Alternative ways to find motivation and inspiration
It’s hard to come home at the end of a normal 8 hour work day only to have to sit back down at your computer and start plugging away at more design work, or more development work like I do every day.
There’s a few things I’ve done in the past that always seem to help me find the motivation, and/or inspiration to get back to work. Most of the things I do are somewhat non-conventional in terms of what some “finding inspiration” articles tell you such as, “Go see a museum!”, or “go walk around the park!” Those suggestions never seemed to help me, and it always felt like I was wasting precious time. Here’s a few tried and tested ways that have helped me stay focused, motivated, and inspired to do more work after an already long work day:
FFFFound (or FFFound with Wordpress)
If you’re going to surf the web, try to limit your surfing to places like FFFFound, or start your own personal bookmarking service with Wordpress like I did. It doesn’t take long to go through literally hundreds of all sorts of different pieces of illustration, photography, and graphic design pieces that you surely can find some sort of idea, or at the very least some really weird shit that might spark an idea.
A Collection of Good Quotes
I made a post of my most favorite inspirational quotes that I refer to quite often while I’m in the middle of designing t-shirts. It helps ground you and at times can give you a new theme for a design idea. Clipping them with Evernote, or just pasting them into your Facebook profile is what I like to do.
Graphic Novels
Believe it or not I have found graphic novels to be a great source of inspiration for my design work, as well as some of my writings here on the blog and on twitter. Some of my favorites:
- V for Vendetta
- The Killing Joke
- The Watchmen
The illustrations are fantastic, and sometimes the symbolism, themes, and characters are the most interesting part of the novel more so than even the artwork.
Watch Academy Award Speeches
Besides Memorial Day when Saving Private Ryan is on TV unedited, the only other time I tear up in front of the TV is when I watch the Academy Awards. Maybe it’s because I was a film student and ultimately wanted to be a big time Hollywood Director, or maybe it’s because you actually get to see people achieving their ultimate childhood dreams right in front of your eyes. Besides Intervention, you’ll never see a more honest dose of, “reality television.”
Put a shitty Action Movie On in the Background
This may sound counter intuitive to helping get yourself motivated, or inspired, but I’ve found that when I put on old action movies that I’ve seen plenty of times, like Underworld, Doomsday, or Death Race, that it’s actually easy for me to ignore them, and focus on what I’m working on. Plus there’s no temptation to actually sit there and watch what ever may be on. Trying to watch something like Heroes or Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles always has me whipping my head around to see what’s going to happen next. Not so good if you are supposed to be working.
This is going to sound weird… but try trance music
You don’t have to listen to any specific kind of trance music, and I’m an expert on the subject by any means… For some reason, though, I am able to blast through design work and programming. Much like the shitty action movie, it focuses your mind on the task at hand, and doesn’t allow you to become distracted by what you’re listening to.
I can’t think of any time I was ever compelled to sing along to trance music like I do when my iTunes shuffles to “Fat Bottom Girls,” by Queen, or “Beat It,” by Michael Jackson. Best part about trance music is that you can find it for free in the Radio section of iTunes. Some of my personal favorite free, streaming stations are Vocal Trance, and House music from DI.fm.
Honorable Mentions: Turn off AIM, Turn off Twitter, drink Red Bull.
Have any of your own little ways to get motivated? How about posting them in the comments!
Like this post? Bookmark it!
Email to a friend
Your message has been sent!
Please enter a valid email.
Your email failed. Try again later.
Related Posts
Most Popular
About the Author
Tim is the co-owner of Assault, and is responsible for the creative direction of both Assault Shirts as well as AssaultBLOG. Follow him on twitter @assault Email this Author | All posts by tim
+1 to electronic music – trance especially. It occupies the distractable parts of my brain, without calling my attention the way other music does.
I LOVE pandora for the trance music. Make a station for “mark Farina” to get smooth jazzy house beats, and “diesel boy” for some bangin jungle and DNB… The fact that are very little lyrics, or repeated lyrics allows you to tune out the outside world but not get caught up “singing along”"…
I also recommend getting a subscription to “commarts” magazine. It’s got a lot of great articles and there are some great photos to gain inspiration from. Also, as a paid subscriber you gain accss to premium content on their site allowing you to browse through all of their past annuals.
Hope these help!!!
[...] Alternative ways to find design inspiraiton [...]
I agree with what you said about trance music – I’m a fan of drum & bass myself. That continuous beat is enough to make me bounce, but not enough to distract me. Really helps if I have to do something monotonous (like lineart for a million sketches!).