Halloween is right around the corner and that means it's time to get scary!
It's also a good time to talk about fear and how it affects us in our work. What do you fear the most or the most insecure about when it comes to your creative field? As an artist, insecurity and second guessing your creative decisions or even talent comes with the territory.
Many artists these days may feel fear of keeping up with all the software advancements or with new updates coming out one or more times every year. No one wants to be left behind when it comes to the latest and greatest software. But I think what's even more important than that is keeping up with design trends and your design chops.
But what's the best way to get better?
One word: creating.
Have you ever wanted to create something but hit a brick wall when it comes to figuring out what to create? How do you break through that barrier and break through the fear of creating? Just like athletes need to train every day to get stronger physically and musicians need to practice their instrument everyday, designers need to practice creating everyday. By getting into the routine of daily creation you’re exercising a very important part of your brain...the part of your brain that problem solves.
While creating new neural connections, you’re making this part of your brain stronger and expanding on your creativity. So why is it so hard to creating something, anything daily? Many people have the best intentions to try to get creating but always get stuck by the question: “What do I create?” The task of creating then becomes daunting and it’s all too easy to ultimately get overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities and you end up just not creating anything at all. Sometimes it's great to just think of a theme, any theme and create constraints so you can then narrow your focus and have a clearer path to begin creating. Many people explore a theme every month and create something every day that month involving that theme.
One thing I started to help with this fear of creation is a challenge on Lynda.com called the 5 Day Mograph Challenge.
In this challenge I encourage viewers to get into the habit of daily creation by creating short animated GIFs based on themes that I provide to help the viewers gain ideas from. It's been a very successful series with a lot of participation from people all over the world and I really encourage anyone who wants to keep up with software or practice a new technique to break through that fear that paralyses you from making anything at all and take up a daily challenge! The hardest part of creation is going from creating nothing to creating something.
Just like the monster under your bed is all in your head, so is the little procrastination monster. Get to making!
Contributed by: Freelance Motion Graphic Artist, EJ Hassenfratz
Edward Hassenfratz is a multi-Emmy winning freelance 3D/motion graphic artist based out of Washington, DC available for freelance work. He's worked directly with clients big and small to create the best creative, and innovative designs, motion graphics, print ads, and animated GIFs. He has the skills to lead projects of all scopes and execute all phases of the creative process from developing budgets and estimates for projects to storyboarding, executing and delivering final designs/animations.
Visit his site: http://www.eyedesyn.com/
