According to Cambridge Dictionary, to create is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. However, the dictionary will never tell you how exactly to develop this ability and come up with one-of-a-kind ideas. Do they appear out of nowhere? Or do you search for them in a specific place? Is it better to keep busy so the inspiration hits you with all its forces or on the contrary, is it more advisable to stay idle and empty minded?

1605 Publishers has prepared for you some unique tips which can help everyone in a creative industry, but also, in a not creative industry. Because the ability to think differently and generate out-of-the box ideas isn't only for artists. It is for everyone.

Get Moving

The article Why Walking Helps Us Think in New Yorker written by Ferris Jabr says that walking, running, dancing or generally moving your body changes the chemistry in our brain. "When we go for a walk, the heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen not just to the muscles but to all the organs—including the brain."- writes Jabr. And what happens if the brain is functioning well? Correct! It generates ideas! Therefore, there is a proven scientific link between moving and being creative. You can start your walk already today.

Photograph by Peter Lindbergh

Get Messy

Many famous artists were so focused on their artistic practice that they didn't see the clutter. And the clutter doesn't necessarily have to carry a negative connotation. Sometimes one needs a tiny bit of creative chaos in order to start creating. So, maybe, take Irving Penn's example and let your dirty dishes sit. Because they actually might inspire you!

Photograph by Irving Penn

Engage in drawing

Not a bad advice at all! Doesn't matter what or who you draw, just start scribbling lines and shapes on a piece of paper. Some of us do this involuntarily while on the phone and listening to someone. On the contrary, as many would think, this is not a sign of distraction, but deep concentration.

Painting by Pedro Coelho

Think outside the box

There are so many ways to express yourself: with photography, painting or writing. Despite the classic idea that you should focus on only one medium, you can actually combine all three in one and create a collage. The famous Spanish contemporary artist Carmen Calvo Saenz de Tejada has a Degree in Advertising, however this didn't prevent her from creating collages on murals with fragments of pottery and clay. The experience of having Degree in Advertising didn't distract her from her artistic path, but, on the contrary, helped her to deepen her practice by thinking in a non-standard way. 

Work by Carmen Calvo Saenz de Tejada

Allow yourself to be playful

These beautiful, light and playful portrait of an American-Italian photographer Tina Modotti, the lover of another great talent, Edward Weston. Weston took this portrait, like many others of his beloved Tina. He would often catch her movements, or randomly photograph her shadow. However, sometimes, the couple would also engage in a more staged shoot with directed by the photographer poses. The result is beyond creative and full of deep, immovable energy.

Photograph by Edward Weston

Choose a different angle

The Swiss-American photographer Florence Henri experimented with photomontage, multiple exposures, photograms, and negative printing in her work, consistently constructing images that undermine the camera’s capacity for realism to create multifaceted, artificial, imagined spaces. Henri would work with mirrors, looking for a different angle of her subject. Between 1928 and the late 1930s, she produced the work for which she is best known, including her mirror compositions, participating in the Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart in 1929. She opened a successful studio in Paris and took on advertising projects to supplement her income, continuing to feature mirrors and utilise photographic techniques promoted at the Bauhaus in her professional work.

Photograph by Florence Henri

Embrace the freedom

The freedom of movement, thought or composition. Do not stick to any rules. Be free, as you have just started your journey. Stay still, be idle, get bored, make mistakes. Go and photograph dancers, print your files, re-photograph them again. Go for a run, get up early. Portray someone famous and then go, and make a portrait of your neighbour. Do anything that you think you'd never do. Set yourself free as this opens the door for inspiration to fly in. 

Photograph by Phil Stern