Comments on: Looking Within for Inspiration

By: Linda

Linda — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:49:05 +0000

This is a great inspirational article which I would like to get permission to use in a National magazine in Australia. Can the relevant authoised person please give me a contact for Jon or someone to get formal permission to reproduce this article with appropriate acknowledgment to the author and/or site?
thanks, Linda

By: Lidia Lewis

Lidia Lewis — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:31:04 +0000

Thanks for this post! i found it very interesting and totally agree -
As graphic design student, i sometimes find it hard to get inspired and come up with fresh and new ideas… Everywhere you look you see different types of images and information, that sometimes it´s hard to switch off from it all and look inside yourself.

By: Ashely Adams : Online Printing

Ashely Adams : Online Printing — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:36:55 +0000

Take up yoga folks. It really helps. It calms you down from the inside and really helps to make those creative juices flow. I’ve been trying Pranayam (breathing control yoga routines) lately and have been feeling simply ecstatic ever since I started.

By: Blog Roundup #1: Ten Must-Read Posts on Creativity and Being Creative | The Acorn Stash

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:19:09 +0000

[...] In Looking Within for Inspiration Jon Hu asks “”But why is it that whenever we, as people who wish to be creative, wish [...]

By: Chelle

Chelle — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:14:47 +0000

There are so many different things to use as inspiration, and yes, sometimes we do forget to think of what is inside of us. That’s why it is so important each day to take some time “off” – away from all the noise and everything going on around us.

By: Mark Carter

Mark Carter — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:35:18 +0000

Many thanks for this post. It reminded me of how often I’ve been asked this sort of questions as job interviews, and how I then have to judge at what level I should answer the question, lest I get too ‘woo-woo’ for the interviewer!

Truly, I can never really capture what it is that drives this process of creativity, but I can touch the place it comes from ….

By: Su Hall

Su Hall — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:21:26 +0000

Good points made. Often, we draw from our own experiences and what we recall from them. Ten people can view the same incident and come away with ten different concepts. I think we are all a mish-mash of those things we have experienced. How does that saying go, “The sum total of all the parts”? It’s this ’spin’ we take on a thing that personalizes it. So, in this way, even looking outward to get ideas, it is in how we interpret them and then act on them, that make them unique to us. I think this is what is meant by looking within.

By: Jennifer Moline, PsPrint

Jennifer Moline, PsPrint — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:06:14 +0000

I read your post with great interest, since I just wrote a blog about seeking inspiration: http://blog.psprint.com/graphic-design/4-inspirational-sources-for-designers/

Mine was more matter-of-fact — a way to break through designers’ block. But yours was more grounding. I think it definitely brings up the need to really think about what our desires, goals, and purpose are.

Excellent post!

By: Colectivo Bicicleta

Colectivo Bicicleta — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:19:58 +0000

Muy buena reflexión entorno al problema de la inspiración.
Saludos desde Bogotá

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:11:14 +0000

Excellent article and very good points!

I have stuggled with trying to find my inner inspiration many times myself. I turn to external stimuli for inspiration sometimes to move me, but more often to awaken that spark inside of myself. It is that inner muse that allows me to create from my true self, the work that I become most proud of, but sometimes I just have trouble seeing it.

I have found that it take so much energy to awaken that spark on my own that by the time I have done so, if it happens at all, that the hour has drawn late and my physical energy is depleated (but with my newly found inspiration energy I become an insomniac). So turning to external inspiration is not, for me, meant as something to copy or emulate, but rather like taking my inner creativity to the refueling station.

Creativity comes from within. We are each an endless source of uniqueness and finding that inner muse, that true self, is what the journey of life is all about. Viva Self-Actualization!!