FIVE WAYS TO GENERATE IDEAS

Gennaro Grazioso presents his tips for coming up with new concepts…

“The way I generate ideas really depends on how I’m feeling at that moment in time. Some techniques will work one day, and some don’t. When you’re trying to do something creative, there’s no one way. You should have a multitude of approaches to accomplish something: here are five for starters.”

1

Rather than going straight into drawing sketches, I often start by writing about the character. I try to get in their head. What they would do, day to day? Do they have friends or family?

2

I always ask myself: what do I want the audience to feel when they see this character? So sometimes I write scripts of what the character would say to other people. I also like to make little mind maps.

3

I don’t always start with words; something I’ll just jump into a sketchbook and start sketching thumbnails instead, to get my brain warmed up. At this point, I’m not really committing to showing anything to the client. It’s all for me.

4

It doesn’t matter what it looks like: I’m not bothered about making a pretty drawing at this point. I’m really just making sure that I can see potential in this idea.

5

The result of all this might be a couple of words, or a very rough and loose doodle. And then from there I’ll jump into SketchBook, and actually start thumbnailing different designs.