Introduction Brief "How To..."

Brief

As a group of students you are to identify a problem from your individual research (problems encountered regarding being a fresher in Leeds) and provide an answer to it. You must resolve the How to... in an engaging and interesting way.

As a group our question was "How to maintain a creative and positive attitude". 

Who needs to know? 

The target audience identified was students, specifically first year students (level 4). As a group we felt this was appropriate because the brief was set based on the idea that we would give information based on our own personal experiences and concerns/ issues. 

What/why do they need to know? 

The research involved within this project included asking students what they felt made them feel creative and positive. Art students specifically need to know how to gather inspiration and how to feel positive in order for them to create innovative art and design. Students moving to a new city and starting their degree need to know how to find out what motivates them to do work and also where to source inspiration for their own designs. 

The group decided the best way to start research would be to look into the two key words "positive" and "creative". Positivity was considered to be linked to the idea of having a healthy body and mind, this includes eating healthy, exercise, taking time to relax and setting time to allow the mind to shut off from work. Creativity was considered to be linked to the idea of sourcing inspiration which included ideas such as; listening to music, reading and viewing blogs of artists work and also theory based blogs on social issues, acknowledging inspiration around you by visiting places that inspire you as an individual and also people/ artists that inspire you which could include musicians for example. Other ideas which link to creativity include continuously writing a journal of your creative ideas and concepts which could include speech from people or sketches of places/ people that you meet or generally anything which inspires you, this journal may then become a library of information and sketches which inspire you as a person. Networking within the Graphic Design community and other artists is incredibly important as well as sourcing materials and ideas, viewing new work and visiting exhibitions allows inspiration from other sources and broadens the creative mind and lastly, reading art and design magazines and journals is an important part of sourcing inspiration, for example photographers books can often not be found online but are valuable for inspiration for ideas and concepts. 

After this research into the ideas for positivity and creativity the group decided to simplify the question to "how to stay creative" because they felt that positivity was not an important role in maintaing a creative mind, however I do disagree and believe that positivity and creativity work together to create a content designer/artist.