7 Ways To Make 2017 Your Most Creative Year Ever

Made a new year's resolution to be more creative? Arts insiders share their top tips for making it happen this year.

1. Get some space

"Find some time every day to get to a still, quiet place. Meditate, find a little bit of peace in yourself. The best ideas come out of the blue. ”

David Dibosa, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL

2. Reverse your reality

Via giphy.com

"Find someone you don't agree with and find a way of imagining the world from where they are”

Pratap Rughani, London College of Communication, UAL

3. Just do it

Lucy Algar, rehearsal sketches of Giselle, choreographed by Akram Khan, at English National Ballet.

"Don't wait for creative inspiration to strike. Just go to your place of work, wherever it may be, gather your materials and begin."

Lucy Algar, Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL

4. Stop taking selfies

FAKE NEWS, Stephen Farthing RA Pen & Ink, 20th January 2017

CREATIVITY : A Four Step Program

"Step 1 - buy ten identical pocket size notebooks that you like the look and feel of. Start to hang out with smarter people, stop following fashion and right now stop taking selfies.

Step 2 - write today’s days date on the first page of the first note book, then day and night , a page at a time, record your ideas as they come into your head in “the book”.

Step 3 - spend a day reviewing the content of each book as you complete it. Your review will inform the start of the next book.

Step 4 – continue the process until February 2027, review all of the books then decide if the process is worth continuing."

Stephen Farthing, Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts, UAL

5. Flip the script

Creativity Series 2, graphic art by David Cuesta of creativerandd.com

"Flip the Script: reverse the usual or existing positions and perspectives in a situation; do something totally unexpected or revolutionary.

I feel like 2016 the script has been flipped for us – society, deaths, politics… things have happened that have totally challenged some of our fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the world and ourselves. A re-imagining and re-thinking of one’s values and historicity can be a personal practice of recapitulation (as developed by Carlos Casteneda).

"Actually, we have no problems - we have opportunities for which we should give thanks... An error we refuse to correct has many lives. It takes courage to face one's own shortcomings and wisdom to do something about them " -- Edgar Cayce"

Mo-Ling Chui , London College of Communication, UAL

6. Be ready

Jennet Thomas, Echo Costume Design

"Become more aware of the moments when your ideas/solutions to problems tend to emerge, when your mind is at its most strangely fertile. This could be when you are in the shower, just dozing off, looking out of a train window. Make time for those moments, and keep a notebook handy. "

Jennet Thomas, Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL

7. Follow your impulses

"I am a believer in the idea that art (by which I mean a principle, not a discipline) has to be free to follow its own impulse, go to strange places. You know, those places behind the mirror... And, almost as a by-product, it can unlock these places for us all. It’s a strange kind of transaction, one that can be quiet or loud, elating or slightly terrifying, but never fully calculated. That said – and I can’t help but contradict myself here – what I have recently been struggling with more and more is how to use some of the creativity we can tap into, to reimagine how we operate in the world? To start with, how do we stop ourselves from ruining our planet to the point of no return?"

Marketa Uhlirova, Central Saint Martins, UAL

8. ... and one final extra tip - get lost down the rabbit hole

"Revisit your own library. There was a reason you bought all those beautiful art, photography and design books, magazines and journals. Dedicate some time to go through them again and reignite your old references. Simple techniques such as reorganising, switching up which texts are the ones most predominantly in your eye line, at home or in your studio, can unlock new perspectives or freshen your approach. Curate your research sources.

Then, the next step is to moodboard! If you are stuck creatively for ideas, start image researching again. Look in your book collection, the library, or online, using Instagram hashtags or Pinterest, to get lost down a rabbit hole and discover work you haven’t necessarily seen before. Collect these images that you are drawn to on a single board and see if you can link them together with a thread. Maybe this thread will give you some much-needed creative answers.

Don’t be too tunnel visioned. If you are a graphic designer, don’t just look to previous graphic design work to give you inspiration. The broader your reference bank, the deeper your work."

Anna Rhodes, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL