Edison had it right when he said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. However, from the way people have been talking about it, you’d think the 99% is all you should care about. That 1%, however, is what keeps design sexy and isn’t all that mysterious.

We look at inspiration as sacred, as if it were some divine communication with Bodoni’s holy ghost. However, if you look at true moments of inspiration, you’ll find they have one thing in common: the ability to see connections.

Take Sir Isaac Newton. The legend goes, he was hit by an apple and suddenly realized gravity. Regardless of whether Newton was actually hit by the fruit, his story is classic in how we regard inspiration. It’s as if some divine force threw the apple from the tree to knock the sense into Newton’s head.

Romantic, but to see Newton’s discovery as sacred is a mistake, and not fitting to Newton’s memory. Fruit falling from trees is about as occult as the sun rising every morning: it has happened innumerable times in history and will continue to do so. Also, give our forefathers a bit of credit. The concept of gravity itself as a force that drew things to the ground wasn’t exactly rocket science, even in the 1600s.

Newton, however, is special because he recognized the apple’s fall as a vehicle for something greater. His good friend and assistant John Conduitt wrote, “Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.”

The story thus seems a little more realistic. A very educated man working on a theory of gravity is scratching his head for what must be years until he sees an apple fall and thinks, what if the moon is just a big apple really far from the earth? What if it curved to the center of the earth, instead of falling straight down? Still impressive, but entirely more plausible than the Genius Gods smacking Newton with the forbidden fruit.

Why, then, the awe and subsequent denial of inspiration? First, people think of inspiration as being the moment that sparks a project or discovery. The 1% always comes first, and then the 99% comes as support. This is rarely true. What happens more often is that a person grapples with a hard problem. Newton’s 99% perspiration started long before the 1% came along. He had already been thinking about gravity, and the apple merely acted as a catalyst to a new direction.

Second, inspiration is often the result of obsession. A person ripe for inspiration is so immersed in his or her work that everything relates to it. Think of that annoying teenage friend you had. You’d be out to lunch talking about how Batman is Awesome, and he would sigh, “Amy loves Batman. She’s so dreamy…” If we take the example of Newton, it was only natural that he took the apple and related it to his work. It could have been a ball, a potato, or a very round cat, and he likely still would have made the connection.

Thirdly, inspiration being holy is both a barrier and an excuse. It keeps creatives smug as the keepers of an uncommon clairvoyance and gives the uncreative license to be so. If you aren’t touched by the Genius Gods, it wasn’t meant to be, sorry. No need to try!

Even worse are the creatives who are advocating the 99% as the only thing necessary. With 99%, you could be missing 2 chain links on your bike, or a handlebar. With 99%, Newton had a bunch of writing in a notebook. I’m most definitely not knocking on the 99%. You’ve got to walk the walk. However, that 1% is the spark, it’s what ties the 99% together and imbues meaning to it.

So what can you do to make inspiration in your life? Seek out interesting problems and then immerse yourself. Jump in with no fear and start cranking away. Eat knowledge and the universe for breakfast, as any mundane detail or fact might be the 1% to your 99%. As a living individual, you see the world completely differently from any other human being. Take advantage of the fact and get inspired!

]]> http://www.ashsmash.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=99 1 http://www.ashsmash.com/blog/?p=96 http://www.ashsmash.com/blog/?p=96#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:38:40 +0000 ash http://www.ashsmash.com/blog/?p=96 Just took pictures of my portfolio…in case you’re curious, here’s a little tidbit for you.

Found this flash fun in my folder and added it to the vitalita page. Ah, the experience fills out!

Visit me!

Graduated from Carnegie Mellon University
Packed up my whole apartment and moved everything back home
Freaked out about the economy and then righted myself
Decided for sure to move to San Francisco
Worked on my book/graphic novel/flash piece/evil
Learned a bunch of AS3

Here’s a screenshot. I’m currently doing the php for the site, which will launch right after I finish. The flash component (thank you thank you’s to Lee for helping me get that zoom just so) is basically a web comic / graphic novel lovechild.

It’s supposed to be my playground, so I won’t fix any mistakes etc. once I launch a page, and people will be able to give me feedback to influence my next versions.

Number one: The 35th Anniversary for Atari was coming up during my internship, so I hashed out a few logo ideas. This is based off the new “Fuji” (which is what the logo is called, as it’s based off of Mount Fuji) and the Atari red/black/white. Momma Huang would be proud, I did hear her when she said video games would melt my brain.

Number two: I designed the content area for the online games site portion of atari.com. It was an interesting challenge to deal with a) the actual audience of the site, which was not the typical hardcore gaming audience you’d imagine, b) the rampant advertisements. Looking back on this, I kind of sigh…but I found this much improved mock-up that I had offered as an alternative.

Ah! the nostalgia. I must be getting old (ps, note that Miss Mac snob was plopped down in front of a pc all summer )

My first linoleum cut print. It’s like letterpress kindergarten.

My final verdict? I opened the container, smelled the worst smell I have ever smelled in my life and still own the tupperware today. Granted, I could have easily bought another of the same container for in the neighborhood of a measley 5-10 bucks, but something about the material and mechanics of the thing actually made me want to save it from the trash heap.

We’re trying to solve the ramifications of disposable culture by making things so disposable they leave no trace…but what about making items and artifacts so desirable or valuable that a) they age well and b) they don’t end up in the landfill once they get a nick or two? In a recent manifesto, Platform 21 has hit it on the head.

The problem with making dryer sheets compostable, or making plastic easily recycled is that it demands a serious change in consumer habits, one that cannot necessarily be controlled by a product itself. I’m willing to bet that those biodegradable doggie bags usually end up inside a plastic bag on a hill of trash, and that those corn plastic cups still end up lining the streets.

Creating lasting artifacts, however, doesn’t put as much risk on whether or not the consumer feeling guilty and responsible on any given day. A consumer gets rid of something either when he or she breaks it, or gets tired of it. By making high quality things that age well, the consumer will either want to fix it or sell it (because it will actually still be worth something).

To date, you don’t find too many nice violins and guitars in the trash—even the cheapest guitars typically get resold on ebay or craigslist. By focusing solely on making items that dissolve in heat and high pressure, we are sort of missing the point of design. We should be conscious on creating items that are desirable and do their jobs correctly. If it really needs to be disposed of after one use…shouldn’t that indicate that something is terribly wrong with it?

I had the good fortune of seeing Shane Meeker of Proctor and Gamble speak today. His topic was storytelling and how it makes or breaks designed objects and brands. Besides making lots of Star Wars and LOTR references (which were not lost on his Carnegie Mellon audience), he referred plenty to this book as a point of reference. Christopher Vogler basically adapts Campbell’s ‘hero’s journey’ and boils it down to twelve steps.

Because Mr. Meeker summed it all up so perfectly, I’ll just roughly outline the main questions and points that resonated with me:

• Is the hero’s quest/ordeals worth the treasure?
• The consumer is always the hero on the quest, and the brand is the mentor
• Tellers and listeners must be equally involved
• With technology being so advanced and accessible, story is the driving point home, not flying toasters
• Think of selling a lifestyle vs. selling a commodity
• Fulfill more than the promise (ie, log flume vs. splash mountain)
• Things made should feel like life, but not be life
• Think of getting to new “fields” rather than just filling the pasture

As my time here at CMU is wrapping up, I find myself pretty grateful that I had the opportunity to go here. From day one, the message and the story have always been emphasized, especially as a communication designer. There is this wonderful insistence that if you get to what you are trying to say, the rest just flows.

It is ever so easy to get distracted by technology, as Mr. Meeker says, and have the mechanics themselves define the solution. In other design areas, I can see this being very interesting (ie designing by the constraints of a material or new technology), but in communication design it is the axe.

See Mr. Meeker speak if you ever get the chance! Extremely inspiring.