•:*Creativity*:•

TED Talks are all “the buzz” these days and I absolutely love them! I find them so motivating and inspiring; I wish I had discovered them sooner! We watched two TED Talks today, one from Amy Tan and the other from Elizabeth Gilbert. Amy Tan is better known for her novel, The Joy Luck Club, and Elizabeth Gilbert for her novel, Eat, Pray, Love. I found both talks to be interesting, but I found Elizabeth Gilbert’s to be more appealing and more inspirational. Gilbert was more entertaining and she presented some thought provoking ideas like where creativity possibly comes from. She began by discussing her book, Eat, Pray, Love and how it became a best seller. People had been constantly asking her if she would ever be able to create another best seller or if that was it? Gilbert found herself thinking about the typical artist stereotype and how mentally unstable masters of the arts had been in the past and in the present; it seems as though all artists eventually die for the art. Well, this idea didn’t sit well with Gilbert and she started to reference back to Greek and Roman origins of creativity where creativity was given to a person by a sort of spirit. What if creativity was only on loan to you by some higher or other worldly source? What if creativity didn’t belong to you? She believes that by utilizing this way of thinking, artists could potentially be saved from becoming mentally unstable later in life.

            The rest of the class period was spent discussing graphic designers as the creators of culture. I find this to be incredibly true; we, as graphic designers, are able to initiate and promote change through visual communication. Sustainable design is a growing trend in modern society to help promote lifestyle changes that will lead to the betterment of the environment.