’t look pretty and the more it makes sense to you – the more clear you’ll be with what your ideas are trying to tell you. Many times I’ve done this on my commute to uni for a tutorial. Making a rough sketch of this existing plan, it didn’t have to be to scale just enough of a shape that was an outline I could repeatedly use whilst I figured out the smaller details of my own ideas and the possible outcomes.
And if you are working with an existing context and have a roll of detail paper trace over the necessary parts and begin drafting. Go wild and don’t hold back. The beginning is messy but it will get clear the more you do this. You might come out with a dozen drawings. You might come out with just a few that are simply all over the place, but that doesn’t matter – this is the figuring out part.
Sometimes what stops you is the expectations that you have of what something should look like. This happens a lot of the time but you shouldn’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. It might be that your project seems too small and you are finding excuses to be comfortable with the idea that it shouldn’t be as big as other proposals because then that means… blah blah blah all the excuses that you give yourself. Let it go, all of it. You want a bigger proposal – then make it bigger. There is always a solution, nothing is guesswork. There will be friction but work through it by drafting your ideas over and over again till you can figure out what this idea you have will look like, for you.
This is a big one for me, so whenever I encounter this ‘everything isn’t working and my ideas are rubbish’ I have to pick up a pen/pencil and draw it out – everything that is going on in my head. What is even better is that it makes it easier for you to communicate with others the more you do it. Your process will look different because it is your narrative. This is where you start to recognise the bare bones of what it is your proposal is all about. Stripping away to find the idea that works for you will be so much more powerful. This is the process work that has given me the confidence to work things out with others and myself because I’m quite literally visually trying to make sense of it all. Your ideas aren’t straight forward but once you figure out the core of what your focus is it becomes easier (not easy) to explore them so much more intentionally. One thing which will help you is to find a few words, keywords if you will that best describes your idea that will give you so much clarity, and help you get help from others in mapping out what you need to do.
3/ Look at examples – but don’t compare yourself to them
Now that you have a little more clarity – you might not know what drawing or visual you’ll need to be making. You certainly aren’t the first who has made a three-dimensional model explode or a photorealistic illustration, which is a good thing because there are so many ways to go about doing things of this complexity. Even if it isn’t a complex idea, having keywords will help you identify what kind of drawing you’ll need to do and more so how to go about doing. There is so much that has already been done (thank goodness for that) and so many architects on various platforms that show you how to do them. Don’t let this be the opportunity for you to compare yourself, you just need to know how it has been done before and then the rest is up to your interpretation. There is no right or wrong way of doing any drawing – just one that is clear to understand. Now more than ever you have access to so many resources to help you out, don’t let it be the source of distraction but rather an encouragement that so much is possible as long as you want to learn.
When I finally jumped onto Instagram, the possibility of what great design looked like, what medium it was and could be conveyed with became endless but most importantly possible. Suddenly you aren’t limited by what your ideas will look like anymore, but the opportunity for you to find a visual language and style that resonates with you becomes a little bit easier. We are always in search of examples of how an idea can be produced, ideas don’t just magically appear out of thin air. They emerge when you’ve seen what has been done before and your interpretation is what will make it your own. This is very different from copying but like all things, there is a blueprint that you have to use for your ideas to work altogether.
Thank you for getting this far! It has been quite the journey I think for us all.
As someone prone to these creative ruts (as we all are regardless of what creative industry we are in) I hope you found this insightful because it is all too easy to give up and quit, but when we do care it is important to be able to pick ourselves back up. Remember where there is a will there’s a way, always.
Hope you are staying safe and taking care of yourself, in all the necessary measures that you can wherever you are in the world