1. Define your problem in your own words. Ask yourself: What do I have to do? How can I communicate it visually?
2. Know the message. What do you have to communicate? Do you have to persuade people to buy something or give them information?
3. Think: Use your intelligence. You genius. Think it all the way through.
4. Make a list of anything and everything related to your subject.
5. Talk to people. Ask what they think about your product or company. Do a little homespun market research.
6. Brainstorm. Take your list and think of anything analogous to it. Don't judge during brainstorming. Just keep thinking.
7. Use a good dictionary. If you have an idea, look it up. Expand on it. Understand it fully.
8. Look at visuals. Paintings. Book covers. Photographs. Wood type. Ephemera. Old toys. Anything.
9. Fool around. Find some visuals related to your subject. Crop them. Chop them up and reconfigure them. Feed them through a fax or copier. Change textures. Explore.
10. Ruminate. Go away and do something else. Put your project on the back burner. Relax.
11. Take notes. Always have a pad and pen handy. (Don't trust your memory; you may forget. Besides writing it down may lead to something else.) Write down everything you think of. It may be something you can use.
12. Change direction. Maybe you can't think of anything because you're headed down the wrong path. Try another way.
13. Analyze great movies or books, or othe great designs or ads. Figure out how other people came up with concepts.
14. Trust your intuition. If you have an idea, run with it. See where it goes. But ... know the difference between a cliche and a fresh idea.

Copyright© 1994-2003 Daniel SW Kim