Do You Want To Be Creative? Turn Off The Electronics. Get Outside.

This is part of the advice I give my students. The basic idea is to stop your habitual behaviors and break out into something new. Want to compose original music? Listen to the wind. Or a babbling brook. Or a car crash. At a lecture in London, designer, illustrator, writer, film-maker and teacher Bob Gill gave the same advice on how to get a great idea. Get off YouTube and get out into the world.

"When you get a job – say an ad for a drycleaner – many images come to mind, we all have preconceptions," Gill said. "My suggestion is to forget every image that comes to mind, forget everything you know about drycleaning. Instead of sitting at your computer, and looking at books, go to a drycleaner, and sit there. The way to get an interesting idea is to go to the source. Stay there until you have thought of something interesting about drycleaning. Then, listen to that idea and it will design itself."