How to stay creative during pandemic
The original post is written on my website
Before pandemic, I was inspired by many things beyond internet when I was doing visual design. I try to look around and find beautiful color combinations and patterns in nature and in physical objects. I like to make mental notes when I travel a new city. I like to capture their street art, vibrant-colored buildings, local food and craft stores. Those are mainly visual notes in my brain. Sometimes they came back as they were or evolved with other while doing visual explorations. During pandemic, it has been very challenging to get these inspirations due to travel restrictions. Being in pandemic for more than a year, finding natural moments of inspiration is harder to have. However getting stuck on what makes me inspired in my pre-pandemic life was not the best way to look at it. I needed to look for new ways for my new normal. For that, I needed to look in a “new” way.
1. Identify your source of inspiration outside of your home and find substitutes for that
Before pandemic, I used to take pictures of anything looks vibrant when I travel: landscapes, buildings, patterns and food. I formed visual patterns in my head that was randomly popping out either in my work day or doing something creative as a side project. After the first months of first wave lockdowns in Berlin, I felt the need to get my creative juices flowing in other forms. Being in the apartment in cold, dark winter after long hours of screen time, I felt the need of finding offline outlet for creativity.
I got back to painting. I got rusty on using colors, different strokes of brushes. I even forgot how to choose the best canvas for my paintings. I ruined a lot of canvases with different color and shape explorations, combinations. However, I was simply enjoying the mix of colors. When I found the right contrast and harmony, I enjoyed even more. After numerous try-outs, I have settled in a baseline color palette that I was happy with. I have build a system of colors that simply, pleases me. Then it was more about what these shapes can represent. I have been inspired by many abstract portrait arts from different artists. Especially the faceless collections were my favorite. I like to use minimal cues to reflect something more complex. Those colors and interest in simplified representation of figures really inspired me to have a theme and purpose in my paintings. Then, I started painting the series of influential women, inspired by the stories of extraordinary women from the book called “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls” .
While I was in the search for creative outlets else where during pandemic, it directed me into a journey that I have not planned before. This was the power of inspiration and nonlinear creative process. The more I paint, the more I get connected with the stories of the women, that led me to focus on empowering my designers who joined right before and after pandemic. It gave me resilience during challenging times and help me reflect with them on topics around confidence, strength and being creative at work. I missed seeing colors and finding new forms of art when I traveled, I brought the color to my home.
2. Accept that it is hard to stay creative at the moment, focus on what being creative makes you feel
One of the moments of relief is to accept the fact that it will be hard in the beginning to stay creative. We are going through something none of us has been trained for or experienced in the past. There is no one to ask either. So, we all have to learn and adapt in some forms. Once you focus on what would make you happy instead of what is missing, you start unlocking your potential. It is also not helpful to assign yourself some stuff as a mandatory task to feel creative or productive. Just go with the flow and focus on your feelings you wish to have, not the fact that you cannot have them in the form you used to in pre-pandemic world. If I forced myself and said “I want to make 3–4 paintings over the weekend to keep myself productive and creative” I would have probably felt the pressure in myself and feel bad about not doing it when I am not motivated. If I focused on the fact that I am missing out on travel and not seeing new places, I might have missed out on one aspect of the travel that I really miss, about the creative outlet of the travel experience. I found that side of my experiences and tried to focus on that. I just simply missed seeing something “beautiful” and those were the things I have been naturally exposed to when I travel or visit a new neighborhood. I focused on the act of trying and creating. When I messed up my colors, I just let it go since I was already enjoying the therapeutical aspect of color mixing. Over the course of time, I have gotten better with finding base colors for my paintings, extended my brushes and found better canvases. My paintings only got better and it made me feel better. It helped me focus on making a progress than being perfect at something. That definitely unlocked the creativity on this painting to form a purpose in my life beyond just bringing the colors I have experienced in outside world.
3. Experiment with new routines or rituals
Everyone has a different way of handling the situation right now and we all have a different way to express creativity. It is more about broadening the opportunities of what you can do at home and allow yourself to try new things without chasing a certain outcome. If you like to sing, just try to sing one or two songs everyday in your apartment, find a karaoke version of those songs, does not matter to have a special talent or not. Write down how it makes you feel after trying this every day for a week. Does work for you? If it does, keep doing. If not, try something else. Allow yourself to engage with your feelings and use this opportunity to get to know yourself better. We all have enough time with ourselves so it is a great time to explore our superpowers and feelings.
You can also apply this to the routines at work with your team. The situation in the world is all very foreign to us and we need to allow experimenting different ways to engage our teams. It is important to make sure your team members are heard and empowered on a regular basis. You need to reflect together with the team on what works and what needs to be improved. Let yourself and your teams to explore new ideas and allow them to raise their ideas. When someone told me in 2019 that I will lead my newly formed design team first time all remote and during a global health crisis, I would have been overwhelmed and felt concerned. However, despite all the uncertainties, we had so many creative moments during our design sprints, ideation workshops or design critiques. This shows the true potential in us despite tough times, when experiment different ideas to stay engaged and creative as a team.
New ways of staying creative was possible for me by guiding myself with these three steps as I have mentioned above. I am sure there are plenty of other ways to explore and unlock more of your potential. From my perspective, if you identify what keeps you inspired outside your home and find new ways of experiencing something similar, you already open doors for exploration. In order to find creativity in your day to day, focus on identifying what feelings you are missing, not the activities you are withdrawn from during pandemic. You will also get creative about finding different ways to keep yourself happy and motivated. Lastly, allow yourself to experiment new routines without constraints. Try out for a certain amount of time and reflect on them. Continue and do more if it makes you happy and inspired. If not, try something new. Stay safe everyone!
