Who is In Creative Co

We are a full-service creative agency for good companies who want to be more creative!

Ask us to refresh your brand and you may love it so much you tattoo your new logo on your wrist. It’s happened!

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The structure of a creative agency integrated with the support of a creative community. We’ve got the best of both worlds!

Rather than you having to go through the patchwork of hiring individual freelancers or agencies, your assigned Project Lead will collaborate with a selection of the vetted 50+ members in our Collective. We are gifted strategists, designers, and managers who operate with compassion for efficiency, reliability, and scalability so we can easily scale up or down based on your project-by-project or ongoing creative service needs.

We help you discover points of growth and strategize for moving forward.

In 2021, over 50 company founders and marketing managers have chosen to contract In Creative Company to strategize, create, produce, manage, and analyze their creative wants and dreams.

Success Stories

Learn about our evolution from meeting during our EDM rave days in 2013 to becoming Co-founders at the start of the pandemic.

Project Leads

We double as Creative Directors and Project Managers to build teams of creative specialists who transform our client’s visions into visuals.

Our In Creative Co-founders Yelle and Andrea would love to hear from you. We work with such sweet humans!

Opinion: San Diego’s creative community has emerged as a dynamic, resilient economic force

CreativeMornings/SanDiego Host Ramel Wallace welcomes a full house at the San Diego Central Library on Sept. 29, 2023.

Despite gains, there remains a disparity in income among different creative professions, reflecting broader issues of equity and inclusion within the sector

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Wallace is host of CreativeMornings/SanDiego, a monthly breakfast lecture series; senior community manager at BAM, a public relations and marketing firm; and a board member of San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art. He lives in National City.

As someone affectionately known as the “we’re San Diegans” guy and “the last Black man in Barrio Logan,” my story is embedded in San Diego’s creative history and future. My family’s journey to San Diego began with its move from Florida during the Second Great Migration , a massive migration of African American people from the South to urban cities in the North, Midwest and West from 1941 to 1970. After four generations of calling San Diego home, my family was pushed to Arizona in 2014 because of the rising cost of living. Now I’m trying to stay in San Diego and survive.

Through the embracing arms of San Diego’s creative community, I’ve carved out a new identity as a designer of stories, leveraging community, curiosity and creativity to navigate America’s Finest City as we continue into 2024 as the Design Capital of the World with Tijuana. Reading the recently released Creative Economy in the San Diego Region report has been instrumental in refining my strategy to sustain a creative life in this expensive city.

The City of San Diego, the San Diego Regional Policy & Innovation Center and their partners stand at the forefront of the Creative Economy in the San Diego Region report, offering research-based insights into the future of our county’s economy. With an economic impact of $10.8 billion and contributing 3.7 percent to the region’s gross regional product, the creative economy is more than just a minor sector; it’s a crucial component of San Diego’s economic landscape.

Supporting nearly 170,000 jobs, with 71 diverse creative industries ranging from digital media and music to architecture, communication arts, and print and publication, the report makes it clear: Creativity is a major player in the region’s economic health and vitality.

Beneath these impressive figures lies a narrative of resilience and transformation. The creative economy’s contribution to San Diego’s gross regional product has experienced fluctuations over the past decade, with a notable dip in 2021, before rebounding in 2022. This resilience is a testament to the sector’s ability to adapt and evolve, even in the face of significant challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rise in self-employment within the sector, outpacing traditional employment growth, suggests a shift towards more flexible, but potentially less stable, forms of work. PR specialists stand out among self-employed creatives, thriving in a digital era that prioritizes media, publication and entertainment. Yet fields such as communication arts, visual and performing arts, and events present themselves as fertile ground for growth and investment, promising a vibrant future till 2027 and beyond.

Beyond the data and figures, lies a deeper story of creativity as a universal trait, inherent in each of us, influencing sectors far beyond the traditional arts. In parallel, the voices of our creatives — poets, art curators and activists — play a crucial role in preserving communities built on mutual support and shared economic goals.

Despite these challenges, the report is not without optimism. The growing diversity within the creative workforce, with increasing representation from Black, Hispanic and Asian communities, points towards a more inclusive future. Amidst this diversity, the importance of education and awareness becomes paramount.

However, with 55 percent of the workforce being male and the majority being White, there is still much work to be done to ensure the creative economy is truly representative of San Diego’s diverse population. Furthermore, while average annual earnings in the creative sectors have increased, there remains a disparity in income among different creative professions, reflecting broader issues of equity and inclusion within the sector.

In addressing these challenges, the report offers a road map for policymakers, educators, funders and nonprofits to not only support the growth of San Diego’s creative economy but also to ensure it remains inclusive, equitable and sustainable. The disparities and potentials highlighted within the report — such as the underrepresentation of certain races and the growth of small, often precarious, creative businesses — mirror the broader societal challenges of redlining and systemic segregation.

Creativity is not confined to the arts. It is a fundamental force driving economic growth, community engagement and global connectivity. It’s in the way we tell our stories, the way we solve problems and the way we envision the future.

This expansive view of creativity is what we aim to celebrate and amplify at CreativeMornings , the world’s largest face-to-face creative community — a global breakfast lecture series serving creative communities in over 200 cities.

We welcome you to the San Diego chapter , the eighth biggest chapter in the world. It’s a call to policymakers, educators, funders and the community at large to invest in the creative sector, recognizing its potential as a driver of economic progression and social cohesion.

In this spirit, I invite every San Diegan to embrace their creativity and to see themselves as agents of change.

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Home > art & design

What Is Creativity? Defining the Skill of the Future

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If you’re a fine artist, writer, musician, photographer , or designer, you’ve likely been called a ‘creative person’ at some point in your life. Perhaps you’ve figured out a new idea to a problem at your small business that you thought was creative. Maybe you’ve been in a class, interpreted a piece of work in a valuable way, and the professor lauded you for contributing a different perspective or different idea.

Creative ideas emerge in many situations, careers, hobbies, and works. But what exactly is creativity?

What is Creativity and Innovation?

Creativity involves transforming your ideas, imagination, and dreams into reality. When you’re being creative, you can see the hidden patterns, make connections between things that aren’t normally related, and come up with new ideas. Creative ability depends on creative thinking which is part hard work but largely creative problem-solving.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book  “Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention,”  gives a pretty hefty definition of the word. He said, “Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives … most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity… [and] when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.”

We are all born creative. Learn how to discover your inner creator and start on your own creative journey with out CEO / founder Chase Jarvis.

Aside from his book, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is known for his  TED Talk  about the creative process and flow, also known as the secret to happiness. In his TED Talk, he says that when you are completely engaged with creating something new, such as writing music, you don’t even pay attention to how your body feels or any problems you may be having at home.

Referring to a person in the middle of the creative process Csikszentmihaly said, “He can’t feel even that he’s hungry or tired, his body disappears, his identity disappears from his consciousness because he doesn’t have enough attention, like none of us do, to really do well something that requires a lot of concentration and at the same time to feel that he exists.”

Is Creative Thinking Learned or Natural?

Human beings are born creative and then taught to be uncreative as they grow older. Just think about it: When you are a kid, there is an emphasis on art classes and “reaching for the stars,” and when you get older, you’re told to get real, take the straight and narrow path, and pay your taxes. Pursuing our creative potential tends to come to a hault when we grow up. Creative individuals don’t always have the most supportive environment in the workplace because they might be said to have unusual thoughts and lack the know-how for real business innovation.

Research proves that non-creative behavior is learned overtime. According to  George Land’s Creativity Test , young children are creative geniuses, and become less creative as they age. His study took a group of 1,600 five-year-olds and tested to see how creative they were. Ninety-eight percent were deemed creative geniuses, thinking in novel ways similar to the likes of Picasso, Mozart, Einstein and other creative personalities. He tested them again at 10 years old. That number dropped to 30 percent. By 15 years of age, it had declined to 12 percent. He gave the same test to 280,000 adults and found that only 2 percent were creative geniuses.

The good news is: If you consider yourself uncreative as an adult, you can reteach yourself to have a whole new mind (creatively speaking) and get into the habit of practicing creativity and innovation once again.

Aside from doing simple things like traveling to a new place, taking a walk, and engaging in a new hobby, you can also train yourself to do something new and  become an expert in it . It’s been shown that creativity in a certain area emerges after much practice. You also need to be open to new possibilities, remain curious about the world, and easily shake off mistakes. Employ these creativity measures and you’ll possess a great deal more of creative thinking soon enough.

You can also accidentally stumble upon creativity. According to one study, 72 percent of people have  creative insights  in the shower. Why? Solitary activities like showering, walking alone, and daydreaming get the brain moving towards a more creative place.

Creativity is like the force: It may have been in you all along. You just have to uncover it.

Who Is Creative?

Anyone can be creative. If you just dabble in painting, you’re no less creative than the person who makes it her entire career. While creativity was pushed aside because of the Industrial Revolution, it’s making a comeback amongst millenials in the information age, according to  Hillary Grigonis . In one study of people ages 18 to 35, it was found that millennials are more likely to try a wider range of  creative tasks  like building a mobile app or learning how to knit than their older counterpart.

Creative people possess certain traits or skills .  They are always asking questions, coming up with creative solutions to one problem, and exhibiting playfulness. They have heightened emotional sensitivity, are usually seen as nonconforming and are not afraid to be seen as different or exhibiting unusual thoughts.

As playwright George Bernard Shaw sums it up, “Some men see things as they are and say ‘why?’ I dream of things that never were and say ‘why not.’”

Are you interested in learning more about what creativity is? Enroll in a  CreativeLive class  today to exercise your creative muscles and design thinking.

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Why being creative is good for you

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Creativity, according to Maya Angelou, is a bottomless pit: "The more you use it, the more you have," said the novelist. "Creativity is intelligence having fun," is a phrase often attributed to Einstein. While advertising supremo David Ogilvy came at it from a business perspective: "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative". We know creativity is alive in all fields of life, from medicine to business and agriculture. But the word –  which derives from the Latin creare , to make – is most often associated with the arts and culture, and is believed to have first appeared in the 14th-Century literary work, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

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"Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy – pure creative energy," is the first of 10 basic principles to be found in Julia Cameron's bestselling creative guide, The Artist's Way. It is subtitled A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity because, she tells BBC Culture, "creativity is, to my eye, a spiritual experience". For Cameron, there is no "creative elite"; we are all creative, she says. And while she began life as a scriptwriter – and continues to write novels, poetry and songs – it has become her life's work to teach the many thousands from all creative fields who come to her artistically hampered by the demons of self-doubt and self-criticism, or claiming lack of time or talent.

Julia Cameron's new book The Listening Path explores "creative unblocking" (Credit: Robert Stivers)

Julia Cameron's new book The Listening Path explores "creative unblocking" (Credit: Robert Stivers)

"Many blocked people are very powerful and creative personalities who have been made to feel guilty about their own strengths and gifts," she says. Her "bedrock of creative recovery" prescription is to write "morning pages" – three pages of stream-of-consciousness longhand writing accomplished on rising, "when our rational, self-editing mind gets out of the way of intuitive inclination". The pages "develop our creativity and encourage belief in our potential," she says. "They are non-negotiable." "The artist date" is her second tool; a weekly experience to thrill, that "woos your inner artist", such as a visit to the zoo or buying crayons. 

Cameron's new book, The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention , revisits those two tools, and adds walking "to induce 'aha' moments of insight". The book focuses on listening – to others, yourself, the environment, your ancestors, silence. "People were always asking me how do I continue to be so prolific, and my answer is, I listen – and I 'hear' what I should be doing next." The author's own listening powers have become more attuned since relocating 10 years ago from the "honking, sirens and whistles" of Manhattan to a mountain village above Santa Fe where "it's so quiet, I can hear a truck rumbling on the road a quarter of a mile away".          

Intuition and "guidance" which "comes from inside" have helped her stay sober since she was 29, following battles with alcohol she has been candid about. Without sobriety, she says, she would have had to kiss goodbye to creativity. It is no coincidence the Artist's Way is a 12-week system of "recovery", in the same way Alcoholics Anonymous follows a 12-step programme of recovery, and also addresses a spiritual lack.

Cameron tells how she was "messaged" in her 20s, on being sent by Playboy to interview the then-budding film director Martin Scorsese over lunch: "I heard a voice say: 'This is the man you're going to marry.' I thought  –  does he know this?" He soon did. They were married (albeit briefly), and had a daughter, Domenica, now 46, a film director who has faithfully written "morning pages" since her mother came up with the idea.

Being endlessly curious was the key to the creative genius of Leonardo da Vinci (Credit: Getty Images)

Being endlessly curious was the key to the creative genius of Leonardo da Vinci (Credit: Getty Images)

One inner voice you don't want to pay attention to is the "inner critic". Cameron knows hers well  –  he even has a persona  –  Nigel is a British interior designer "for whom nothing is ever good enough". She's wrestled him out of earshot, to publish 40 books, and write songs and musicals despite having been pigeonholed the "non-musical person" in her family. "When I teach creative unblocking, I get unblocked myself," she says, on why she continues to teach into her 70s, and to create work, with no plans to retire.

Creativity will always provoke your fear – Elizabeth Gilbert

The writer Elizabeth Gilbert acknowledges Cameron's influence on her, saying "without the Artist's Way there would have been no Eat Pray Love", referring to her 2006 memoir that has sold 12 million copies.    

Gilbert explored creativity in her 2015 book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. She was inspired to write it having met so many people who complained they were creatively blocked. Their main problem, she concluded, is "always and only [to do with] fear – tumbling piles of fear".

"Creativity will always provoke your fear," says Gilbert , who has come to terms with her own artistic anxiety by "talking to it in a friendly way… I acknowledge its importance and I invite it along". Equally, we should allow, or even embrace, our mistakes. Being imperfect is fine. Perfectionism is "the murderer of all things good" she says.

Go with the flow  

The freedom to make mistakes, especially at a young age, is vital to creativity, according to the late Sir Ken Robinson, a leading force in creative and cultural education. Robinson's TED talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity ? is the most watched video in TED's history. "We know that if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original," he said. He bemoaned the fact we often "get educated out of creativity", seeing it as a failure of the education system.

It was an advertising executive from Buffalo, New York, Alex Osborne, who is often cited as a pioneer teacher of creativity. Osborne, aka the "father of brainstorming" developed the Creative Education Foundation in the 1950s and 60s, with Sid Parnes. Teaching "creativity problem solving", or CPS, their model followed four basic steps: clarify, ideate, develop, implement. It begins with two assumptions: everyone is creative in some way, and creative skills can be learnt and enhanced.

Following in their footsteps, Dorte Nielsen has dedicated her life to "help others become creative thinkers". Having worked in advertising in London in the 1990s, Nielsen returned to her native Denmark  to establish the Centre for Creative Thinking in Copenhagen, and to set up a degree programme for art directors and conceptual thinkers.

When we are small we are happy creating because we are emotionally free – Dairo Vargas

"Creative thinking is like any other skill in life. The more you practise, the better you become," Nielsen tells BBC Culture. Author of several books about creativity, her most recent is The Secret of the Highly Creative Thinker: How to Make Connections Others Don't. It's a boot camp for enhancing creativity, featuring exercises to inspire creative thinking and connections.

Picasso was a master of creative connections – his Bull's Head sculpture was fashioned from a bicycle's saddle and handlebars (Credit: Getty Images)

Picasso was a master of creative connections – his Bull's Head sculpture was fashioned from a bicycle's saddle and handlebars (Credit: Getty Images)

"Highly creative people are good at seeing connections," she says. "By enhancing your ability to see connections you can enhance your creativity." She cites the example of Picasso encountering a bicycle, and reimagining the seat and handlebars to create his 1942 sculpture Bull's Head – described by art historian Roland Penrose as an "astonishingly complete metamorphosis".      

What part does the creative muse play? In Picasso's mind, there is no point waiting for her to show up: "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working," he said. Novelist Isabel Allende echoed that with her advice: "Show up, show up, show up". Meanwhile, Frida Kahlo declared: "I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best".     

Others believe we can encourage connection for inspiration, which Cameron calls "spiritual electricity", the source, or "the flow", the term coined in a 1990 book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to describe being totally absorbed in a creative activity.

The Colombian artist Dairo Vargas believes this is so. He uses "flow" techniques to make his abstract-expressionist paintings, some of which were recently displayed at London's Royal Academy of Arts . Vargas champions mental-health awareness, and has found respite from depression in painting. Young children are naturals at "flow", he says, and make art effortlessly and without inhibition.

Work by the artist Dairo Vargas – who champions mental health awareness – was recently displayed at London's Royal Academy of Arts (Credit: Royal Academy of Arts)

Work by the artist Dairo Vargas – who champions mental health awareness – was recently displayed at London's Royal Academy of Arts (Credit: Royal Academy of Arts)

"When we are small we are happy painting and creating because we are emotionally free," Vargas tells BBC Culture. "With a few lines, children tell so many stories." When he works with adults, he finds meditation helps them to "connect to a higher energy. Close your eyes, breathe, all the information you need is there".

For others, being creative is like brushing our teeth, a daily necessity. Writing in Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration and the Artistic Process (edited by Joe Fassler), novelist Mark Haddon says that it is like "coming to terms with borderline pathological obsession, an activity I simply have to do to feel human".  While Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, wrote that, for her, creativity and writing is about "being open… to new ideas, other frameworks, and dates I don’t understand at first". 

When she turned 60, in 2012, she spent a week on a remote island, and was mesmerised by the world underwater. "I even saw sharks! The ocean became a play land and I thought – how could I miss this enormous world? [It] was a metaphor for how in life, in work, there can be huge openings you don't even anticipate."

Creativity is many things. It is making connections, with yourself or a great other "universal source", connections that create new ideas; it is embracing fear and the inner critic; it is staying open-minded. But if Walter Isaacson's hunch is correct, creative cleverness is nothing without an inquiring mind. Isaacson, author of a 2017 biography of Leonardo da Vinci that was based on more than 7,000 pages of the artist’s workbooks, was asked by National Geographic what made Leonardo a genius. He identified the Italian Polymath's broad skillset  –  as artist, architect, engineer, and theatrical producer – as vital to his incredible achievements.

But his standout quality, he says, was his curiosity. "Being curious about everything… It's how he pushed himself and taught himself to be a genius." He concludes: "We will never emulate Einstein's mathematical ability. But we can all try to learn from, and copy, Leonardo's curiosity."

The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention by Julia Cameron is published by Souvenir Press/ Profile.

  If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our  Facebook  page or message us on  Twitter .

And if you liked this story,  sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter , called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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How Generative AI Is Changing Creative Work

  • Thomas H. Davenport
  • Nitin Mittal

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It may soon be standard practice for AI tools — such as GPT-3 and DALL-E — to provide first drafts of emails, articles, reports, blog posts, presentations, videos, and more.

Generative AI models for businesses threaten to upend the world of content creation, with substantial impacts on marketing, software, design, entertainment, and interpersonal communications. These models are able to produce text and images: blog posts, program code, poetry, and artwork. The software uses complex machine learning models to predict the next word based on previous word sequences, or the next image based on words describing previous images. Companies need to understand how these tools work, and how they can add value.

Large language and image AI models, sometimes called generative AI or foundation models, have created a new set of opportunities for businesses and professionals that perform content creation . Some of these opportunities include:

  • Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s AI practice. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).
  • NM Nitin Mittal is a principal at Deloitte Consulting, the leader of its analytics and cognitive offering, and a coleader of Deloitte’s AI strategic growth offering. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).

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Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Creativity encompasses the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems. It’s a part of our drive as humans—fostering resilience , sparking joy, and providing opportunities for self-actualization.

An act of creativity can be grand and inspiring, such as crafting a beautiful painting or designing an innovative company. But an idea need not be artistic or world-changing to count as creative. Life requires daily acts of ingenuity and novel workarounds; in this sense, almost everyone possesses some amount of creativity.

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There are many pieces to the puzzle of creativity, including a balance between controlled, deliberate thought and spontaneous play and imagination . Personality plays a role, as well as biology and life experience.

But everyone possesses some measure of creativity, even if they don’t realize it. Life is full of small moments that require new ideas or surprising solutions. A choice that you don’t think twice about—how you cook a fried egg or the route you take to work—someone else might find delightfully original.

Creative people embody complexity; they show tendencies of thought and action that are segregated in others, according to the pioneering creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. They balance intense energy with quiet rest, playfulness with discipline, fantasy with reality, and passion for their work with objectivity.

Neuroscience research seems to support this idea. Creative people may better engage the three brain systems —the default mode network , the salience network, and the executive control network—that collectively produce creative thought.

The trait of Openness to Experience correlates with creativity, encompassing a receptivity to new ideas and experiences. People who are low in openness prefer routines and familiarity, while those who are high in openness revel in novelty, whether that is meeting new people, processing different emotions, or traveling to exotic destinations. Accumulating these experiences and perspectives can help the brain forge creative new connections. Other characteristics that are linked to creativity include curiosity, positivity, energy, persistence, and intrinsic motivation.

When we think of creativity, we often think of Mozart, Picasso, Einstein—people with a seemingly fated convergence of talent and opportunity. It's too narrow a set of references, because all sorts of people, possessing various levels of intelligence and natural ability, are capable of engaging in fulfilling creative processes. And buying into a limited definition of creativity prevents many from appreciating their own potential.

Everyday creativity is a framework originally developed by Ruth Richards, Dennis Kinney, and colleagues at Harvard Medical School defined as expressions of originality and meaningfulness. This could encompass daily errands, personal hobbies, or work. Making wacky recipes or dying your hair an unusual color would qualify, as would working on a scrapbook of memories for a friend.

People sometimes refer to “little-c” or “Big-C” to discuss different degrees of creativity. This framework was expanded into a theory called The Four C Model of Creativity by researchers James Kaufman, Ronald Beghetto. Mini-c refers to creativity that arises in any learning process and little-c refers to consistent everyday creativity. Pro-c is the progression to professional expertise in a given domain, while Big-C is reserved for monumental and historic contributions to society.

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Many people feel that they have no or very limited creative ability—even some who work in creative fields—and it's true that certain individuals are more creative than others. Fortunately, however, creativity can be acquired and honed at any age or experience level.

Innovation is not some divine gift; it’s actually the skilled application of knowledge in new and exciting ways. It requires changing up your normal routine, stepping outside of typical comfort zones, and paying attention to the present moment.

When learning new information, taking a break—either by sleeping or simply enjoying a distraction—is another way of allowing the unconscious mind to process the data in novel and surprising ways. This often lays the groundwork for a creative insight or breakthrough.

Various lines of research have converged around common insights that provide steps to be more creative:

1. Aim for output: Creative geniuses often produce their best works at their times of greatest output. Some pieces may miss the mark, but the quantity of output makes it likely that other pieces will yield great creativity.

2. Be willing to go deep: In the realm of artistic creativity, pioneers often spend time in solitude, feel emotions and sensations deeply, and aren’t afraid to self-reflect.

3. Be open and playful: The personality trait most tied to creativity is Openness to Experience—whether that be intellectual, aesthetic, or emotional.

4. Capture your ideas: Remember to record thoughts as they arise so they aren't forgotten.

5. Adopt or hire outside perspectives: It can be difficult to innovate if you become trapped in the rules and language of your domain of expertise.

6. Feel free to procrastinate : If you are motivated to solve a problem, procrastinating, exercising, or sleeping on it can lead to divergent thinking and more possibilities.

Most of the time, ideas develop from the steady percolation and evaluation of thoughts and feelings. But every so often, a blockbuster notion breaks through in a flash of insight that’s as unexpected as it is blazingly clear. So-called “aha moments” can generate the brilliant idea for a tech startup, the theme of a musical composition, or the answer to an engineering quandary.

Improving the odds of having a “eureka moment” involves toggling between two modes of thinking: conscious, methodological, concerted problem solving and the restful, spontaneous, unplanned connections of the default mode network, the brain’s resting state. In this way, the default mode network can inspire new solutions when all of the puzzle pieces are in place.

Studies show that training can lead both children and adults to hone creative skills. Sessions may focus on identifying problems to solve, exploring different possibilities, and enhancing emotional intelligence . In one training, for example, instead of making art immediately, children were asked to play with materials—feel their textures, try them out, arrange and rearrange them. Children were encouraged to use emotion -laden memories to explore ideas for art portraying different emotional themes—what colors or textures could be associated with anger?

Several strategies can help build your creative muscle. One is to find a problem that needs solving, and another is to be open to new opportunities, such as trying new foods or using a new approach to complete a task at work. Another is to change your perspective, such as by imagining what somebody else or somebody in a different time period might think. Yet another is to simply create—creativity requires risk-taking and critical feedback, but persisting through discomfort can lead to an innovative and daring outcome.

Creativity may offer some surprising psychological benefits. It can contribute to the ability to make meaning—such as finding ways to successfully cope with past experiences such as trauma , regret, or nostalgia , helping to manage moods, relationships, and problem-solving, and establishing one’s professional and personal legacy for the future. Well-being, in turn, may facilitate creative thinking, such as by practicing mindfulness , research suggests.

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Creative thinking involves making new connections between different ideas, which is accomplished by cultivating divergent thinking skills and deliberately exposing yourself to new experiences and to learning. While research psychologists are interested in tapping innovative thinking, clinical psychologists sometimes encourage patients to use artistic expression as a way to confront difficult feelings.

Three key networks operate as a team to spark creativity in the brain, research suggests. The default mode network helps generate ideas, the executive control network evaluates them and propels them forward, and the salience network identifies which ideas are relevant and important. These networks may also influence one another via other feedback loops; for instance, the executive control network might tune the way the salience network scans internally, depending on the task at hand.

The default mode network is the pattern of brain activity that occurs when people are not focused on the outside world. It’s the network that becomes active when the mind turns inward, as people daydream, rest, and reflect on the past or imagine the future. The default mode network can spark connections between different ideas, contributing to creative thought.

The salience network is a large system within the brain that helps to detect and filter important information from the environment , and then determine how to respond to that information. It scans for relevant signals, whether they contain sensory, cognitive, or emotional information. The salience network is rooted in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, but it contains nodes in other regions as well.

The executive control network, or executive function, refers to the systems and processes that allow people to plan, monitor, and execute their goals . In the context of creativity, executive functioning monitors the observations, connections, and ideas that are generated, directs attention to particular ideas, and oversees decision-making in the context of a larger goal.

A hallmark of creativity, divergent thinking involves generating multiple ideas or solutions to a problem. It’s original and imaginative, exploring as many different connections as possible. By contrast, convergent thinking is converging onto a single, correct answer or solution, by analyzing the information available and judging which answer is best.

The belief that the left hemisphere completely controls logic and the right brain governs creativity is largely a myth. Creativity and imagination involve communication between networks throughout both hemispheres, research shows. Those networks work together and collectively manipulate ideas, images, and symbols.

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From Vincent van Gogh to Sylvia Plath and Winston Churchill, individuals with mental illness have unleashed intellectual and artistic genius throughout history. The connection has fascinated psychologists and everyday individuals alike. What biological theories might explain the overlap? And what evolutionary advantages might these individuals possess?

Psychotic spectrum disorders, including bipolar disorder , schizotypy, and schizophrenia, are disproportionately diagnosed in highly creative individuals (they've been most often measured in artists, musicians, and writers) or in their first-degree relatives. 

But this connection can be confounded by the degree of giftedness at play. While creative types are more mentally stable than are non-creatives, the correlation reverses in the presence of exceptional creativity. Extraordinarily creative individuals are more likely to exhibit psychopathology than are noncreative people, according to University of California at Davis psychologist Dean Keith Simonton. He dubs this concept the "Mad Genius Paradox."

An inability to filter out seemingly irrelevant information is a hallmark of both creative ideation and disordered thought. The state, known as reduced latent inhibition, allows more information to reach awareness, which can in turn foster associations between unrelated concepts. The barrage accounts for both the nonsensical ideas seen in psychosis and for novel thinking.

One hypothesis for the mystery between genius and mental illness is rooted in the diametric theory, an idea put forth by sociologist Christopher Badcock and evolutionary biologist Bernard Crespi to explain how autism and schizophrenia are poles on one cognitive continuum. (In this theory, paternal gene expression pushes towards mechanistic thinking—autism at its most extreme—and maternal genes produce mentalizing traits—psychosis at its most extreme.)

The theory makes a key prediction—that epoch-making minds, likely including John Nash's and Isaac Newton's, exhibit both hypermechanistic and hypermentalizing extremes. These men were both autistic and schizophrenic—double outliers. True genius in some realms, especially mathematics and science, could represent that unique overlap.

Some research has found that genetic variants that are more common in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are also more common in certain creative professions. However, it’s difficult to conduct reliable studies of the link between genetics and a broad trait like creativity. What we do know, however, is that many mental health conditions, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, have a genetic component, so the condition and potentially related traits are passed down from one generation to the next.

Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be debilitating illnesses, so scientists have wondered why these conditions have persisted over time. Some believe that schizophrenia and  bipolar disorder offer an evolutionary advantage, in that they predispose individuals to greater creativity, achievement, and success that can benefit both individuals and societies.

People with bipolar disorder can be deeply concerned that medication will strip away the creativity and productivity that accompany manic episodes . Therefore it’s important to address the topic in therapy .

Therapists should explain that manic energy can be confused for creative skill; mania often deludes individuals into believing they are greater than their skills. The pair can discuss the patient’s innate talents and skills to develop, and then devise a strategy to do so following mood stabilization, continuing to adapt to new circumstances or challenges as they arise.

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Creativity is typically seen as a socially beneficial trait. But some people use their imagination in pursuit of antisocial ends—what's sometimes termed “dark creativity” or “malevolent creativity.”

A scam artist who devises a novel or foolproof scheme for luring his victims is exercising creativity. But as it’s being deployed to harm others and enrich himself, most observers would find his scheme objectionable, no matter how imaginative.

In recent years, researchers have sought a greater understanding of how darkness and creativity interrelate. Some studies have found that creativity is associated with narcissism ; others have identified a link between higher creativity and reduced honesty and humility. In one study, dispositional creativity was found to predict unethical behavior.

Ultimately, creativity may be better conceived as neither inherently positive nor inherently negative. Instead, it may be best to assess motivations and outcomes when judging the value of any creative act.

One distinction between light and dark creativity involves who benefits and who stands to be harmed by the creative pursuit. Light creativity is associated with ways to benefit others in society, or at least not detract from their welfare, such as composing a moving symphony or founding a tech start-up. Dark creativity is primarily associated with harming others or helping oneself without caring about the potential for collateral damage—devising an elaborate plot to rob a store, for example.

Malevolent creativity has been linked to childhood experiences, such as neglect, and traits in the dark triad , such as narcissism. Another characteristic linked to dark creativity is aggression . In one study, premeditation (planning ahead of time) controlled an individual’s expression of malevolent creativity more than implicit aggression—in other words, being able to hold off on your impulses can make even those primed to be aggressive and darkly creative less harmful when provoked.

Some argue that creativity exists on a spectrum and creative pursuits can exist in the gray area between light and dark. For example, if someone comes up with a clever white lie to avoid meeting someone, that original and plausible idea might lean toward a darker use of creative thinking. The grayer areas of creativity arise when it’s not completely clear where the eventual benefit of the creative behavior lies. For example, is hacktivism bright creativity or dark?

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If the days of bettering oneself through a liberal arts education have transformed into simply “making more money,” then let’s just teach kids to write ransom notes.

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Let's make Valentine's Day a stepping-stone to strengthen your relationships beyond the one-day gifts of flowers and candy.

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In the scholarly book "Science Fiction and Psychology," Gavin Miller examines psychology's influence on science fiction.

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Writing about ourselves can help our well-being.

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AI is sparking creativity and user satisfaction—ushering in a new era of personal growth and fulfillment.

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Recent collaborative work has combined the power of mindfulness (e.g., breathing and focus) and drawing as a tool for stress and anxiety reduction.

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Working with neuroscience research findings, you can stride confidently into the paint aisle at your home improvement store and briskly out again after choosing a great shade.

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Have you ever felt you could use more support as a parent, but the people around you are unavailable? We can access imaginary supporters who can give real support.

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A Personal Perspective: Loss of skills in an autistic person may not be permanent; sometimes, returning to the skill later, in a different context, is all that's needed.

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Fiction can tell us something about the human condition.

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Definition of creative

 (Entry 1 of 2)

Definition of creative  (Entry 2 of 2)

  • imaginative
  • innovational
  • originative

Examples of creative in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'creative.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

borrowed from Medieval Latin creātīvus, from Latin creātus, past participle of creāre "to beget, give birth to, create entry 1 " + -īvus -ive

derivative of creative entry 1

1678, in the meaning defined at sense 1

1938, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing creative

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Can 'Creative' Be a Noun?

When adjectives drift into noun territory

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Cite this Entry

“Creative.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creative. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

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Meaning of creative in English

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  • imaginative She is often brilliantly imaginative in filling out the details of the writer's life.
  • creative The designer is either a creative genius or completely bonkers.
  • inventive The company was known for hiring inventive people who could dream up new products.
  • innovative She was an innovative, entrepreneurial thinker.
  • visionary An organization doesn't grow if you don't have a visionary leader to take you into the future.
  • She has been described as the creative colossus of the literary world .
  • She's very creative on the design front .
  • Like many creative individuals , she can be very bad-tempered .
  • Excessive managerial control is inimical to creative expression .
  • This early in the morning it's hard to get the creative juices flowing .
  • anti-creative
  • breathe (new) life into sth idiom
  • divergently
  • incentivize
  • inspiration
  • show (someone) the way idiom
  • stimulating

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  • administratively
  • at the coalface idiom
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  • labor-intensive
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  • well qualified
  • white-collar
  • who's who idiom

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Understanding the Psychology of Creativity

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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What Is Creativity?

When does creativity happen, types of creativity, what does it take to be creative, creativity and the big five, how to increase creativity, frequently asked questions.

What is creativity? Creativity involves the ability to develop new ideas or utilize objects or information in novel ways. It can involve large-scale ideas that have the potential to change the world, such as inventing tools that impact how people live, or smaller acts of creation such as figuring out a new way to accomplish a task in your daily life.

This article explores what creativity is and when it is most likely to happen. It also covers some of the steps that you can take to improve your own creativity.

Studying creativity can be a tricky process. Not only is creativity a complex topic in and of itself, but there is also no clear consensus on how exactly to define creativity. Many of the most common definitions suggest that creativity is the tendency to solve problems or create new things in novel ways.

Two of the primary components of creativity include:

  • Originality: The idea should be something new that is not simply an extension of something else that already exists.
  • Functionality: The idea needs to actually work or possess some degree of usefulness.

In his book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention , psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggested that creativity can often be seen in a few different situations.  

  • People who seem stimulating, interesting, and have a variety of unusual thoughts.
  • People who perceive the world with a fresh perspective, have insightful ideas and make important personal discoveries. These individuals make creative discoveries that are generally known only to them.
  • People who make great creative achievements that become known to the entire world. Inventors and artists such as Thomas Edison and Pablo Picasso would fall into this category.

Experts also tend to distinguish between different types of creativity. The “four c” model of creativity suggests that there are four different types:

  • “Mini-c” creativity involves personally meaningful ideas and insights that are known only to the self.
  • “ Little-c” creativity involves mostly everyday thinking and problem-solving. This type of creativity helps people solve everyday problems they face and adapt to changing environments.
  • “Pro-C” creativity takes place among professionals who are skilled and creative in their respective fields. These individuals are creative in their vocation or profession but do not achieve eminence for their works.
  • “Big-C” creativity involves creating works and ideas that are considered great in a particular field. This type of creativity leads to eminence and acclaim and often leads to world-changing creations such as medical innovations, technological advances, and artistic achievements.

Csikszentmihalyi suggests that creative people tend to possess are ​a variety of traits that contribute to their innovative thinking. Some of these key traits include:

  • Energy: Creative people tend to possess a great deal of both physical and mental energy. However, they also tend to spend a great deal of time quietly thinking and reflecting.
  • Intelligence: Psychologists have long believed that intelligence plays a critical role in creativity. In Terman’s famous longitudinal study of gifted children, researchers found that while high IQ was necessary for great creativity, not all people with high IQs are creative. Csikszentmihalyi believes that creative people must be smart, but they must be capable of looking at things in fresh, even naïve, ways.
  • Discipline: Creative people do not just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. They ​are playful, yet they are also disciplined in the pursuit of their work and passions.

Certain personality traits are also connected to creativity. According to the big five theory of personality , human personality is made up of five broad dimensions:

  • Conscientiousness
  • Extroversion
  • Agreeableness
  • Neuroticism

Each dimension represents a continuum, so for each trait, people can be either high, low, or somewhere between the two. 

Openness to experience is a big five trait that is correlated with creativity. People who are high on this trait are more open to new experiences and ideas. They tend to seek novelty and enjoy trying new things, meeting new people, and considering different perspectives. 

However, other personality traits and characteristics can also play a role in creativity. For example, intrinsic motivation , curiosity, and persistence can all determine how much people tend to pursue new ideas and look for novel solutions.

While some people seem to come by creativity naturally, there are things that you can do to increase your own creativity .

Some strategies that can be helpful for improving creativity include: 

  • Being open to new ideas : Openness to experience is the personality trait that is most closely correlated with creativity. Focus on being willing to try new things and explore new ideas.
  • Be persistent : Creativity is not just about sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike. Creative people spend time working to produce new things. Their efforts don't always work out, but continued practice builds skills that contribute to creativity.
  • Make time for creativity : In addition to being persistent, you also need to devote time specifically toward creative efforts. This might mean setting aside a little time each day or each week specifically to brainstorm, practice, learn, or create.

Csikszentmihalyi has noted that creativity requires both a fresh perspective combined with discipline. As Thomas Edison famously suggested, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

A Word From Verywell

Creativity is a complex subject and researchers are still working to understand exactly what factors contribute to the ability to think creatively. While some people seem to come by creativity naturally, there are also things you can do to build and strengthen this ability.

The late Maya Angelou also suggested that thinking creativity helps foster even greater creativity, "The important thing is to use it. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have," she suggested.

Creativity does not reside in one single area of the brain; many areas are actually involved. The frontal cortex of the brain is responsible for many of the functions that play a part in creativity.

However, other parts of the brain impact creativity as well, including the hippocampus (which is important to memory) and the basal ganglia (which is essential in the memory of how to perform tasks). The white matter of the brain, which keeps the various parts of the brain connected, is also essential for creative thinking.

Research suggests that people can train their brains to be more creative. Engaging in cognitively stimulating tasks, going on a walk, finding sources of inspiration, and meditating are a few strategies that may help boost creative thinking abilities. 

The "big five" are the broad categories of traits that make up personality. The five dimensions are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Each trait involves a range between two extremes, and people can be either at each end or somewhere in the middle.

American Psychological Association. The science of creativity .

Csikszentmihalyi M. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention .   New York: HarperCollins; 2013.

Kaufman J, Beghetto R. Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity .  Review of General Psychology . 2009;13(1):1-12. doi:10.1037/a0013688

Kaufman SB, Quilty LC, Grazioplene RG, et al. Openness to experience and intellect differentially predict creative achievement in the arts and sciences .  J Pers . 2016;84(2):248-258. doi:10.1111/jopy.12156

Elliot J.  Conversations With Maya Angelou . Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi; 1998.

Cavdarbasha D, Kurczek J. Connecting the dots: your brain and creativity . Front Young Minds . 2017;5:19. doi:10.3389/frym.2017.00019

Sun J, Chen Q, Zhang Q, Li Y, Li H, Wei D, Yang W, Qiu J.  Training your brain to be more creative: brain functional and structural changes induced by divergent thinking training .  Hum Brain Mapp . 2016;37(10):3375-87. doi:10.1002/hbm.23246

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Fostering Creativity: 12 Strategies to Boost Creative Skills

fostering creativity

It has also been called “ the skill of the future” (Powers, 2018).

This is partly because creativity helps individuals adapt to uncertainty and solve problems as they arise. Research has also suggested that creativity – as a component of the personality factor “ openness to experience” – is a better predictor of an extended lifespan than intelligence or overall openness to experience (Turiano, Spiro, & Mroczek, 2012).

For our own good then, it would appear creativity is worth cultivating. But can it be cultivated? If so, how? And what is creativity?

In the following article, we explore what creativity is and how personal creativity can be fostered. We discuss creativity in the classroom and workplace. We touch on creativity in art and music. We also note the intriguing connection between nighttime and creativity.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Strengths Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients realize your unique potential and create a life that feels energized and authentic.

This Article Contains:

What is creativity, 6 ways (+1) to be more creative, fostering creativity in the classroom: 3 tips, 3 steps for a more creative workplace, becoming more creative in art and music: solitude and collaboration, the link between night and creativity, positivepsychology.com’s resources, a take-home message.

Creativity can be defined as the ability to bring something original and valuable into the world.

Creativity can occur in almost any field. It happens in art and music, of course. It can also happen in mathematics, engineering, science, business, education. Anywhere there are problems to be solved or the mind seeks expression, creativity can be found.

Is creativity a trait that a privileged few are born with?

Not at all. In fact, research on creativity shows it can be fostered in anyone (Neumann, 2007).

Let’s take a look then at how creativity can be encouraged in any person.

fostering creativity

1. Daily walking

Walking is the evolutionary basis for many human abilities. It is also known to foster creativity. As O’Mara (2019) writes, our ability to walk upright on our own two feet (bipedalism) has freed our hands and minds to create in ways no other animal can.

O’Mara (2019) holds that minds in motion are more creative. In one example, he relates that the Irish mathematician Sir William Hamilton had struggled for years with how to perform specific calculations in three-dimensional geometry.

Then one day in 1843, while walking beside the Royal Canal in Dublin, Hamilton made an intellectual breakthrough. He realized how quadrupled numbers or “quaternions” could be used to calculate not only in three but four dimensions (the fourth dimension being time). He quickly carved the formula for quaternions on a stone in the nearby Broom Bridge.

Since 1990, mathematicians from around the world have gathered for a commemorative “Hamilton Walk,” from his home in Dublin to the bridge where he carved his breakthrough formula.

Who knows what further mathematical breakthroughs might occur on this commemorative walk, sparked by minds in motion?

At Stanford University, Oppezzo and Schwartz (2014) compared individuals’ creativity while sitting to that when walking (including walking inside versus outside). Subjects were asked to perform various tasks requiring creativity while walking indoors on a treadmill, walking outdoors, sitting indoors, or sitting in a wheelchair outdoors as it was being pushed.

In one task, subjects were given three objects and asked to think of as many different uses as they could for each object. Overall, creative output was found to improve by about 60% when walking (either indoors or out), versus sitting. So, if you’re looking to boost your creativity, try going for a short walk – or a long one.

2. Set task limits

This idea is borrowed from an entrepreneur who called it “ embracing constraints” (Tank, 2019). This might seem counterintuitive at first. Doesn’t being creative imply being more expansive, letting one’s mind run free? Actually, setting strict limits can also foster creativity.

Tank (2019) cites the example of Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), whose editor bet him he could not write a children’s book using only 50 different words. Geisel rose to the challenge, producing under this unusual constraint one of his bestselling and most memorable books: Green Eggs and Ham (Seuss, 1960).

So, consider setting some unusual limits for yourself. Whatever the activity, you might find that setting limits produces interesting and creative results.

Relaxation is known to enhance creativity. There are various proven ways to put oneself in a relaxed state. These include progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing, walking meditation, and yoga postures.

For example, progressive muscle relaxation has been associated with reductions in heart rate, anxiety, and perceived stress. In addition, relaxed states have been shown to foster thought processes important for creativity. For example, diaphragmatic breathing has been associated with improved attention, a key component in creative problem solving (Ma et al., 2017).

Furthermore, stress – the opposite of relaxation – is known to kill nerve cells in the hippocampus, an area of the brain where new memories are formed. These new memories help us make connections with other things, fueling the creative process. Stress management is, therefore, imperative.

So, take a break. Create a relaxed state for yourself by breathing deeply, stretching, going for a walk, whatever works for you. Once relaxed, you might find a creative answer to a problem that has been eluding you.

4. Collaborate

There is a famous image of the solitary genius, working alone in a lab or searching for a melody on a lone piano. But is the ‘solitary genius’ a myth? In a paper on collaboration and creativity, Uzzi and Spiro (2005, p. 447) note how collaboration can boost creative production: “ creativity is not only, as myth tells, the brash work of loners, but also the consequence of a social system of actors that amplify or stifle one another’s creativity. ”

Uzzi and Spiro (2005) argue that many of history’s great creators – such as Beethoven, Marie Curie, the Beatles, and Maya Angelou – were involved in creative networks in which members critiqued, encouraged and collaborated on each other’s projects.

So, if you tend to work alone and find yourself stuck on a project, consider seeking collaboration, for example, by discussing your project with another person in your field. You might find a new way forward on your project, with a little help from your friends.

5. Sleep on it

Artists, scientists, and other creative individuals have often described how sleep, and especially dreaming, helped them create new solutions to persistent problems.

For example, the psychobiologist Otto Loewi had a recurring dream that contained the design of an experiment. This experiment would later prove that brain cells communicate via chemicals or “neurotransmitters.” For this discovery, Loewi would share the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1936 (McCoy & Tan, 2014).

More recently, various experiments have shown how sleep promotes creative problem solving. One set of experiments suggested that in REM (dream phase) sleep, the brain replays memories to extract essential patterns or lessons from them.

In non-REM (deep or dreamless) sleep, the brain then makes connections between these patterns or lessons and other things we already know (Lewis, Knoblich, & Poe, 2018). We can thereby arrive at new solutions to problems that have preoccupied us during waking hours; as when, for example, James Watson dreamed of two intertwined serpents, leading to the discovery of DNA as a double helix (Conradt, 2012).

So, if your mind is stuck on a problem, try sleeping on it. You might wake up with your solution.

6. Genius hour

This tip for fostering creativity comes from a teacher who uses it in his classroom (Provenzano, 2015).

He calls it “genius hour,” but the period spent could be more or less than 60 minutes. The idea is to start a side project, something you are passionate about. The inspiration, ideas, and skills you develop in this labor of love might well translate to other, more routine projects, moving those forward in positive ways.

+1. Your creative tip

It seems appropriate that an article on fostering creativity would encourage you, the reader, to come up with at least one of your own tips in this regard. We invite you to think of something that has helped you foster creativity in yourself or others. Feel free to share any such suggestions in response to this article.

Allowing kids to develop their creativity from a young age will give them skills for a lifetime.

1. Value creativity

In the classroom, show your students that you value creativity. This can be done in many ways.

Encourage trial and error on tasks. Thomas Edison famously said, of different trials to solve a given problem, “ I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work ” (Daum, 2016).

Sometimes, by finding what won’t work, you are led to what will, as when Edison tried hundreds of materials as microphone transmitters before successfully narrowing the choice to a small carbon disc.

2. Give it time

Valuing creativity also means giving it time in the classroom. Sarah Diaz, a kindergarten teacher in Spain, asserts that adequate time is crucial for creativity, especially for young children (Tornio, 2017). Consider giving students an entire class period each week to work freely on projects and materials they have chosen.

3. Write it down

Lauren Cassini Davis, a second-grade teacher, describes the effect on her classroom of handing out “Da Vinci” notebooks to all students (Davis, 2018). These are empty notebooks in which students are encouraged to write any questions, ideas, or expressions that occur to them, at any time during the day, on any topic, as Leonardo Da Vinci did throughout his long and creative life.

Ms. Davis relates how, within just one week, she was astounded by everything that the students had written in their notebooks. The notebooks were full of questions such as ‘How does your brain work?’ ‘Why do we have music?’ and ‘Why am I not a tiger?’ There were also poems, drawings of inventions, and comments about life in the classroom. These notebooks became a spur to all kinds of creative learning projects.

promoting creativity in the workspace

1. Break boundaries

In 2014, Steve Jobs and Apple unveiled a new corporate headquarters in Cupertino, CA.

According to Johnny Ives, Apple’s chief designer, this headquarters was meant to break down boundaries between offices and occupations.

The new Apple headquarters maximized common pathways and workspaces, allowing people to “ connect and collaborate and walk and talk” (Levy, 2017). It seems to have worked. In 2018, Fast Company recognized Apple as (still) the most innovative company in the world (Safian, 2018).

Fostering creativity takes dedicated time. We noted this above, concerning creativity in the classroom. It also applies to the workplace.

Google, for example, was known for its “20%” program. This program gave software developers and other employees permission to work 20% of their paid time on projects of their choosing. While Google eventually took back this 20% time, it was credited with spawning some of the company’s best products including Google News, Gmail, and AdSense.

Other companies have adopted various approaches to giving creative time in the workplace, with the consensus being that creativity is a business asset, and employees should be given time to explore and develop their new ideas (Subramanian, 2013).

3. Promote trial and error

According to business consultant Deborah Goldstein, creativity in business requires experimentation, and even failure, to be supported. She asserts that “ Experiments never fail. Even when the attempt fails, with the right mindset, teams learn priceless lessons to succeed in the future ” (Forbes Coaches Council, 2017).

In particular art forms, such as painting, work is often solitary. Artists need time and solitude to focus on the act of painting. Yet such solitude can be difficult to bear if not broken by social contact.

Jason Horejs (2020) writes of breaking the isolation that can occur in art. He cites the example of a female painter living in a small town in Montana. This artist speaks of how joining an artists’ group in her area helped her socially and artistically.

The group meets every Saturday to paint together. They regularly hold art shows with constructive critiques of each other’s work. They also have a group website with links to individual artists’ web pages.

Such collective pursuits have helped this artist remain inspired and creative, even when alone in her studio. In the end, it might be some mixture of solitude and collaboration that keeps us creative in art. What of music?

In his autobiography Testimony (2016), Robbie Robertson, guitarist and principal songwriter for The Band , describes how his band was used to creating songs.

Robertson often drafted songs on his own. He sketched “The Weight,” a classic The Band song, by himself in one night. Afterward, he would bring these song ideas to the group.

They worked in close company to flesh the songs out, in the basement of a large pink house in upstate New York. Their group creativity thrived on being able to hear each other’s musical ideas, moment to moment. It was also important for them to see each other’s musical cues.

Robertson then relates how during their first recording session for Capitol Records, band members were separated from each other in the studio. Partitions had been put up to better record the distinct sound of each instrument. However, the band members soon found that without being able to see or hear each other as usual, they lacked the organic sound that had so impressed Bob Dylan and other musicians.

At Robertson’s insistence, the studio partitions were removed. The resultant recordings went on to become the highly creative and acclaimed album Music from Big Pink . The Band had thus found the type of working and studio environment that facilitated creativity for them.

And Robertson had found the interplay between solitude and collaboration that worked best for The Band ’s material. Again, it might be a unique balance of solitude and collaboration that helps us be most creative in art and music.

night and creativity

As nocturnal (versus diurnal or daytime) types, we find the quiet of night refreshing and open with possibilities.

Some well-known “night owls” more inclined to working and innovating after dark include individuals as diverse as Winston Churchill, Christina Aguilera, Bob Dylan, Fran Leibowitz, and Barack Obama (Curtin, 2018).

Giampietro and Cavallera (2007) explored creativity in people inclining toward a nocturnal work schedule. They found nocturnal types scored more highly than diurnals on a task (Torrance Test of Creative Thinking) measuring creativity on dimensions of originality, fluidity, and flexibility of responses.

But take heart, diurnal types.

Plenty of diurnal individuals swear by such pro-daytime habits as rising early and are very creative in their own right. Apple CEO Tim Cook rises at 3:45 a.m., while Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and General Stanley McCrystal are also early risers, who swear this starts their day off right.

In the end, what counts most is finding the schedule – nocturnal, diurnal, or somewhere in between – that best suits your personality, circumstances, and creativity.

The following PositivePsychology.com worksheets might also prove helpful in fostering creativity.

  • Visualize Success . This resilience-building exercise invites individuals to engage their creative thinking to visualize successful performance.
  • Career Visualization . This exercise is similar to the previous visualization, and is designed to help individuals imagine in a detailed way how it would look, feel, and be to have the career they would like.
  • Social Problem Solving . This exercise was developed to help individuals or groups apply brainstorming techniques when solving problems. Clients generate as many solutions as they can to a problem, emphasizing quantity over quality, then assess each possible solution in terms of effort required
  • Designing Affirmations Worksheet . This exercise was developed to help individuals creating self-affirmations that can help them help them build self-esteem.
  • If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop their strengths, this collection contains 17 strength-finding tools for practitioners . Use them to help others better understand and harness their strengths in life-enhancing ways.

Creativity – the ability to bring something original and valuable into the world – is not reserved for a privileged few artists or intellectuals. We all have the potential to be creative. This potential can be cultivated by finding the specific means for enhancing creativity in a given individual or group.

Specific means for an individual might include going for a walk or engaging in relaxation exercises that enhance thinking and creativity.

Means for cultivating creativity in groups might include providing students or employees with Da Vinci-style notebooks for writing down ideas as they occur, designing workspaces that invite collaboration, or setting aside “genius time” for your students’ or employees’ creative pursuits.

In the end, we need to be adaptive and innovative in finding the means by which creativity is enhanced for a particular person, group, or situation.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Strengths Exercises for free .

  • Clarke, J. (2018). Breeding ideas. Minds at Work. Retrieved from http://www.mindsatwork.com.au/innovation-2/breeding-ideas/
  • Conradt, S. (2012, October 11). Creative breakthroughs people had in their sleep. Mental Floss. Retrieved from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12763/11-creative-breakthroughs-people-had-their-sleep
  • Curtin, M. (2018, January 30). 7 things night owls do that morning people will never understand. Inc. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/7-things-night-owls-do-that-morning-people-will-never-understand.html
  • Daum, K. (2016, February 11). 37 quotes from Thomas Edison that will inspire success. Inc. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/37-quotes-from-thomas-edison-that-will-bring-out-your-best.html
  • Davis, L. C. (2018, December 17). Creative teaching and teaching creativity: How to foster creativity in the classroom. Psych Learning Curve. Retrieved from http://psychlearningcurve.org/creative-teaching-and-teaching-creativity-how-to-foster-creativity-in-the-classroom/
  • Forbes Coaches Council. (2017, December 21). 15 ways leaders can promote creativity in the workplace. Forbes . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/12/21/15-ways-leaders-can-promote-creativity-in-the-workplace/#6d08235f58ef
  • Giampietro, M., & Cavallera, G. M. (2007). Morning and evening types and creative thinking. Personality and Individual Differences. 42 (3), 453–463.
  • Horejs, J. (2020, April 19). Working alone: Breaking the isolation that can surround the pursuit of art. red dot blog . Retrieved from https://reddotblog.com/working-alone-breaking-the-isolation-that-can-surround-the-pursuit-of-art-19-2/
  • Levy, S. (2017, May 16). Inside Apple’s insanely great (or just insane) new mothership. Wired . Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2017/05/apple-park-new-silicon-valley-campus/
  • Lewis, P. A., Knoblich, G., & Poe, G. (2018). How memory replay in sleep boosts creative problem-solving. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22 (6), 491–503.
  • Ma, X., Yue, Z. Q., Gong, Z. Q., Zhang, H., Duan, N. Y., Shi, Y. T., … & Li, Y. F. (2017). The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect, and stress in healthy adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 874 .
  • McCoy, A. N., & Tan, S. Y. (2014). Otto Loewi (1873–1961): Dreamer and Nobel laureate. Singapore Medical Journal, 55 (1), 3–4.
  • Neumann, C. J. (2007). Fostering creativity. A model for developing a culture of collective creativity in science. EMBO Reports 8 (3), 202–206.
  • O’Mara, S. (2019). In praise of walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us. Penguin Books.
  • Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology : Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40 (4), 1142–52.
  • Powers, A. (2018, April 30). Creativity is the skill of the future. Forbes . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/annapowers/2018/04/30/creativity-is-the-skill-of-the-future/#1ba564e34fd4
  • Provenzano, N. (2015, June 25). Creativity in the classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/creativity-in-the-classroom-nicholas-provenzano
  • Robertson, R. (2016). Testimony . Knopf.
  • Safian, R. (2018, February 21). Why Apple is the world’s most innovative company. Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company
  • Seuss, D. (1960). Green eggs and ham . Beginner Books.
  • Subramanian, S. (2013, August 19). Google took its 20% back, but other companies are making employee side projects work for them. Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3015963/google-took-its-20-back-but-other-companies-are-making-employee-side-projects-work-for-them
  • Tank, A. (2019, June 7). I trained myself to be creative by doing these nine things. Fast Company . Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90360673/i-trained-myself-to-be-creative-by-doing-these-9-things
  • Tornio, S. (2017, March 3). Nine teacher-tested ways to encourage creativity in the classroom. We Are Teachers.  Retrieved from https://www.weareteachers.com/encourage-creativity-classroom/
  • Turiano, N. A., Spiro, A., 3rd, & Mroczek, D. K. (2012). Openness to experience and mortality in men: Analysis of traits and facets. Journal of Aging and Health, 24 (4), 654–672.
  • Uzzi, B., & Spiro, J. (2005). Collaboration and creativity: The small world problem. American Journal of Sociology, 111 (2), 447–504.

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What our readers think.

Jeffrey Gaines

Vassudeva (post on 27 November, 2020),

Thank you for your comment!

I agree that walking is a great technique for fostering creativity. I’m glad you’ve been inspired to walk daily.

It also occurs to me that such walks can be paired with journaling, in a “walk journal” that records any new ideas that came while walking. Probably best to write any ideas down immediately after the walk, so they don’t slip away.

Jeff Gaines

Vaasudeva

My Major Misconception is now Rectified!! Today I realized Creativity Can be Fostered in anyone at any age..Thanks for the Info. I am now starting to walk daily to improve my Creative Thinking. Various dimensions in which we can foster creativity is well explained. Will be trying-out in my work group.

Jeffrey Gaines

Thank you for the feedback! I agree we are designed for creativity, even if trends in a given society work to keep us doing rote or mechanical tasks, toward someone’s else’s ends. But the creative potential is there, and I do believe can be cultivated.

bhavana gautam

loved the article…its a common misconception that creativity is the blessing only a few enjoy, I believe humans have been fundamentally designed for creativity….we just have very different expressions. Infact i have found trapped creative energy as one of the issues while working with those experiencing a low emotional state,

Nasra Al Adawi

This such reach article with ample ideas for adults and school age as well … It just make you think the opportunities on embarking on creativity journey

Thank you for the comment. I’m glad you found the article thought-provoking! Sincerely, Jeff Gaines

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TikTok’s AI-powered Creative Assistant is now available directly in Adobe Express

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Adobe and TikTok announced today that TikTok’s AI-powered Creative Assistant is now available directly within Adobe Express. The two companies say the integration will help businesses and creators make and market content more effectively. Creative Assistant is available now in English as an add-on in Adobe Express for both free and Premium users.

The Creative Assistant add-on in Adobe Express aims to reduce the time and effort required when working across different platforms when creating content. With Adobe Express, creators have access to templates, Adobe Stock video clips, audio, stickers and an Adobe Express TikTok video creator. With the new Creative Assistant add-on, creators will get access to TikTok insights about trending hashtags and AI-powered tools all within Adobe Express. The Assistant can also brainstorm creative ideas or even write out video scripts.

The integration also allows businesses and creators to schedule and publish content directly to TikTok, without having to leave Adobe Express.  

“The new Creative Assistant add-on in Adobe Express reduces the time, effort and resources required to work across different platforms for each stage of the content ideation, creation and distribution process,” said Stacy Martinet, Adobe’s VP of Marketing Strategy and Communications, in a statement. “We see tremendous value in being the first to collaborate with TikTok’s Creative Assistant, bringing together our unique creative tools and their extensive knowledge of a highly engaged, global audience and platform, to help make content that delivers real business value for our customers.”

To get started, you need to go to the add-ons section in Adobe Express and find the Creative Assistant and install it. Say you’re a brand looking to create a Valentine’s Day TikTok to promote a special sale. You can browse through the templates to find one you like. You can then view the trending hashtags to see what sort of content is getting the most views, and then type in a prompt into the Assistant to get some creative inspiration.

For instance you can ask the Assistant to “write a script for a Valentine’s Day offer for my plant shop. 20% off all plants.” Based on that prompt, you will get a suggested script to help you structure your approach for the ad. For instance, the script will give you some suggestions for visuals or text that you can use in your ad.

Once you’re ready to publish, you can ask the Assistant for an attention-grabbing caption for your ad. You can then add in your hashtags and publish your ad.

“We’re excited to integrate Creative Assistant within Adobe Express and help businesses seamlessly create TikTok-first campaigns within the platform they know and love. Having the ability to ideate, create and post all within Express further enables businesses of all sizes to create for TikTok at scale,” said Sofia Hernandez, TikTok’s global head of Marketing, in a statement. 

TikTok first launched its Creative Assistant last September to help brands quickly create videos with the help of AI. The integration with Adobe Express allows creators and brands to create and publish their content more effectively all in one place.

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Creative Pebble X

2.0 USB-C Computer Speakers with Customizable RGB Lighting

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SIMPLICITY IN PERFORMANCE

A stunning desk centerpiece, the Creative Pebble X immerses you in rich, expansive acoustics, boasting up to 15W RMS audio with peak power of up to 30W. The speakers also offer a mesmerizing glow of up to 16.8 million colors, selectable through customizable RGB lighting.

Joining our acclaimed Pebble Series of PC speakers , the Creative Pebble X is your gateway to an immersive sound experience right at your desktop.

ELEVATED AUDIO EXPERIENCE

The 2.0 speakers feature 2.75” full-range drivers, providing up to 15W RMS power, with a peak of up to 30W when connected to a PC USB-C port. The addition of a 45° elevated design ensures precise audio projection.

USB PD Adapter

To further amplify your audio experience, connect a USB Power Delivery (PD) power adapter, rated at 30W or higher. This will boost the output up to 30W RMS and 60W peak, maximizing the speaker's capabilities to deliver punchier bass and more immersive audio.

PRIORITIZING SIMPLICITY

Embracing a minimalist black spherical design with a matte finish and customizable RGB lighting, the Creative Pebble X enhances any desk setup, elevating the overall visual appeal.

Choose from a palette of up to 16.8m color selections and six built-in presets to create a desktop setup that matches aesthetics^.

^Connect the speaker to a USB-PD adapter (30W or higher) for increased RGB brightness.

Connectivity

Vast connectivity options.

Choose between wired or wireless modes with Creative Pebble X, which offers USB audio playback, Bluetooth 5.3 streaming, and analog connection via the universal 3.5 mm AUX input port.

There are also dual communication ports for headsets and microphones, allowing private listening and easy communication.

Press X1 to cycle through the modes

Creative App

Access our proprietary Acoustic Engine audio technologies, including Surround, Smart Volume, Bass, Dialog+, and Crystal Voice via our Creative app on your PC.

Additionally, you can customize the RGB lighting using the app's modules on both PC and mobile.

Power Adapter

These versatile portable power adapters come with PD 3.0 and QC 3.0 or higher, multiple USB ports, and interchangeable plugs*. They also serve as wall adapters for the Creative Pebble speaker series and can charge multiple USB devices at the same time.

*Creative 67W, 100W, and 140W GaN Chargers include interchangeable EU plugs.

*Creative 30W PD Adapter includes interchangeable US, Japan, Europe, and UK AC plugs.

Music | Photo | Life

I am very impressed with the performance of the Pebble X, especially when I connect to an external 30W power source. The sound becomes louder, the bass is more intense, the RGB light is brighter. I even use them to watch movies in my living room seated about 3 metres away and the Pebble X delivers the volume and clarity (it also works with Sony PS4 and PS5). Treble is clear and not harsh, midrange is balanced and not muddy, bass is rumbling especially jazz numbers.

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A Closer Look

Specifications, speaker configuration, connector type, operating temperature, recommended usage, cable length (end-to-end), charging type, drivers configuration, frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio (snr), power output, bluetooth ® version, operating frequency, operating range, wireless codecs, supported platforms, system requirements.

  • Intel® i3 or AMD® equivalent processor
  • Intel, AMD or 100% compatible motherboard
  • Microsoft® Windows 11, Windows 10 32 / 64 bit ver 1903 or higher
  • >4 GB of free hard disk space
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  • PC must meet the minimum hardware requirements to operate on the Windows OS installed
  • Macintosh running MacOS 10.15 or higher
  • Available USB-C port (USB 2.0)^
  • Firmware Ver 5.0 or later for PS4
  • Available USB-A^ port (USB 2.0)
  • Firmware Version 20.02-2.26.00.00-00.00.00.0.1 or later for PS5
  • Switch OS 5.0 or later
  • Compatible Bluetooth devices that support the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)

^Require USB-A to USB-C adapter (not included)

Package Contents

  • 1 x Creative Pebble X
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The Building Where It Happens

In London, a Rare Space Where Musicians, Artists and Curators Work Side by Side

A look at a creative incubator where the singer Sampha rubs shoulders with the fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner.

Interview by Jameson Montgomery

A large gathering of people in an outdoor space during the day with a brick wall on one side and a brick building behind and to the other side.

“This building was a late 19th-century millinery. From 1996 to 2021, it housed an Arts and Crafts-era furniture showroom. We moved in in August of 2022. My dream for Young Space was that it could be a bit like Black Mountain College [the groundbreaking liberal arts college in North Carolina that operated between 1933 and 1957]; we wanted artists and businesses with collaborative practices as the other tenants. There are five recording studios in the basement. The first two went to Kwes Darko, 37, and the radio station Foundation.FM. Sampha , 35, then took a studio a month later. The other tenants came via word of mouth. Now we’re always busy with events and projects — soundtracks for fashion shows, scores for films. Early on, I wanted to hire a chef who’d be a center of gravity for our community. That’s become Maf [Mafruha Ahmed, 31, who previously worked at Dover Street Market’s Rose Bakery in London]. She’s been putting together a cooking zine with Clem MacLeod, 28, the founder of the literary magazine Worms, which they first discussed at lunch. You can’t force collaboration, but you can encourage conversation.” — Caius Pawson, 37, the founder of the indie-pop record label Young

Address: An innovative workplace at 85-87 Southgate Road, De Beauvoir.

Who Works There: About 50 entertainers and creative people, including the singer-songwriter Sampha and the fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner . Pictured above along with Pawson are, sitting in front, from left: Gerard Phillips , managing director at the music publishing company Young Songs; Sophie Jones , partnerships manager at Young; Phoebe Lovatt , founder of the creative consultancy Salon Studio; Enya Sullivan , studio manager and assistant editor at the literary magazine Worms; Luc Wilkinson , artist and buildings coordinator at Young Space; Alex Burnett-Scott , management coordinator at the management company Young Artists; Kwes Darko , music producer, artist and A&R at Young Songs; and Tic , senior A&R at Young. On the stairs, clockwise from top left: Mattis With , manager and A&R at Young Artists; Ricardo Burt , fashion designer and producer at the radio station Foundation.FM; Chloë Roberts , C.O.O. at Young; Frankie Wells , co-founder of Foundation.FM; Rebecca Knox , creative at Foundation.FM and Isstudio, a creative direction and design practice; Kazhi Jahfar , sous chef; Alima Lisa Koné , creative project manager at Isstudio; Dashti Jahfar , photographer; and Matthew Thornhill , managing director at Young Artists. Standing in front of stairs: George Connolly , A&R and manager at Young. Standing top right, from left: Maxine Pennington , curator and artist; Daphnée Lanternier , creative director and stage designer; Mafruha Ahmed , chef; Shivas Howard-Brown , founder of Friendly Pressure, a bespoke speaker studio; Clem MacLeod , founder and editor in chief of Worms; Milo Cordell , head of A&R at Young; Gwynnie Naylor , personal assistant to Pawson; Riccardo Castano , co-founder of Isstudio; Becky Tong , D.J.; Nate Agbetu , cultural curator, strategist and lecturer; Cam Esien , club promoter; Alice Vyvyan-Jones , station manager at Foundation.FM; Georgia Jones , creative at Isstudio; Imogen Snell , co-founder of Isstudio; Siân Rowe , director of Young Space; and Dean Richardson , creative director at Foundation.FM.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photo assistant: Noémie Reijnen

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Housing | 10 creative ways to income-qualify for a home loan

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Options include a trusted co-signer, tapping stock investments and even future alimony payments.

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Mortgage rates spiked again. Home prices are popping. And homeowners’ insurance is one big yikes.

What if a lender says your income doesn’t qualify for a home purchase or a refinance loan?

Besides the obvious math, fact-checking or taking out a smaller mortgage, there are a variety of ways to work with your current lender or perhaps find another one.

Also see:   Freddie Mac unveils tool to help clear condo financing reviews faster

Here are 10 creative qualifying boosters:

1. In my experience, the most used income-boosting tool is a non-occupant co-signer. For example, your parents. All the applicants’ incomes (and debts) are used for qualifying. A trusting relationship on all sides is critical. The co-signers’ good credit is at risk if the primary borrower doesn’t make timely payments.

2. For those 59½ or older, an IRA pull is a popular income-qualifying booster. The borrower must have at least 36 months of payment reserves in the account. For example, if you were going to pull $5,000 of IRA income per month, you’d need to have at least $180,000 in your retirement account ($180,000 divided by $5,000 equals 36).

3. Alimony and child support can be counted if there are 36 months or more of future payments coming. For example, alimony and child support timelines tend to be memorized in writing.

More on financing:   Can you buy a home with nothing down? FHA has zero-down loan

4. Asset depletion is another way to tap investments and turn them “liquid.” The most aggressive program I found was a five-year asset depletion formula. Let’s say you have $300,000 in your stock market account. Take $300,000 divided by 60 months equals $5,000 per month of income.

5. Fog-the-mirror loans are out there. This means income and employment are left completely blank on the loan application. A qualified buyer needs a minimum of 20% down and good credit.

Who’s buying where?   Did pandemic kill romance in California – or did it just migrate inland?

6. For the likes of gig workers or independent contractors, 1099 income or a percentage of the 1099 income can be calculated without the lender requiring a peek at the borrowers’ tax returns. A tendency is independent contractors are aggressive in claiming expenses (which reduces a tax return’s net income).

7. Using the most recent 12 or 24 months of business bank statement deposits (minus any transfers) to qualify self-employed borrowers, less an expense factor. For example, a borrower averages $100,000 in deposits for a total of $120,000 of deposits annually. The expense factor for a low-overhead business (consultant) is 20%. The income would calculate out at $8,000 per month (80% of $120,000 divided by 12).

Also see:   You need a $73,000 pay raise to buy Southern California’s median-priced home

8. One-year or two-year profit and loss statement signed by the borrower’s tax preparer (void of providing any tax returns). The big idea is for a reputable third party to attest to the income without coughing up the tax returns.  

9. Combination of one borrower with W-2 type wages and the other borrower with alternative income like 12-months of bank statements. This is often called blended income.

10. Business purpose loans for rental properties, as an example. The qualifying income is the monthly rent which must be one dollar more than the total house payment (principal, interest, taxes, insurance and HOA).

Keep in mind that most (but not all) loans with exotic features also carry a higher interest rate. Nothing is free. But sometimes it’s more important to be able to close a deal even with the accompanying higher financing charges.

Freddie Mac rate news

The 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.77%, 13 basis points higher than last week. The 15-year fixed rate averaged 6.12%, 22 basis points higher than last week.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported a 2.3% mortgage application decrease compared with one week ago.

Bottom line: Assuming a borrower gets the average 30-year fixed rate on a conforming $766,550 loan, last year’s payment was $230 less than this week’s payment of $4,982.

What I see: Locally, well-qualified borrowers can get the following fixed-rate mortgages with one point: A 30-year FHA at 5.625%, a 15-year conventional at 5.75%, a 30-year conventional at 6.25%, a 15-year conventional high balance at 6.375% ($766,551 to $1,149,825 in LA and OC and $766,551 to $1,006,250 in San Diego), a 30-year-high balance conventional at 6.5% and a jumbo 30-year fixed at 7%.

Note: The 30-year FHA conforming loan is limited to loans of $644,000 in the Inland Empire and $766,550 in LA, San Diego, and Orange counties.Eye catcher loan program of the week: A 30-year adjustable with 30% down, fixed for the first five years at 6.125% 1-point cost.

Jeff Lazerson is a mortgage broker. He can be reached at 949-334-2424 or [email protected].

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Fresh Creative Foods Announces Voluntary Recall of Dressings and Taco Kit Due to Risk of Listeria in Ingredient From Cheese Supplier: Rizo-Lopez Foods, Inc.

COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENT

When a company announces a recall, market withdrawal, or safety alert, the FDA posts the company's announcement as a public service. FDA does not endorse either the product or the company.

Company Announcement

Fresh Creative Foods, a division of Reser’s Fine Foods, Inc., is voluntarily recalling certain cremas, everything sauces, cilantro cotija dressing, poblano Caesar dressing, cilantro dressing and one taco kit due to the risk of Listeria monocytogenes in a cheese ingredient supplied by RIZO-LÓPEZ FOODS, INC.

The dressings and kits were distributed to retail outlets including Costco, H-E-B, Trader Joe’s and Albertson’s in the following states: CA, CT, FL, ID, IL, MD, MT, NJ, NV, OR, PA, SD, TX, UT, VA, and WA.

The dressings are sold in bottles; the taco kit is sold in a clear clamshell container with a printed carboard band.

No consumer complaints have been reported to date.

Listeria Monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

Consumers are urged not to consume these products. Consumers who purchased these products may take them back to the store for a refund or discard them.

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More From Forbes

The creative exploration behind ‘death and other details’.

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Creating 'Death and Other Details' was a journey of artistic detective work (Photo by Vivien ... [+] Killilea/Getty Images for SCAD).

Rufus Cotesworth, the veteran detective in Hulu’s new murder mystery show Death and Other Details , urges the audience in his monologues to keep a keen eye on the often overlooked particulars during a case. Because, he reasons, it’s those little details that ultimately become key to understanding the whole picture.

Cotesworth may be describing the tenants of quality investigative work, but zooming in on the details and then imagining the larger picture could also describe the creative process behind bringing a show to life.

Something striking about Death and Other Details is its balance of drama and violence, along with an overall upbeat tone that keeps the atmosphere light. In a show which begins with a gruesome murder and only leads us down a path of head-spinning attacks from there, building that balance isn’t entirely intuitive. And so, it makes sense that the cast and crew used the details of the script to help them discover, together, what this might actually look like.

“With a piece like this, when it is stylized and it is heightened, finding the tone of the show altogether as a company is a challenge,” Lauren Patten, who plays the protagonist’s wealthy best friend Anna Collier, said.

Patten describes how, despite the darker events that take place, it was apparent to her from the scripts that this was not going to be a moody and brooding entry into the mystery genre. However, at the same time, she tells me how they also did not want to go too far in the other direction, moving so far away from seriousness as to make it feel like all the events happen only sarcastically or weightlessly. They had to strike a balance.

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And so she tells me how she herself, along with the other actors, creatives, and crew members on set, came together to uncover how exactly they would ride this balance and inhabit this world for the duration of the show. That is, much like how the passengers on the boat theorized together about the plot’s mystery, the creatives behind the scenes gathered their notes as well to figure out how the script would come to life. And the result is a tonal balance that, while not necessarily unique in fiction, effectively conveys the seriousness of its events while not dampening the mood.

Lauren Patten (R) enjoyed the artistic challenge of playing Anna Collier, a character very different ... [+] from herself (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for SCAD).

Violett Beane plays the central point of view character of the show, Imogene Scott, who not only has a history with Cotesworth, but quickly allies with him to solve the case as his partner of sorts. However, Beane tells me the reason she felt so compelled to play the character was, in addition to the show’s captivating writing, the journey of discovery Imogene was on, a journey Beane found she could relate to.

“I feel like she's somebody that, like most people in their 20s, or 30s or 40s or 50s even, is searching for something, searching for her purpose, searching for her reason for being here,” Beane said.

And sure enough, as Imogene and Cotesworth dive further into the details of their case at hand, Imogene too dives deeper into her tangled traumas, longings, and hopes, and finds this exploration of the details hidden inside of her to yield truths that go far beyond solving the boat’s mystery.

These character journeys escalate as the show progresses, and, without providing me any spoilers, Beane tells me both how difficult to perform, and how artistically powerful episode seven of the show ended up being. In fact Beane recalls, after reading the pages, being moved to tears and then personally calling the show runners to tell them she felt it was the best episode of television she’d ever read.

Actress Lauren Patten went on a similar journey of discovery as she took on her character, Anna Collier, because playing this woman presented her with the challenge of becoming someone far removed from her own life experiences.

“I've never played somebody of this class before. So there's something about the experience of a person who's grown up incredibly wealthy, and has known nothing else for their entire life, that I've never gotten inside of,” Patten said.

But, in searching for how she might approach this character, Patten found she could relate to Anna along the lines of the character’s dogged drive and passion around her goals in life. Anna’s passions may be around power and money within the corporate world, while Patten tells me her drive manifests as an artist, but nonetheless she was able to use this detail to tie her perspective into the fiction and breathe a reality into the performance.

“There's just ways that I saw parts of myself in her, but in circumstances that are so wildly different than anything I've ever experienced,” Patten said.

Violett Beane plays Imogene Scott in the show, a woman with mysteries in her past and present (Photo ... [+] by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for SCAD).

And so ultimately, we may have found that the creatives behind this show embraced Cotesworth’s philosophies of detective work in order to unravel the mystery of how to tell this story properly. And in the end it seems that resulted in something meaningful, as at several points this year the show stood out as one of the most watched shows in the country. And, as the season has not yet come to a close, fans are still eagerly waiting for all the twists to unfurl.

But despite this experience in looking closely at the details, both actresses tell me how they were no good at predicting the twists or cracking the show’s questions before the pages answered for them.

“Oh man, no, not at all. That is where we are, me and Imogene, completely different,” Beane said, insisting that she is, in reality, nowhere near the sleuth that her character becomes.

Beane and Patten both do note, though, how friends and family are messaging them as they watch through the episodes, and keeping them apprised of their various theories of what is going on and who is behind the gruesome crimes. Amusingly, both groups have told the actresses about moments they found their characters, specifically, the most suspicious.

But, as with any good mystery, we won’t know the full story until the final episode arrives. And so, until then, we’ll just need to keep a close eye on the details.

The first six episodes of Death and Other Details are now streaming on Hulu, with four more episodes on their way.

For more on the latest in movies and TV, follow my page on Forbes . You can also find me on TikTok , Instagram , YouTube , and Threads .

Anhar Karim

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Need a Computer Speaker Upgrade? These Are the Best Speakers and Soundbars for PCs and Macs

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.

When planning a gaming PC setup, it’s easy to think your audio options are limited to a pair of powered bookshelf speakers . Soundbars are associated with TVs and home theaters, but you can get one that’s designed to sit under your monitor while you play games.

Computer soundbars are more compact than ones we’d recommend for home theater use , but they work the same way. A bunch of drivers (the part of a speaker responsible for producing sound) are placed next to one another in a single horizontal speaker. You lose some stereo separation, but don’t have to string wires around your computer desk. A computer soundbar also has a leg up over gaming headsets , which can get sweaty or start to feel heavy during a long gaming session.

If you prefer listening to your game audio through speakers , but don’t have a lot of space, we’ve done the research and found the best computer soundbars available right now

What Are the Best Bluetooth Computer Soundbars?

BEST OVERALL: Creative Stage Under-Monitor Soundbar

BEST WALLET-FRIENDLY: Doss PC Soundbar

BEST FOR LIMITED SPACES: Bluedee Computer Soundbar

BEST FOR ENTERTAINMENT: Creative Store Sound BlasterX Katana

BEST FOR PC GAMING: Razer Leviathan V2 Pro

BEST FOR VIDEO CALLS: Dell Pro Stereo Soundbar

BEST FOR VERSATILITY: Logitech Z407 Bluetooth Computer Speakers

BEST FOR DESIGN: Razer Nommo Chroma

1. Creative Stage Under-Monitor Soundbar

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Creative designed its Under-Monitor Soundbar to be used with your PC and home theater system. It’s 23.7 inches long, which makes this the longest soundbar we recommend, but it’s worth it. This is a 2.1 soundbar, which features a pair of drivers built into the bar, plus a subwoofer. The subwoofer is wired, so it has to be connected to the soundbar to work. Make sure you have enough extra space under your desk if you’re considering this option.

This soundbar’s best feature is its wide array of connectivity options. It has an aux input, so you can connect it to a computer, Bluetooth support for wireless streaming, and both HDMI Arc and Optical audio inputs, so you can connect it to a TV.

Creative’s computer soundbar has more inputs than any other computer soundbar in our guide, and it’s the only one designed to be wall-mounted. This is a great feature if you hook your PC up to a large TV, or play titles on game consoles. It even has a USB port, so you can connect a flash drive to it and play music files directly from the soundbar. Creative Stage bundles this soundbar with a remote, so you can control its main functions (power, volume, play/pause) without having to physically touch it.

If you need a computer soundbar that can pull double duty and work in your living room, Creative has you covered.

2. Doss PC Soundbar

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It’s 17.7 inches long, which puts it in the middle of the pack size, and features a 16-watt stereo audio system. We like that Doss’ soundbar has physical play, pause, next track, and previous track buttons on top, so you can shuffle between songs on a playlist without looking down. This is a quality of life feature we didn’t expect from a soundbar under $40.

Doss’ PC Soundbar’s standout feature is its dearth of connectivity options. You can plug it into your computer using a USB cable, connect to it wirelessly over Bluetooth, or play audio off either a flash drive or MicroSD card. This soundbar’s ability to play songs off of external media means you can use it as a standalone audio device when you’re not at your computer.

If you want a computer soundbar that’s also capable of replacing a Bluetooth speaker you have in another part of your home, Doss’ PC Soundbar should be your first choice.

3. Bluedee Computer Soundbar

If you want better sound from your computer, but don’t have a lot of room, Bluedee’s Computer Soundbar is the ideal choice.

At 16.4 inches it’s the smallest soundbar in this guide, but it’s loaded with modern features like Bluetooth support. We also like that Bluedee’s soundbar is bus powered, which means it draws electricity from your computer’s USB-A port. This means you won’t need to plug it into a wall, which saves you even more space.

This computer soundbar’s coolest feature is its RGB light strip, which is located on its front side. You can set the strip to switch between different lighting modes, including one that pulses with the music you’re listening to. If you’re entertaining friends, this is a very cool feature.

The only potential downside to Bluedee’s Computer Soundbar is that it can only play music in stereo, which makes sense given its small size. If that doesn’t bother you, and your desk space is limited, Bluedee’s Computer Soundbar is the right pick.

4. Creative Store Sound BlasterX Katana

This sleek soundbar will fit right under your monitor or gaming setup and comes with its own wireless subwoofer for booming bass.

It’s got five drivers and comes equipped with a Dolby Digital decoder, all designed to give you an immerse audio experience, according to the brand. Feel the tension during your action sequences and hear every in-game dialogue crisp and clear with this nifty soundbar.

It’s even got a stellar in-built lighting system with up to 49 programmable LED lights. Whether you want your new soundbar to blend into your gaming setup or you’re looking for some ambient lighting during your all-night gaming sessions, you’ll be able to customize the lighting as you see fit.

As for connectivity options, there is an optical input, AUX input, USB as well as in-built Bluetooth meaning you can connect it to multiple devices and integrate it into your gaming setup.

5. Razer Leviathan V2 Pro

Meanwhile, the computer soundbar is THX-tuned for 3D spatial audio for virtual surround sound, as well as fuller and richer sound for a movie theater-like experience. It has RGB lighting with 30 zones for effects and patterns that’s customizable via the Razer mobile app for even more immersion. The Razer Leviathan V2 Pro comes with a subwoofer too for deep bass and rumble.

6. Dell Pro Stereo Soundbar

Looking for better sounding video calls? The Dell Pro Stereo Soundbar — which goes for $71.99 at Amazon — offers exceptional audio clarity for video calls, thanks to its 5-watt RMS front-firing speaker system for robust and rich sound. It’s noise-canceling with a line of microphones built-in to reduce background noise and echoes in your home or office. The soundbar is even certified for Microsoft Skype for Business, so calls taken on this platform will sound their best.

At just under 18 inches in length, the Dell Pro Stereo Soundbar attaches at the bottom of just about any standard monitor with interfering with adjustability, while its simple plug-and-play function will have you receiving better audio quality in no time. Just plug it in to your computer’s USB-A port for instant sound clarity.

7. Logitech Z407 Bluetooth Computer Speakers

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Priced at $114.99 at Amazon, the Logitech Z407 Bluetooth Computer Speakers are expertly tuned with dual 80-watt speakers that offers premium and immersive audio, even at louder volumes without degradation. It comes with a 20-watt subwoofer for deep and booming bass, which is ideal for watching movies, listening to music, or playing video games.

The system uses a wireless one-dial control system that sits on a desk for precise sound and bass volume, as well as controls for play and pause. The Logitech Z407 Bluetooth Computer Speakers has multi-switch between up to three wired and wireless devices through Bluetooth, microUSB, and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Meanwhile, it’s a fantastic audio system for working from home or gaming.

8. Razer Nommo Chroma

On sale for $141 (reg. $150) at Amazon, the Razer Nommo Chroma is a pair of full range speakers made with 3-inch woven fiber glass drivers for tighter and detailed sound. Each speaker is designed with rear-facing bass ports for richer and fuller audio and rumble, while separate controls for audio and bass levels are available for both speakers. This is ideal if you want to take the bass level from booming to a low hum for late night use at a moment’s notice.

It connects to your computer via USB-A or 3.5mm audio jack, so set up is fast and easy with plug-and play functions. The pair look very futuristic.

Buying Guide; How to Pick Bluetooth Computer Soundbars

There are many factors to consider when choosing the best computer soundbars for you; below are the most important ones, which we considered while we were researching this list.

Size: As we mentioned earlier, one of the big advantages of using a computer soundbar is saving space. All of our picks range between 16.4 and 23.7 inches long, so you’ll be able to find one that can fit comfortably on your desk.

Connectivity: All of our computer soundbar recommendations can be plugged into your computer via a 3.5mm audio cable, but support other connectivity options like Bluetooth, so you can stream music to them wirelessly.

Compatibility:  Any computer soundbar in our guide can be used with both a PC and Mac.

Stereo or Surround Sound: Soundbars can never fully replicate the experience of a 5.1 surround sound system, but some can do a pretty good job at recreating by pointing multiple drivers in different directions and using a subwoofer. Our guide features stereo and surround sound options.

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  1. 7 Simple Secrets to Being More Creative

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  2. Why fostering creativity is so important and how EdTech can help

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  3. Art, Creativity, and Your Manifesting Prowess

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  4. Tips on how to boost creative thinking

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  5. 7 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Creative Thinking

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  6. Why Is Creative Process Important

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VIDEO

  1. Introduce yourself in a creative way

  2. Creative Zen 8 GB

  3. INVADI UMA BASE SECRETA PRA RECUPERAR O MEU PET

  4. A PASSAGEM SECRETA NO PORTAL

  5. Creative T100 vs Creative T40 Series 2 || Sound & Frequency Response Comparison

  6. TOP 500 MEJORES MOMENTOS de STUMBLE GUYS! 😳

COMMENTS

  1. In Creative Company

    We bring together creative visionaries working in a variety of mediums in entertainment from actors, directors, writers and cinematographers to costume designers, comedians, musicians and hosts....

  2. In Creative Company

    In Creative Company - A Year Round Digital Talk Series Celebrating Creative Process With Creative Voices @theincreativeco All The Latest From our Talk Series Greg Davies and Alex Horne on the Comedy of Failure in Taskmaster Read More → Cynthia Erivo on Stepping Behind the Camera for Drift Read More →

  3. InCreativeCo About Us

    In Creative Co We are a full-service creative agency for good companies who want to be more creative! Ask us to refresh your brand and you may love it so much you tattoo your new logo on your wrist. It's happened! A CONSOLIDATED CREATIVE SOLUTION The structure of a creative agency integrated with the support of a creative community.

  4. Opinion: San Diego's creative industry has economic power

    The creative economy's contribution to San Diego's gross regional product has experienced fluctuations over the past decade, with a notable dip in 2021, before rebounding in 2022. This ...

  5. The science behind creativity

    Creative individuals are more likely than others to possess the personality trait of openness. "Across different age groups, the best predictor of creativity is openness to new experiences," said Anna Abraham, PhD, the E. Paul Torrance Professor and director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of ...

  6. What Is Creativity? Defining the Skill of the Future

    Creative ability depends on creative thinking which is part hard work but largely creative problem-solving. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book "Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention," gives a pretty hefty definition of the word. He said, "Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives … most of the ...

  7. How to Increase Your Creativity

    1 Commit Yourself to Creativity Robert Deutschman / Getty Images The first step to increasing creativity is to devote yourself to developing your creative abilities. Do not put off your efforts. Set goals, enlist the help of others, and put aside time each day to develop your skills.

  8. Who We Are

    In Creative Company is a year round talk series and event production company showcasing best creative voices across film, television, theater, and more. We strive to explore the creative process of a variety of crafts and disciplines within storytelling by diving deep on the journey to making specific creative choices throughout a project.

  9. Why being creative is good for you

    "Creativity is intelligence having fun," is a phrase often attributed to Einstein. While advertising supremo David Ogilvy came at it from a business perspective: "If it doesn't sell, it isn't...

  10. In Creative Company

    123 Town Square Place Pmb#391 Jersey City, New Jersey 07310, US

  11. How Generative AI Is Changing Creative Work

    How Generative AI Is Changing Creative Work. by. Thomas H. Davenport. and. Nitin Mittal. November 14, 2022. Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images. Summary. Generative AI models for businesses threaten ...

  12. Creativity

    Creativity. Creativity encompasses the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems. It's a part of our drive as humans—fostering resilience, sparking joy ...

  13. 19 Amazing Ways to Be Creative (That You're Not Doing)

    Creativity is creating something original or unique by using your own talents and skills. Creativity can also be using your skills in new ways or taking your ideas and turning them into reality. Creativity can come in many different forms—through thinking, original artwork, music, clothing style, and even a way of doing things.

  14. Creative Definition & Meaning

    noun 1 : one who is creative especially : one involved in the creation of advertisements 2 : creative activity or the material produced by it especially in advertising Synonyms Adjective clever imaginative ingenious innovational innovative innovatory inventive

  15. CREATIVE

    CREATIVE meaning: 1. producing or using original and unusual ideas: 2. describing or explaining things in unusual…. Learn more.

  16. Understanding the Psychology of Creativity and the Big Five

    Energy: Creative people tend to possess a great deal of both physical and mental energy. However, they also tend to spend a great deal of time quietly thinking and reflecting. Intelligence: Psychologists have long believed that intelligence plays a critical role in creativity. In Terman's famous longitudinal study of gifted children, researchers found that while high IQ was necessary for ...

  17. Fostering Creativity: 12 Strategies to Boost Creative Skills

    Overall, creative output was found to improve by about 60% when walking (either indoors or out), versus sitting. So, if you're looking to boost your creativity, try going for a short walk - or a long one. 2. Set task limits. This idea is borrowed from an entrepreneur who called it " embracing constraints" (Tank, 2019).

  18. Creative Fabrica

    Creative Fabrica - Premium Crafting Fonts, Graphics & More EXCLUSIVE LOVE DEAL Unlimited access to 159,487 fonts Create your own designs CF Studio Design Now Unlimited access to 8,319,586 graphics for FREE View More Most popular searches: wedding Get Yearly ALL ACCESS, now just $3.99 /month $3.99/month, billed as $47/year (normal price $348)

  19. TikTok's AI-powered Creative Assistant is now available directly in

    Creative Assistant is available now in English as an add-on in Adobe Express for both free and Premium users. The Creative […] Adobe and TikTok announced today that TikTok's AI-powered ...

  20. Creative Pebble X

    Creative Pebble X offers customizable RGB lighting and enhanced 2.75" drivers, bringing forth a world of vibrant world of colors, together with a powerful audio experience. It also offers versatile connectivity, including Bluetooth® 5.3, USB-C audio, AUX input, and dedicated headset and microphone ports.

  21. London's Young Space, Where Sampha and Grace Wales Bonner Work Side by

    A look at a creative incubator where the singer Sampha rubs shoulders with the fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner. Interview by Jameson Montgomery Caius Pawson (fourth from left, leaning against ...

  22. Adobe Creative Cloud

    Create, edit, sign, and manage your PDFs — quickly, easily, anywhere. Learn more Premiere Pro Create everything from social clips to feature films with the leading video editor. Learn more Adobe Firefly Use everyday language to create extraordinary results with generative AI. Learn more

  23. OpenAI will now let you create videos from verbal cues

    Artificial intelligence leader OpenAI introduced a new AI model called Sora which it claims can create "realistic" and "imaginative" 60-second videos from quick text prompts.

  24. Log in to Adobe Creative Cloud

    Find inspiration from the Creative Cloud community to expand or hone your skills, get unstuck, or try something new when you sign in to Creative Cloud. Go to Discover.

  25. 10 creative ways to income-qualify for a home loan

    Here are 10 creative qualifying boosters: 1. In my experience, the most used income-boosting tool is a non-occupant co-signer. For example, your parents. All the applicants' incomes (and debts ...

  26. Fresh Creative Foods Announces Voluntary Recall of Dressings and Taco

    Fresh Creative Foods, a division of Reser's Fine Foods, Inc., is voluntarily recalling certain cremas, everything sauces, cilantro cotija dressing, poblano Caesar dressing, cilantro dressing and ...

  27. The Creative Exploration Behind 'Death And Other Details'

    And so she tells me how she herself, along with the other actors, creatives, and crew members on set, came together to uncover how exactly they would ride this balance and inhabit this world for ...

  28. The Best Computer Soundbars 2024: Doss, Creative Stage, Bluedee, Razer

    Creative's computer soundbar has more inputs than any other computer soundbar in our guide, and it's the only one designed to be wall-mounted. This is a great feature if you hook your PC up to ...

  29. Moscow City Photos and Premium High Res Pictures

    Browse 52,326 authentic moscow city stock photos, high-res images, and pictures, or explore additional antique photo moscow city or moscow city map stock images to find the right photo at the right size and resolution for your project. Moscow skyscrapers panorama in the evening. Moscow city. Bird's eye view. Cityscape at twilight. Bird's eye view.