Being a creative person doesn’t always come easy, and it’s normal to hit a mental block at times. Thinking of creative and innovative solutions day-to-day is a huge part of our industrial design company but unfortunately can make you burn out quickly. So what do you do to keep your ideas and brain fresh? Here are a few exercises and tips to prevent those creative juices from running dry.
Exercise: an activity with many benefits, including fuelling imaginative brain activity and your industrial design creative thinking potential!
Exercise
We often get so busy with work and everyday life that it can be hard to fit in time to take care of ourselves and our bodies. However, a healthy body means a healthy mind, so exercising is important. If you are wondering just how important it is, several studies have shown that regular exercisers have performed better on tests that require creativity. Researchers have noted that regular exercise is associated with improved divergent and convergent thinking, which are two key components of creative thinking. Some of the highest-performing team members at our industrial design company will head to the gym during their lunch break to do just that!
Listen to Ambient Noise
One would think that you need silence in order to think clearly, but the truth is ambient noise can be the best sound for creative thinking. Moderate noise levels increase processing difficulty, which in turn helps promote abstract processing, leading to higher creativity.
Websites and apps, such as Coffitivity, provide playlists with ambient sounds to get that industrial design job moving in the right direction. Or if you’re anything like our industrial design company, just say, “Alexa, play ambient noise.”
Be Curious
In order to innovate in the realm of product design and engineering, you need to be curious. Ask a lot of questions, look for new ways to improve things, and challenge the norm or what’s accepted.
As humans, we often look at things and accept them as what they are. We rely on preconceived notions about things around us into of looking at them from a different perspective. Take a drone for example. Aerial photography used to have to be done by plane or helicopter and was extremely costly and not accessible to most photographers. However, the drone completely changed the accessibility of aerial photography and how we use it. The top designers and engineers at our industrial design company are often the most curious – they reverse engineer products, they break things just to fix them, and they learn by doing.
ABC’s Robert Herjevac and our Founder Kevin Mako at the launch of our national invention contest Dreamvention, which encourages curiosity in the inventors of tomorrow.
Write It Down
In 2017, it’s natural to want to record everything on your electronic devices; however, there can be benefits to using the old-school pen and paper. Try jotting down everything and anything that comes to your head, even if you might think it’s dumb. Include random words, phrases, drawings, observations, etc. Innovation comes from how you associate different ideas and facts and by writing things down you can stimulate your thought processes.
One of our top designers, Rob Colgan, hosting a design workshop for Trend Hunter’s Future Festival.
Pursue New Experiences
Staying inside your comfort zone can limit your thinking process and perception. In order to think outside of the box when it comes to innovation with product design, you have to step outside of that comfort zone you’ve built for yourself. This doesn’t mean you have to jump out of a plane or embark on a trip around the world; you can simply try new things that will help stimulate your mind and senses. Walk a different way to work, try a new fitness class at your gym, or have coffee with a LinkedIn connection you’ve never actually met. The opportunities are endless! At MAKO Design + Invent, our designers and engineers are encouraged to attend industry events and design conferences to exchange insights and meet with mentors. The more you know about the world of product design, the better a client can be serviced!
These are just a few ways you can keep your mind in tip-top shape for being creative and innovative as an industrial designer. Share some of the industrial design creative tips or strategies that work for you in the comments below!
About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!
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