Creative Bulletin n.308
I’m working on the cover of my new creativity manual. I took a page from The Creative Ambush and drew over it. I’m not totally satisfied yet, but I can feel that I’m getting closer.
Creative dissatisfaction. Over the past week I’ve been focused on the book cover, and on the graphics for BriteBox, a workshop product that will be launching soon.
I would have liked to do other things too, but I just couldn’t 😅 I was completely consumed by it. I woke up with an idea and rushed to the studio, tore pieces of cardboard and moved them around, chased a feeling I’d had but couldn’t recreate, and then realized that maybe I’d gone too far, that the right solution was a few steps back, two turns earlier.
It’s beautiful and tormenting. One moment I was on fire, thinking yes, yes, this is it. The next moment I stopped, discouraged, looked at what I’d made with disgust, and asked myself, “Will I manage it this time?” And so it was dissatisfaction itself, burning and unbearable, that made me start again.
🌈 Creative takeaway: working humbly
You don’t figure it out in five minutes. I mean, sometimes it happens, the miracle does occur, but it’s really rare. Most of the time you just have to stay there and keep trying, again and again, accepting that no matter how much experience you have and how many great things you’ve done before, it always feels like starting from scratch.
I must have done hundreds of attempts. With colors, with fonts, with marks drawn by hand and digitally. I felt exhausted and incompetent. I threw everything away and started over, and I even pulled some things back out of the trash because I realized they weren’t that bad after all 😅
What helped me most was accepting that it would take a lot of work, meaning all the time it needed, and then sitting down and doing it with humility.
With ❤️,
Matteo
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