Don't Lose Your Sense Of Wonder

I found this photo on Paul Neave's Flickr page. I think it sums up creativity pretty well. Isn't our sense of wonder what provides the fuel for our ideas? Isn't it what makes us question the world around us, and the possibilities therein? Definitely.

It's our sense of wonder which makes us curious. We question "what would happen if I put that over there" or "what would happen if I used that colour, instead of the boring blue that I already chose." Our sense of wonder is what inspires us everytime we see something new. It's why we appreciate the spectacular and the diverse. And it's key to creativity.

Thinking about it, it's probably children who have the biggest sense of wonder out of all of us. They're the ones who have no inhibitions, they just throw a load of paint on the floor and don't really care. But this gets hammered out of us as we get older and inevitably more jaded with what we see around us. It's this seeing things without inhibitions which is key to creativity. The best creative experts will tell you never to bound your ideas with what is possible and what isn't possible. Phone network Orange, for example, don't even include technicians on the design staff, therefore avoiding 'idea-killers'. And isn't it the strangest and simultaneously most creative people who always create the most incredible pieces of work, be they art or science?

Taking the ideas of others and being inspired by them doesn't mean simply ripping them off. It means you take the underlying message, or emotion, or merely the buzz of seeing it, and apply it to your own work. This is key to remaining capable of producing work that is both fresh and unique.