Creative Reset - Article by Liz McClymont

My creative inspiration is driven by my environment and the feelings it provokes.

As adults we take so much for granted, I try and view my surroundings as if experiencing it for the first time. Yes, this sounds a bit cliché, but we have so much “noise” around us in everyday life. I like to take a moment to sit and simply look.

Sitting in the garden or going for a walk calms the noise, allowing me to approach the world with naivety, giving me space to truly dissect what I see. As I write this, I am looking outside my window. There’s a garden with lots of green, but if you look a little closer you can pick out the various shades and hues. Infinite shapes make up the mass of foliage, with various leaves, circular nasturtiums, frizzy tree branches and rounded red Rowan berries. I suppose I’m easily pleased. I just love colour, and nature offers it in abundance.

Take a look inside my home and you will find rooms bursting with colourful shades, patterns and prints. Some would say it’s a minimalist’s nightmare, but this is my comfort zone, where I can recharge, reset and get my brain ready to create.

But what about sound? I often use music to fuel my creativity. Hearing a favourite song transports me back in time, illuminating distant memories and reigniting the emotions associated with those events. In turn, these emotions can set my mind off into a tangent of thinking, sparking exciting new creative ideas.

For me the key to inspiration is truly knowing your senses and emotions. As designers, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to come up with ideas quickly. But sometimes we need to take a moment to sit, reflect and just feel. That’s when the true creative flow begins.