Creative Behavior had an interesting article, “Creativity (unrelated) Edges” here’s some excerpts:
- [Creativity] is located in the brain supra ëfuzzyí center and we are invited to travel, poke and dwell on its edges.
Fuzzy
Intangible. Just the name itself makes a lot of people queasy and donít we know, how an uncomfortable a term, a place, to be this is for clients, bosses and number crunchers. They would rather all steer clear off and usually most, do. But us, as designers, we need to set up camp right in its midst.
The mind works wonderfully in that area. But fuzzy is not a ëtaskerí. Nah, you need to become an imagination wanderer. Anything attempted to do a ëhardí focus and the elusive fuzzy idea wanders off nowhere to be found.
I like the how “fuzzy” relates to creativity. Fuzzy in terms of creativity can mean two things:
1) Fuzzy means something is not in focus. The mind works in the fuzzy area. The gray areas where things aren’t quite defined (as explained by this article).
2) But what this article did not touch on is how fuzzy can also mean something that is fuzzy or shaggy. Like hair. What makes an object (or person) fuzzy? Little strands of hair. It’s a land of beginning growth. Yet overall it’s soft. You can move and shape it. Like fur or suede, it can change to the touch.
Another interesting excerpt from the article:
- If you are alone ñ you need to discipline your mind to answer the client / project objectives with the same kind of overflowing spontaneity. Creativity is part intangible fuzzy unstructured leading to rational logic structuring.
It’s like a beard. You can let it grow wild, but then you need to give it structure by trimming it. Cuz otherwise it can become one big ugly mess.
that “fuzzy hair” concept reminded me of a particularly grueling task i had at my last job, something that required my own creativity. i was in charge of “outlining” images of products in digital photos [using the Photoshop pen tool”>, so that they would be isolated from their backgrounds when placed in Quark [clipping path”>. anyway, the hardest thing i had to outline were models [people wearing the products”> and their hair! trying to isolate 1-pixel-wide strands of hair, so that it wouldn’t look weird when against a separate background, was difficult. the hair was indeed often “fuzzy.” it required a LOT of creativity on my part! the hair itself was not fuzzy, but all those separate strands collectively formed a lot of fuzz. i was responsible for giving it structure.
was that relevant? ah, maybe.
you can use the extract command in photoshop to outline hair: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/15523.html