Browsing thru Posterous, the brainchild of Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan, included in Creativity-online’s annual list of the most influential and inspiring creative personalities of the last year, aka The 2010 Creativity 50, I came across a quotation by Jim Jarmusch, one that enjoys being an eternal carry-over between blogs and sites.
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, painting, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and your theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to’.”
A recommendation often heard in advertising classes and or seen in books on advertising creativity: Read the old annuals, study the old ads, dismount the award-winners, look at tourism catalogs, and read everything in sight. And so on.
Continue reading ‘Creativity Templates: Stealing with Soul or Clever Archeology?’
