overcoming creative block

Scott Hansen over at ISO50 has collected and posted the answers of various creatives on overcoming creative block.

I particularly like the answer of German typographer Erik Spiekermann. His 6 strategies for creating are both simple and smart. So much about the act of creation is finding the trigger, and Spiekermann taps into the triggers that have the potential to work for everyone. I'm really good at #1: Avoid.



There are 6 strategies for this situation:

1. Avoid
Do something else, wash the car, back-up your data, do errands…
2. Think
Sit back and think about the issue, just let your mind go…
3. Research
Look up stuff, go through your old projects, but avoid Google — it takes too long to find anything useful…
4. Collect
We all have lots of stuff; there must be something in there that is waiting to be used…
5. Sketch
Drawing is great, even if you have no talent. Just visualising the simplest things makes them come alive…
6. Deconstruct
Take the problem apart, look at the parts and then put them back together…

weekend fortune

My fortune from the Curiosity Shoppe this weekend read: "Smile, you are living in a beautiful place."

How very true.

for my valentine who is far, far away

Found over at Roll & Tumble

nothing but bleubirds

Look at the cuteness over at Bleubird Vintage!


Vintage Dior Sunglasses, $118


Bruno Magli Bumble Stripe Button Heels (if only! They're a size 9...), $36


Midnight Ruffle Mini, $58


Edie Plaid Trapeze Coat, $138


Rainbow Striped Mini, $48


Lucille Polka Dot Mini, $56

hardwood type: ann hamilton

Found over at bookhou at home, this installation at the Seattle Public Library by one of my favorite artists, Ann Hamilton.

“Hamilton designed and fabricated 7,200 square feet of hardwood floor in the Evelyn W. Foster Learning Center.The project suggests the tactile experience of book production and reading in the digital age. The floor includes words created in raised letters in the 11 languages that are included in the library's collection. These words spell out, backward, the first sentences from books written in those languages.”

on the wall

We're going to start house/flat hunting very soon, and I'm already dreaming about decorating our very own abode. Right now our apartment has lovely painted walls; our living room a rich terra cotta, and our dining room an elegant bluish purplish gray. As much as I love the plainness, I am a sucker for strategic wallpaper. Especially if that wallpaper comes from Ferm.

Feather in blue


Wilderness in gold


Fir Tree in white


Family Tree in blue

You could design a whole room around these designs. I just love them.

on repeat

• Sleepyhead by Passion Pit

mexico city yellow

I'm managing a bout of wanderlust at the moment by dreaming about past trips and travels to come. I fuel these bouts by eyeing the New York Times Travel section every weekend.

The full set of my DF photos can be found on flickr.

invisible

All Auster books reveal something about the writing of the novel itself. They at once place the "author" in the extreme role of power, and make him vulnerable (and invisible) at the same time by exposing the underpinnings of the plot.

Invisible is no different. It is Auster at his best. It is a book within a book, a narrator giving voice to a story that he himself doesn't quite understand. The story is simultaneously one of youth and sexual awakening, and death and disillusionment, of truth and the art of storytelling and of memory and instability of the past.

The plot of Invisible, an older man writing down his youth and the year that changed his life forever belies the stronger force of the book which lures the reader in, the way in which the narrator makes the reader culprit to the secret stashes of his history. And, by changing the tenor of the story from I to You, he steals "you" into the seemingly lucid but suspect retelling of the past with him. You become both voyeur and participant in a novel way.

FOUR STARS

you are the best

Wouldn't this be a cute way to surprise your Valentine with a little sweetness? I know I can always find the cute over at the Curiosity Shoppe.



Or with this card from Pop + Shorty. It was sold out for a few days there, but it's coming back in stock. Phew.