Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain [Paperback]

Stefan Mumaw (Author), Wendy Lee Oldfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2006

What do you do if you are lagging in the morning?

You probably grab a cup of coffee for that extra boost of energy. Throughout the day, you are asked to be creative, to come up with new and better ideas. So what do you do when you need a creative jolt for your brain? Now you can turn to Caffeine for the Creative Mind.

This collection of short, focused creative exercises is just the boost you need get your brain working. Inside, you'll find:

• Over 250 brain-stretching exercises. The exercises are brief, fun and are meant to evoke creative, thought-provoking responses. Get your brain moving by engaging in an exercise at the start of your day or stop and do one whenever you need a creative jolt.
• "I Tried It" testimonials. From illustrators to photographers to professors, real people give feedback on specific exercises they've tried. They also offer more suggestions for how the exercises can be used, changed or reworked to become even more useful.
• Interviews with prominent creative people. See how the people who are in charge of building and maintaining creative environments—studio heads, designers, shop owners, illustrators and animators—view the importance of creativity in their everyday lives.

The only thing keeping you from reaching a new level of creative thought is inaction. With this stimulating book, you'll learn how to focus your creative attention in short, definable ways. Caffeine for the Creative Mind is your springboard for coming up with solutions that challenge you to alter your perspective—and begin generating ideas at the highest possible level!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stefan Mumaw a Creative Director and Partner for the advertising agency The Brainyard and is the author of Simple Websites and Redesigning Websites.

Wendy Lee Oldfield works at an advertising agency.

Product Details

• Paperback: 359 pages
• Publisher: HOW Books (October 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581808674
• ISBN-13: 978-1581808674
• Product Dimensions: 4.5 x 1.1 x 6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #77 in Books > Arts & Photography > Graphic Design > Techniques

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Creative, but lacking in substance April 7, 2008

By A. Redman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book read more like a long marketing piece about how awesome the book is. Littered with quotes from people who obviously found previous editions useful, it just gets in the way of what I think it was built to do - excite and energise creative thought.

Some exersices are useful, some are good fun, but a lot are rather plain and boring. If you have no imagination at all, this book may be a useful kick-start to any brain storming or creative session. I would suggest that it might be useful for school teachers too - as some of the ideas leverage a lot of imagination which kids would be great at.

On the good side, the typographic treatment of the content is exciting and inspiring, each page has something new to look at and read, if nothing else it's a nice example of how unconventinal type treatment can enhance an otherwise bland book.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Geared toward designers, but great for ANY creative mind! April 22, 2007

By Jill M. Paulson

Format:Paperback

It is certainly what it says! I started tabbing all the exercises that I especially wanted to try right away. Well, let's just say the book looks like it's growing some very colorful hair with all tabs sticking out of it! A lot of them that struck me initially seemed to be photography challenges, but I guess that makes sense since that is one of the things I'm really hoping to improve on this year.

It addition to the exercises, they also have numerous short interviews with some leading designers across a spectrum of website, logo, promotions, illustration, animation, etc. In these, I found numerous ideas and concepts to ponder, some of which I will be sharing with you here in the coming weeks.

Although this book is certainly not specifically geared towards scrapbookers, I think any serious 'creative' would find great value in this book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Copywriters and the Designers are Happy June 14, 2007

By Heather Grimstead

Format:Paperback

Some of the creative exercise books out there are kind of....well, lame. This one isn't. It's got its share of silliness, but the exercises in this book really get the right-brain working. For most, you don't need anything more than pen, paper, and imagination. A handful of the exercises call for items that you can find around the house or office.

Although they aren't necessarily designed with a team in mind, it's easy to adapt the exercises for a group. Plus, the range of exercises makes the copywriters and the designers happy. My group, a corporate creative team, frequently pulls from this book for our weekly creative stretch. Everyone usually has a good laugh at the end results.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Caffeine for the creative mind March 4, 2010

By Hideki Matsuura Aguilar

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain

Well, as a graphic designer, this one good book to have in your arsenal. It is NOT, an inspirational picture book or a how to book. It's more about exercising your creativity, one exercise per day, so that the next time you're confronted with a problem you'll have less trouble coming up with a solution or solutions. The layout in itself is beatiful and fun; a very pleasant reading. If your a graphic designer looking to stretch and exercise your creativity this an excellent way to start, and with 250 fun-packed exercises it'll be a blast.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for Graphic Design May 8, 2008

By R. M. Estrada

Format:Paperback

After reading the reviews and product description, I was looking forward to some fresh activities that would inspire some creativity for Graphic Design projects that I work on constantly. So when the book arrived I flipped through scanning activities and quotes to get a feel for the book and what it had to offer. I was surprised. To my disappointment this book almost had nothing to do with Graphic Design. It was filled with activities that lent themselves more to Elementary school creative activities -Build something out of "_", describe your favorite "_" without using the words like or as. The book design itself even became tough to read as well with various typefaces, multiple type sizes scattered through the pages. In conclusion not what I was looking for.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars If You're Not a Graphic Designer, This book is not for you August 28, 2008

By A. Osborne

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm a hobbyist and thought this book would be good to help me out of my creative rut sometimes. Most of the exercises applied to people working in a creative field, not those that are creative in their spare time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative Fuel August 17, 2009

By Klaas Van de Moortel

Format:Paperback

It's a nice book to browse when you're feeling like doing something, but you don't really want to start anything. Grab the book, flip to a random page and do the exercise!
Some exercises are similar to others but since you won't be doing these on a daily basis, you probably won't notice anyway. Fun and entertaining, though you might as well come up with a lot of these ideas yourself. Also, this book tends to be more inspiring for graphic artists than other creative minds (like for instance musicians).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Ideas to keep a team excited March 19, 2009

By Mary W

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I manage a small group of creative designers. We take turns picking out an exercise on a monthly basis, and at our meeting share what we came up with. It's a great way to relieve stress and makes everyone loosen up and have a little fun. I recommend this even if you work by yourself, as long as you have self-discipline to follow through.