Seek Inspiration (cautiously)

All text and images excerpted from Designing Logos: The Process of Creating Symbols that Endure by Jack Gernsheimer, published by Allworth Press, 2008. Used by permission, all rights reserved.

A favorite professor of mine at Syracuse, M. Peter Piening, was a man many years my senior. He once told me that when he was stuck in the process of designing, he would go to the Sears catalog, close his eyes, open the book, and place his finger on the opened page. He would then open his eyes and see the closest thing to where he was pointing. Having done that, he would begin to make connections, no matter how obscure, between the object on the page and that entity for which he was designing. Once this process was initiated, a more liberated approach ensued and the creative logjam began to dissipate.

Using a strategy similar to the Sears catalog exercise, I have on numerous occasions gone to a Communication Arts or Graphis Design Annual for initial design inspiration. I did this not in search of a solution to a design problem I was facing, but in search of designs that, while unrelated to the project at hand, had something in common. That something was a design solution that was fresh, powerful, and relevant to that which it was representing.

Looking at page after page of world-class design is beneficial in two ways. First, one's standards are elevated by exposure to the best work being done internationally. Second, reviewing a few hundred outstanding designs, be they brochures, Web sites, or environmental graphics, usually results in a handful of stickies, marking pages to be revisited. Whether there's a motif, color palette, or image that jogs the creative process, by the time the design it influences is complete, the design should have-and usually does have-little or no resemblance to the inspirational source.