The Creative Power of Constraints

Summary

“I don’t remember ever being forced to accept compromises, but I have willingly accepted constraints.” — Charles Eames One of the most marvelous aspects of the human experience is creativity. Yet, for those in the business of creativity, the creative act can be both the most rewarding and the most frustrating experience in life. Sometimes the mind is drenched in free, flowing ideas. Other times, the mind feels just like a desert, producing nothing. The Eames Institute · Leica CL · 23mm · f/2 · 1/60 · ISO 320 A single factor determining the difference between those two states appears to be constraint. Some often think of creativity as conjuring something out of nothing. However, it is far from that as told in common sayings. “Everything is a remix” — creative work responds to what came before. “Thinking outside the box” — novel ideas acknowledge and break out of previous limitations. Graphic designer Michael Bierut says, “the problem contains the solution”, a saying he took to heart with his long-running series of posters for the Yale School of Architecture. Several posters from the series Constraints are the primordial soup from which creativity arises. These constraints can be imposed on the creator or devised by the creator themselves. Most commonly, they are a combination of both. Have too many constraints and you get Santa Fe Pueblo Revival architecture — works tightly constrained to ensure uniformity rather than creativity. While beautiful, the Pueblo Revival style will never product something new. Pueblo Revival in Santa Fe · Leica CL · 23mm · f/10 · 1/60 · ISO 125 Have few constraints and you get the problem of the blank page, offering too much possibility and often paralyzing the creator. With just the right amount of constraints, creativity becomes almost an inevitability. This phenomenon is best seen in constraints where a specific format encourages a seemingly neverending list of solutions. pwnisher CG challenge YouTuber pwnisher runs 3D challenges where ...