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Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for print and new media designers
 
 
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Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for print and new media designers [Paperback]

Curt Cloninger (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)


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Book Description

0321350243 978-0321350244 October 13, 2006
Design philosophies can be useful, but inspiration, creative strategies, and efficient work habits are what really get the job done. Designer, instructor, and author Curt Cloninger provides a multitude of strategies, tools, and practices that readers can use to inject a big dose of creativity into just about any design project. With illustrations drawn from 20th-century French philosophy, medieval manuscripts, punkrock posters, and more, Curt’s innovative text introduces readers to his personal toolkit for hot-wiring the creative process. You’ll learn strategies to:

• Recognize and believe in your creative powers
• Develop effective methods for evaluating your own work
• Draw inspiration from the past
• Use standard software in experimental ways, and find nonstandard applications to create new effects
• Maintain a personal design playground
• Mine your subconscious with the Oblique Strategies Cards, developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt
• Un-stick your imagination by “blitz-designing” mock-ups

Curt Cloninger is an artist, designer, author, and instructor in Multimedia Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His book Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Eye Candy from the Underground (New Riders, 2002) is an industry standard on creative Web design solutions. Curt’s art and design work has been featured in I.D. Magazine, HOW Magazine, The New York Times, Desktop Magazine, and at digital arts festivals from Korea to Brazil. He regularly speaks at international events such as HOW Design, South by Southwest, Web Design World, and FILE. His pirate signal broadcasts from lab404.com to facilitate lively dialog.


Editorial Reviews

Review

"Design process is an elusive beast. Cloninger has tamed it, and has it doing tricks in his living room."
Casey Reas, Associate Professor, UCLA Design MediaArts,
Co-founder of Processing.org

"When your sketchbookis empty and your imagination has run dry, Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process will help get your mojo unstuck and your creative juices flowing.
Jeffrey Zeldman, Author,
Designing With Web Standards, Second Edition

About the Author

Curt Cloninger is a writer, teacher, artist, and designer. He is the  author of Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process (2006) and Fresh Styles for Web Designers (2001). His work has been featured in The New York Times and I.D. Magazine, on ABC World News, and at exhibitions from Korea to Brazil. Curt frequently speaks at international art and design conferences, and is a Lecturer of Multimedia Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His sites are lab404.com, playdamage.org, and deepyoung.org.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 264 pages
  • Publisher: New Riders Press (October 13, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0321350243
  • ISBN-13: 978-0321350244
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #437,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful ideas for increasing your creativity, March 26, 2007
By 
Diane Cipollo (Editor at BellaOnline.com) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for print and new media designers (Paperback)
Being creative is very difficult for me. The movie actor and singer Judy Garland was called "one take Judy" because she could act a scene or record a song perfectly in one take. Creativity doesn't come that easily for me. Sometimes it becomes so difficult that I want to give up, close up Photoshop and just write computer programs for a living. Programming is comforting. There are rules to follow and as long as you don't break them, your program will work. But eventually, I find myself back into Photoshop trying again to be creative. If you want to be a professional artist, you need to be creative "on demand" and, to make things even more difficult, the project concept is usually not yours. So what do you do? I am always in search of that "secret" which will help me become and, even more importantly, stay creative. One thing that can help, until you find that magic pill, is to study how other artists are creative.

This book, by Curt Cloninger, has some very useful ideas for increasing your creativity. He uses quotes, tidbits and interviews to share his and other artists' creative process. He begins by breaking down the creative process into four steps; predesign, design, development and implementation. He discusses how each step is influenced by the needs of the artist and client. He then shows several ways to stay creative from brainstorming to using a set of cards by Peter Schmidt called Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas.

Another source of creativity is what has been done before. Cloninger discusses how to recognize good design and ideas from history and how they might be applied to your current project. He then moves on to software and grids. He tells you not to be afraid to use these tools to free you to be more creative especially when you use the software in ways it was not originally designed for.

Next, he discusses five realms of design; media constraints, audience needs, client needs, professional ethics and aesthetics. Finally, he tells you it is OK to fail. According to Cloninger, failure is what leads to successful creativity.

Curt Cloninger is a successful artist, designer, author and instructor in Multimedia Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His previous books include Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Eye Candy from the Underground. His artwork has been featured in popular publications such as How Design and FILE.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Packed with tips, February 8, 2007
This review is from: Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for print and new media designers (Paperback)
HOT-WIRING YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS: STRATEGIES FOR PRINT AND NEW MEDIA DESIGNERS tells how to recognize and believe in creativity, using inspiration past and present to evaluate work, develop new experimental applications for standard tasks, and more. Any designer who would streamline creativity and develop more efficient work habits will find HOT-WIRING YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS comes packed with tips on how to put into practice an array of creative techniques.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book About Creative Process, August 27, 2007
This review is from: Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for print and new media designers (Paperback)
I have several books designed about creativity and this is the best one that I've read. It is filled with solid information, not gimmicks.
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