“”Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”"

Why did Apple’s ad resonate so well with you? After all, how much time do we spend disagreeing. Admit how happy it can make you when your manager praises you for executing well on an assignment. I know I feel it. No “think different”. More like “think excellence”.

But that Apple ad. It was damn good, wasn’t it? Seemed to reach inside us to something else beside the praise we get for doing an assigned job well. It was celebrating some thing in each of us.”

Read this article from Cloud Ave.

“You’ve heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In a nutshell, as humans, our basic needs are: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem and Self-Actualization. To read more, go here.

Creative people, those who are making things – books, businesses, design, art – have additional needs. Recognizing these needs and making sure they are met are essential to applied creativity.

When we don’t acknowledge our needs, we’re allowing life to dictate our experience. Knowing your needs and being willing to take action to make sure they are met will make the already challenging work of creating much easier.”

Read this article from Journey JuJu.

“About a month ago, we posed a query to get the creative community talking, and boy did it work! With the discussion’s second installment we turned a wondering eye towards the places that the creative community turns to fuel their inspirational fires. Where we work, where we go, where ever we find ourselves regularly that feeds that desire to design. Seeing the pivotal role that the environs we are enveloped in play in the creative drive that keeps us all moving, helps us to identify what elements we can use to build more of these havens for our creative mojo massages.”

Read this article from Fuel Your Creativity.

“Last week I put forward some thoughts and theories on creativity and art, and this week I am putting forth some practical suggestions for you to become more creative. I always hear people who are afraid of doing art say, “I can’t even draw a straight line!” I say in response, “ Good, that’s a great beginning!”

Also I would like to say to those great non-visual artists out there that I think that a lot of these ideas will apply to you in your art, too.

I made an important distinction last week about creativity. I said that there is a difference between “deep” and “wide” creativity. Deep creativity is about creative intensity, and wide creativity is about madly experimenting and being more prolific. They are of course related, but deep creativity is hard to actually try for or even to catch in view. It is almost a grace that comes when you just work/play hard.

Here’s some suggestions for working more creatively. Adapt them as you will. They are not in any type of hierarchy of importance.”

Read this article from The Weekender.

“What does it look like to live a creative life? This is a question I’ve been wrestling with the past few days. I’ve felt somewhat stuck recently. You know the saying, “When it rains, it pours”? That’s been the picture of my life recently, and between everything I’m working through, I’ve managed to find myself at an unfortunate stopping point. And I don’t want to stay here.

So, in working through a lot of stuff, I’ve discovered a dearth of creativity in my life. Which is strange, coming from a writer and musician who adores cooking and really wishes she could draw more than a stick figure. But I think it’s a deeper issue than that.”

Read this article from Lynn Renee Maxcy.

Read this article from AdWeek.

“If you look at the top-ranked sites online — Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, MySpace — a surprising number have not been cracked by the creative industry. Sure, there’s media space on these sites and there has been the occasional one-off idea that’s been a hit with users or the industry press, but there hasn’t been much in the way of a repeatable, successful formula.

Display ads don’t work that great, Facebook apps are a media ghetto, paid YouTube ads have to compete with user-generated content that lawyers do not look at before the video is uploaded. It’s rough!”