Ignore Everybody: Reflections on living a creative life, via No Depression blogs.
posted by Miko on Oct 23, 2009 - 44 comments

Striking Billboard Ads. [more inside]
posted by mippy on Aug 25, 2009 - 72 comments

A year before his passing at the age of 102, LSD discoverer Albert Hofmann pens a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs (who had remarked publicly about his own use of the hallucinogenic as a creative factor) asking for Jobs' support for further research into the use of LSD in psychotherapy. In the remainder of the article, Ryan Grim touches briefly on the use of LSD by scientists and computer programmers who have transformed the world through novel discoveries and inventions.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jul 9, 2009 - 64 comments

The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. They travel the globe gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Jun 18, 2009 - 9 comments

There are times when having a fully developed brain can almost seem like an impediment. Are babies more aware of the world around them than adults are? Can "thinking like a baby" lead us to be more in tune with our creativity and our ability to learn? Scientists have taken a new look inside the baby mind, which is "unfocused, random, and extremely good at what it does."
posted by amyms on May 1, 2009 - 38 comments

"The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination was established to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process." To this end they hold regular roundtable discussions, streaming videos of which are available online. Some past highlights include: [more inside]
posted by jrb223 on Feb 22, 2009 - 6 comments

Not all of us need, or want, $10,000 worth of Adobe and Microsoft software to be creative. So, here's some alternatives, each available on every major platform:

GIMP, for all your drawing and photo-editing needs. (Windows and OSX.)
Inkscape, for vector graphics creation.
Scribus, for incredibly powerful document creation.
FontForge, if you want to make your own fonts.
OpenOffice, the old standby for word processing, spreadsheets, and all those other office needs. [more inside]
posted by cthuljew on Feb 20, 2009 - 189 comments

How We Kill Geniuses. "[Elizabeth Gilbert recalls] a story that musician Tom Waits told her years ago. One day he was driving on a Los Angeles freeway when a fragment of a melody popped into his head. He looked around for something to capture the tune -- a pencil or pen -- but had nothing to record it. He started to panic that he'd lose the melody and be haunted by it forever and his talent would be gone. In the midst of this anxiety attack, he suddenly stopped, looked at the sky, and said to whatever force it was that was trying to create itself through the melody, 'Excuse me. Can you not see I'm driving? Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment ... otherwise go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen.'" Gilbert explores the idea that we might stifle genius by demanding that creative people be somehow larger than life and something more than human.
posted by sarabeth on Feb 6, 2009 - 175 comments

"What are the new liberal arts?", asks SnarkMarket, inspired by Jason Kottke's tagline and Edge. The blog post has turned into a pitch for a new collaborative book, with spirited discussions and over 100 suggestions including photography, design, relationships, mythology, intuitive thinking, synthesis, knowledge mastery, search, archiving, play, and home economics.
posted by divabat on Feb 4, 2009 - 44 comments

"The arts are more dangerous [than other professions] because they require sensitivity to a large extent ... If you go too far you can pay a price -- you can be too sensitive to live in this world." Pondering the link between creativity and depression. [more inside]
posted by jbickers on Oct 8, 2008 - 90 comments

Behind Pixar’s string of hit movies, says the studio’s president, is a peer-driven process for solving problems. How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity (alternate print link for those having trouble with the first link), by the co-founder of Pixar and the president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios Ed Catmull. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Sep 1, 2008 - 24 comments

How to Write With Style.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 13, 2008 - 36 comments

Come, take a ride and look at some of the Islamic Art of the past. Or, you could call it Art of the Islamic World if you're so inclined. If not, then how about taking into account some of the major milestones of Islam throughout the centuries, from past till present (more examples here), including the art of Calligraphy and Architecture. Not to mention the Arab world's contribution to music, both old and new. [Previously mentioned, here, here, here, and here, with a wonderful comment from nickyskye as usual]
posted by hadjiboy on May 29, 2008 - 28 comments

Teams of student entrepreneurs around the world had six days to add value to a stack of Post-It notes as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The results are documented in Imagine It!, which aims to promote creative thinking. [more inside]
posted by divabat on May 7, 2008 - 20 comments

Oxford Muse - "a foundation to stimulate courage and invention in personal, professional and cultural life". Browse the self-potraits (autobiographies), participate in projects, go universal, or just learn what the Muse is.
posted by divabat on May 6, 2008 - 5 comments

Generative Creativity is a course offered by the University of Sussex through their Informatics department. The lecture series discusses tools and techniques for generating graphics, music, jokes and riddles, and more.
posted by weston on Apr 7, 2008 - 7 comments

"What is the sound of color? We asked that question of 5 musicians. We assigned each musician a different color. They wrote 5 tracks. We gave the colors and tracks that inspired them to 5 directors." The Sound of Color contains the songs and videos that were created. The site and free downloads are only available through March 15. (Via Carolina Vigna-Marú) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Feb 18, 2008 - 23 comments

CASH is the Coalition of Artists & Stake Holders, a project conceived and initiated by musician Kristin Hersh. CASH is "read-write" — more than consumption; a collaborative online effort — helping make music ownership more of an interactive affair facilitated through Creative Commons licensing.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jan 5, 2008 - 9 comments

Bar Code Revolution! With more than just lines and rectangles, Japanese company Design Barcode works around the basic elements of a barcode and infuses real, functional barcodes with creative designs and silhouettes. See barcodes as tomatoes, stomachs, rain, pianos, guns, train tracks, waterfalls, cliffsides, and yes, even combovers.
posted by Lush on Aug 15, 2007 - 46 comments

Now Then is an exhibit of 25 comic artists showing a comparison of their drawing style now and when they were just kids. Also, check out 50 artists riffing on the theme of Duck! Fun stuff from the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art.
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 6, 2007 - 7 comments

The Harveyville Project, located in Harveyville, Kansas, is a small town and getting smaller: There are only about 250 residents, and most are elderly. But after an artist bought an abandoned school to live in two years ago, there are some colorful new faces in town.

Conveniently located at the corner of No and Where. Nary a McDonalds nor Starbucks as far as the eye can see, but still a comfy drive from civilization. Housed in two mid-century school buildings on nine acres on the edge of a tiny rural town, the Harveyville Project offers a quiet, secluded, distraction-free environment to jumpstart your creative work.

Such a cool idea. If I was still single I'd move there in a second to soak up the creative vibe.
posted by Hugh2d2 on Jun 5, 2007 - 71 comments

Interview with Ze Frank on creativity Ze Frank discusses some techniques he learned himself to harness his creativity. Apart from his quite creative daily online video, which is now defunct, he's apparently also an adjunct professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Parsons School of Design, and SUNY Purchase.
posted by jouke on May 22, 2007 - 19 comments

INTERVOICE (International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices) "offers information, publications, research, and good practice on hearing voices and other key issues." Voice hearing is surprisingly common, even normal. Many people find it a pleasurable and positive experience. Find everything from stencil graffiti to a recent New York Times magazine article on the work of the Hearing Voices Movement. (w i k i s)
posted by srs on Mar 29, 2007 - 20 comments

Ohio Valley Creative Energy Ohio Valley Creative Energy was founded to provide a heat intensive multi-arts facility for glass, clay, and metal artists that will be powered by methane, AKA landfill gas.
posted by pt68 on Mar 22, 2007 - 3 comments

Esquire sends out 250 napkins to writers across America - from prolific novelists to those finishing off first works. Nearly a hundred respond back - from sex to frustration, poetry to twisted liaisons, even a mini book and plans for murder.
posted by divabat on Feb 27, 2007 - 22 comments

Sandeep Makam is an advertising copywriter who lives in India - his Blog is called twenty-four, and it's devoted to displaying the most interesting global print advertising he runs across. A couple of my favorites so far include this Red Cross spot for the ongoing victims of Chernobyl (click on the images to get the full size), and this great bit of typographic fun. More favorites listed inside. Similar, previously.
posted by jonson on Dec 31, 2006 - 8 comments

TM without the ™. When he's not directing one of the best movies of the year or sitting on intersections with cows, David Lynch is a vocal advocate of Transcendental Meditation. In his new book Catching the Big Fish, he talks about the Box and the Key, meeting Fellini, the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit, why he doesn't do DVD commentaries--and TM, which he calls "the experience that does everything." If you're intrigued by TM but sketched out by the organization and the $2,500 fee, perhaps you'd like to know that there is a cheap, downloadable alternative.
posted by muckster on Dec 3, 2006 - 35 comments

Did you know that some of the most famous paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Degas, and Toulouse Lautrec were based on photographs? While some impressionists and post-impressionists publicly disparaged photography as mechanical, many others were using it as their secret weapon. The relationship between the two arts was complex and intertwined. (And turning the tables, check out this contemporary Russian woman who is recreating several famous paintings in staged photographs.)
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 12, 2006 - 27 comments

Minotauromaquia - a stop motion animated short set to Stravinsky's in which Picasso confronts the minotaur and some other painted characters come to life. The image of the Minotaur is a recurring symbol of self in Picasso's works. (main link via Milinkito [more])
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 5, 2006 - 12 comments

Have you ever run into Trotskyites before? You know, those dour, uptight dudes handing out free papers at demonstrations? They can spout some pretty colorful rhetoric but apart from that, most of them lead dull, constricted lives devoted to Party meetings and getting out the Party newspaper. Juan Posadas was the exception to this rule. Señor Posadas was a high-octane Trotskyite superfreak who advocated a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA in order to hasten the proletarian revolution. He looked to the skies and saw UFOs as evidence of the triumph of communism on other planets. Fidel Castro banned the Cuban section of his movement for trying to organize an attack on the U.S. base at Guantanamo. They don’t make ‘em like Posadas anymore. That’s for sure. (If you’re curious, there’s an archive of his works stored here. And some people are still keeping the faith.)
posted by jason's_planet on Sep 24, 2006 - 50 comments

Inspired by a convention in 1999, First Day covers, and his grandfather's autograph collection, Jeremy Adolphson sends off 4x6 index cards to various artists with return postage, hoping for a doodle. 5 years on, he has sixty-five galleries (some NSFW) worth of art to share.
posted by divabat on Aug 29, 2006 - 9 comments

Never wanna work/Always wanna play/Pleasure, pleasure every day. What happens when the jobs go away and don't return? Should we take the surpluses generated and pay people not to work? What happens to the assumption of scarcity when nanotechology allows us to generate potentially anything we want from grass clippings? Maybe Marx had it wrong all along. Maybe, instead of fetishizing work and the authoritarian mindset that it generates, we should have been reading Paul Lafargue instead. Just as a thought experiment, what would you do if your job category disappeared? How would you spend your time? Would you invest more time and energy in friendships and other relationships? Hobbies? If you were your employer, what technologies would you use to get rid of your position and save money?
posted by jason's_planet on Jun 25, 2006 - 43 comments

Kindertotenlieder. In 1833-34, Frederich Rückert wrote 425 poems after two of his children died within 16 days of each other; seven decades later, Mahler set five of them to music. Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, has been recorded by both male and female singers, in both orchestral and piano-vocal arrangements. The song cycle is a powerful meditation on grief and loss, which is somewhat surprising since we think of the 18th, 19th, and even early 20th centuries as being a time when people -- especially young children -- lived closer to death and had a different relationship with grief than we do today. Mahler, who was one of 14 children, eight of whom died in infancy and one of whom died at 12, had much personal experience to bring to the Kindertotenlieder; indeed, just three years after the song cycle's completion, his own daughter died of scarlet fever. But some musicians dismiss the idea that the music is premonitory, or indicative of Mahler's personal tragedy, and posit instead that Mahler's intent was not to showcase his own grief but capture the intensity of Rückert's first-person text. Modern works on the topic of Kindertoten range from mixed media and text to dance to film, and even to modern stage works. And there is, of course, music -- the most famous contemporary work in this tradition might just be the Grammy-award winning song inspired by real-life tragedy, Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven.
posted by mothershock on Apr 3, 2006 - 23 comments

There are an infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what you work on, you're not working on everything else. So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well. (via slashdot)
posted by Chuckles on Dec 25, 2005 - 24 comments

Bad Design Kills The world is steeped in bad design. As designers we see something every day that makes us cringe or shake our head in disgust. But bad design does more than offend the eye of the designer. It facilitates a poor public perception for what our industry does and at the same time it lowers the perceived value of our services.
posted by ColdChef on Oct 25, 2005 - 65 comments

Mirecle33 (mir-i-kel) Creativity Patch: What Creatives Crave "It's totally here. Our progressive times allow you to sport a patch on your body to maintain your hormone levels, curb your appetite(s), and cover your boo-boos. Now, thanks to Dunmire Labs, there's no good reason you can't have a slow, steady stream of creativity delivered into your system through the Mirecle33 Creativity Patch. Try the Mirecle33 Creativity Patch today and see how much it 'miraculously' improves your creative output!"
posted by azul on May 10, 2005 - 5 comments

There is no spoon.
posted by Wet Spot on Oct 4, 2004 - 10 comments

D.Film Moviemaker --a cute little toy (just pretend it's Friday, ok? flash, i think.)
posted by amberglow on Aug 23, 2004 - 6 comments

How to be creative. Hugh "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" Macleod gives some excellent advice on how to do those creative things you've always wanted to do. vis boingboing.net
posted by skallas on Aug 1, 2004 - 16 comments

What is the modus operandi of creativity? According to two cognitive scientists, Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, the subconscious operation of conceptual blending. The formal theory, known as the Network Model of Conceptual Integration (CI), seeks to explain how creative insights are derived from pre-existing knowledge and understanding.
[More Inside]
posted by Gyan on May 13, 2004 - 10 comments

online creativity self-assessment test
The questionnaire contains only 40 questions
Your personal score will be compared with the global average score
The test takes no longer than 10 minutes of your time
Do you feel ingenuous? Well, do ya, punk??
Macromedia Flash player is required to take the scan.
posted by y2karl on Apr 27, 2004 - 81 comments

Art & Psychosis Some have suggested that there is a link between creativity and mental illness (MI), and others equivocate a little. One way or another, whether called Outsider, Transgressive or... (?) art is art and it seems the art from this community has greater potential (IMO) from an emotional standpoint then the majority that comes out of art school. One last link
posted by edgeways on Apr 14, 2004 - 12 comments

"An inspirational list of creativity and innovation resources" Linky, Brainy goodness, yum.
posted by sgt.serenity on Mar 11, 2004 - 10 comments

Software innovation is dead. I have to agree that there hasn't been anything truly exciting coming out of the software community as of late, at least anything that is going to change the way we do things like e-mail and P2P did.
posted by archimago on Feb 9, 2004 - 34 comments

Creative Class War: How the GOP's anti-elitism could ruin America's economy. This is an interesting and troubling article by Richard Florida on the possible flight of the American "Creative Class." [Via WorldChanging.]
posted by homunculus on Jan 14, 2004 - 69 comments

Nobel Prize Winners Hate School. Not that it takes a genius to figure out that 'school is a lot like prison but worse' (George Bernard Shaw) or that it "smothers every truly scientific impulse" (Einstein)....
posted by limitedpie on Jan 14, 2004 - 49 comments

Make Your Own Movie. Actually, what I think I love best about this is the stereotypically hipster-esque cast of character options. Ahh, cartoon hipsters!
posted by sodalinda on Jul 29, 2003 - 12 comments

SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMONDS "Treating Mentally Ill Musicians Without Removing Their Muse."
posted by konolia on Jun 3, 2003 - 28 comments

Songs Inspired by Literature. (found via quix's livejournal) A project to document songs inspired by a wide variety of literature, both modern and classic. Some were obvious or I already knew about (Iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, for one), but others were quite interesting.
posted by rich on Feb 11, 2003 - 36 comments

Collective Memory. A collection of sites which are creating collective memory on the web. A personal favourite is TimeSlips, a storytelling project with people with Alzheimer's.
posted by plep on Nov 15, 2002 - 5 comments