Yet another chance at constrained creativity
When I was a kid I got bored a lot (and whined about it, I’m sure). Presumably to shut me up, my parents kept a box of “activities” for me—little creative projects for kids, torn out of magazines or jotted down on scraps of paper. I specifically remember being 4 or 5, sitting at the top of the stairs at our house in Dartmouth (UK, not MA), and yelling something like “Can I do an activity?!”
I hope this isn’t a window into my childhood that I’ll later regret publishing.
Anyway, I can’t remember what the activities were now, but I still have that insatiable urge to make things. Combined with a really short attention span, this urge sometimes draws me to useless little projects, so I’ve started creating a list when I hear such projects mentioned. In essence, I’m making my own box of activities. Can’t rely on Mom and Dad’s ideas forever, y’know.
So far I’ve mentioned two such activities on Semantic Argument:
I also had fun awhile back with a project from GOOD to create a bumper sticker reminding people to vote (my entries are included under pseudonym FussMidget…don’t ask).
Anyway, I just found out about another project that makes the list. This one’s a monthly call for visual interpretations of words as 3″ by 3″ images. It’s called Word It, and it’s a division of UnderConsideration. I like that it combines words and design—relevant for anyone in branding, advertising, marketing, etc.
This month’s word is “work” and here’s my contribution.
Mine took me about two minutes with a camera phone and a sticky note, but some people really get into it and design things from scratch. Just a fun little creative outlet, in case all that pent up creativity is making you feel restless and whiny.
Rob Meyerson works with clients to find creative solutions that inform brand strategy, positioning, identity, and communications.
Paul van Winkle | November 11th, 2009 at 2:41 pm #
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLJ8ILIE780&feature=related
We who have the capacity and feel compelled to make and do better things with our life and time other than “marching up and down the square” have more troubles in the world.
In my 30’s I began training for and engaging in punishing, extended 12-36 hour eco-challenge tri-athletic contests requiring a sustained amount of energies, efforts and disciplines to complete. I found I was sufficiently worn out for days, and training took mostof my spare time. And all the cardio activity caused massive amounts of natural and powerful opiates to be produced, bathing my brain in bliss, which reduced my sensitivity to “marching up and down the square”.
Today I’m well-versed in the skills required for sufficient opiate production, which helps. Because if working for and with corporations is somehow erroneously conflated with an avenue for manifesting one’s ‘creativity’, it’s probably only in areas of slyly slitting one’s wrists so that the life insurance still goes to the fam.
Rob | November 11th, 2009 at 2:56 pm #
PvW,
Thanks for the amusing link and somewhat frightening comments.
I’ve just entered my 30s, so maybe there’s still time for punishing myself with multi-day “tri-athletic contests.” Until then I’ll probably stick to taking pictures of coffee pots. Maybe the occasional Scrabble match.
I suppose the goal is to find a way of supporting oneself without feeling like it requires “marching up and down the square.”
Paul van Winkle | November 11th, 2009 at 3:31 pm #
Didn’t mean to frighten you, Rob — though I’ve been known to do so — I so enjoy your blog, obviously.
I was merely and dryly suggesting (like my favourite FT collumnist Lucy Kellaway has pointed out) that we best find more suitable channels for our loves, skills and energies than “the corporation”. The corporation is a severely flawed, scary and foundering entity of no sensitivity. Should we confuse what it is and what its DNA is programmed to do, which is against what most humans need and value, we could end up throwing ourselves off of a bridge like the 24 recent France Telecom workers.
Mauvais!
Feeling rhopalic? - Semantic Argument | December 7th, 2009 at 1:32 pm #
[...] one for the activity box. Thanks to Paul for pointing it [...]
Rudi Seitz | December 14th, 2009 at 6:27 pm #
I discovered Word It here after landing at your blog last week via a rhopalic search. I really like the idea and decided to give it a go. Came up with this for the current theme, Improve. Looking forward to trying it again next month. Thanks for the link!
Mark Farrell | December 17th, 2009 at 7:20 pm #
Hi Rob,
I grew up in Dartmouth, MA, so thanks for making the distinction! Usually, people from other parts of the United States will think “New Hampshire” when I say I grew up in Dartmouth (if they’re not aware that the university is in a town named Hanover).
Mark
Rudi Seitz | February 7th, 2010 at 10:04 am #
Hi Rob — As I mentioned in a previous comment, I found out about WordIt from your blog. Not sure if you’ve been following WordIt but the site is closed to new submissions as of January. I liked the idea enough that I’m attempting to start up a similar challenge at Pictorial Matter. Hope you’ll contribute when you get a chance.
-Rudi