The Cre8tive Planet

There is a commonality I have noticed with we creative types. We like familiarity. We find what we like and tend to stick to it like cafes, lunch spots, drinks, ect - we all have them. Occasionally we pepper in some different flavors, but in the end we go back to “Same”. We like Same. Same is reliable. Same is dependable. We are hardly ever surprised by Same and most of all Same is comfortable.

While our faith in ‘Same’ serves us well in social routines, it can become a roadblock for our professional careers. Like our favorite lunch spots or movie genres, we tend to settle into routines and processes on how we approach and handle projects. We find applications and methods that work well and rarely sway too far from those.

As creative types, whether designers, writers, photographers or anything else, we need to practice expanding our areas of creativeness. If you are a designer, try writing copy or short stories for a project. If you are a writer, try your hand at laying out your pages. Web designers should learn about registration marks and bleeds while print designers need to grasp elements of web design and so on.

There are many benefits to expanding your creative horizons. One being it makes you more marketable. Employers are looking for specific skill sets, but if you have the ability to do more than what’s required, it makes you that much more attractive. Plus it helps compliment your area of expertise. If you can write good copy for your website or take the photos for your brochure, all the better.

Another benefit is being able to adapt to changes in technology. 10 years ago for graphic designers, knowing Quark and Photoshop was all you needed to get by. Today, if you don’t have any web design skills you will be stuck working at Kinkos. Photographers have to know how to crop and color correct their photos. Writers must be able to create layouts with professional programs other than Microsoft Word. The demands of the creative market are growing as newer technologies are becoming available.

While we love our “Same’s” in our life, they have little benefit in our professional world. Create a desire to expand your skill sets and stay ahead of the technology curve. This will help keep your creativity fresh and new and best of all, make a living doing it.