The Inspiration Discipline

When I was in business school, my wife studied fashion design at FIDM in San Francisco. While I was working spreadsheets and powerpoint, she was making patterns and building "inspo boards." I had no idea what they were for.

When crafting a new collection, the designers in her company would routinely go out into the world to seek inspiration. Not only of apparel, but of color, form, and personality. They'd go to museums, parks, stores, etc, just soaking... and then they'd build boards that visually captured the things that stood out to the team, to spark fresh thinking as they undertook the process of crafting a new collection (usually 5 seasons in advance!).

I was reminded of this recently, during a class at Stanford I was fortunate to teach with the rapper, Lecrae. We had just given our students an assignment called "Analogous Exploration," which basically prompts them to look for answers to their design prompts in unexpected, and seemingly-unrelated places.

One of our analytically-minded MBA's remarked, "I've never really thought about where to get inspiration before." I turned to Lecrae and asked, “Do you have any thoughts about seeking inspiration?” To which he replied, "Yes. Inspiration is a discipline."

I was instantly reminded of my confusion over my wife's "inspo boards" all those years ago. Except now, having taught at a design school the last 11 years, and having observed countless folks ("creatives," and otherwise) seeking to create the future, I knew that creativity is more a function of input than output. And while it didn't surprise me that an artist like Lecrae had a routine around seeking inspiration, I could totally relate to the feeling of the topic coming onto our student's radar for the first time: "'inspiration?' what is that?"

The simple way I think of it is that inspiration is the deliberate pursuit of unexpected inputs to trigger fresh thinking. I'm curious: what's your discipline around inspiration? Are there other examples you draw upon?

One that struck a chord with me was Twyla Tharp's notion of "Scratching," which she details in her excellent book, "The Creative Habit."

Click here to subscribe to Paint & Pipette, the weekly digest of these daily posts.