In The Making: The Creative Process

Designing new suites each year for our wedding collection is always a HUGE undertaking!! I spend lots of hours getting inspired and pulling inspiration, designing pieces, fine-tuning, saving files, printing samples, prepping for our photo shoot, creating said photo shoot, editing photos and the website for the final reveal.

I am currently in the design and fine-tuning stage. I honestly had no idea how much harder it would be to design with my new little shadow. The creative process is a funny one. It has moments where it’s completely draining and completely revitalizing.

I’ve read a few fantastic books on the creative process and the one thing that every book tends to agree on is that to be creative, you’ve got to be consistent with working on whatever you are trying to create. Don’t just wait for the inspiration to spark. Designing even when no inspiration comes exercises those creative muscles and keeps them limber and inspires a creative spark.

Each week for the last few weeks, I’ve made time to go to CC’s or Starbucks to get those creative juices flowing. Truthfully, it’s been a slow and frustrating process.

The voices in my head have me feeling like I don’t have a single good idea. One principle I’m trying to hear above that chatter is to simply design. Get moving. Don’t edit. 

Marie Forleo has talked about this idea when writing copy or even a book. When we edit, we slow ourselves down. For me, that can mean tweaking the color or alignment. I can do this forever and still have the same basic design.

I would LOVE to know, how do you stay creative and what things stand in your way of the creative process?