During the THU Career Camp, you can apply for mentorship sessions with various people from the industry. Unfortunately, one of the sessions I applied for never actually showed during the camp. The host of the session realized this and kindly proposed to the THU team another mentorship session in place of the one missed. As I see any opportunity to connect with those in the industry as a major win, I attended this. The only downfall was timing. Because of timezones and the differences, what was set for Thursday 24th 4 pm - 6 pm CET, is actually Friday 25th 4 am - 6 am NZDT. Luckily, thanks to the days prior with GTC and GDC, I am used to the early morning "look alive" meetings*.
*This doesn't mean I like it or am a fully functioning person, I can smile and wave like the Penguins of Madagascar told me to.
Many of the answers that had been discussed while speaking aren't written fully but paraphrased just because I cannot write and listen fast enough.
How Ideas Happen.
by Mike Jelinek
In this mentoring session, Jelinek mainly answered questions that had been previously submitted or popped up inside the chat, or if someone unmuted their microphone in the call/raised their hand (with that feature in Zoom).
To start off he went through questions he had on a document (names and emails have been edited out of the screenshot, and excuse the tick marks, this screenshot was taken after he had started answering the questions).
So the first questions revolve around art/creative block, how to get around it, and what it is.
Most people know what creative block is or have experienced it themselves. Jelinek used Neil Gaiman as an example; where Neil Gaiman still forces himself to work so that he can distinguish the bad days from the good. A lot of the time, we see ourselves at the end which puts us into a convergent thinking mode or executive mode, where we have to have a final product when we should be moving to a divergent mode. To get into this we can walk to stimulate ideation, or we can sketch. Jelinek showed us his "Trash Can Doodles" book full of paper that had things like printouts/handouts and drawings on the back that could have been from meetings, conferences, and the like.
We are expected to deliver- that is the biggest killer.
Q: do you doodle something related to the creative block? or random stuff to clear your head away from the problem-solving mode?
A: Instead of working with the [object], I work on the environment. Context is key.
Jelinek then took the time to mention John Cleese's Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide as a good reading. He then went on to talk about "Meeting Doodles", the kinds of random drawings we do when we've lost interest in a meeting. They can be on any paper and can be anything. He tells us that we should let our minds explore and go quantitative rather than qualitative.
Another reading to look at was Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought by Barbara Tversky. Even though it is on psychology it is a great book to learn about how we think and abstraction.
The second lot of questions asks if there are any good habits to help productivity and idea generation, and what potential new ideas would a recruiter want to see.
Verbalize everything - it helps sometimes to say things aloud as it can help with putting a mental image together.
Deaugmentation - reversing the use of the tool or using an inappropriate tool. An example of this was the creator of the computer mouse, they used a brick tapped to someone's hand to prove that it was not an effective tool for a computer/as a mouse. Someone in the chat mentioned the "Worst Moon Taxi" as a way to challenge yourself with ideation and to get out of the creative block.
To answer the recruitment question Jelinek said that specific roles would need specific paintings/art. Some ask about how you think, like how you show your thinking on the page. He mentioned that he met Frank Stephenson- car designer for Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and McLaren to name a few- and had been doodling on some paper. Stephenson took one look at the paper and said that he would hire Jelinek just for his ideation and thinking-drawing alone. It was because he could see how Jelinek thought within the doodles that he'd get hired. Jelinek has a book of old handouts bound together as a "Trash Doodles" book. It can be proof enough to get hired because of how it demonstrates your thinking process.
Someone said:
I agree, "polished" was all I had presented UNTIL all the feedback I recieved at CTNX were "I want to see your process. Your rough sketches, doodles... How did you get to this point?". I did not realize how much value the "rough" works of my art was because I "felt" it did not seem "professional".
Q: How do you choose what to work on when starting a portfolio piece? Sometimes I get so many ideas that I don't even know which one to choose and I just get mentally blocked.
A: "Leave some space for the things you are proud of." It can be full of all the things you want to do but also needs a reserved space for thinking.
The next question was on originality. And that once they realize what they want to do has been/is being done they lose motivation. In my mind, when seeing the question, I automatically think that there is nothing original at this point. To me, most things are either recycling the same [thing] or are mixed from different inspirations. Jelinek talked about how we are measured by what people see and that we will always be compared to each other in the industry. We can learn from each other but we can also learn from nature. One thing he was quite adamant about was not filling portfolios with fanart, this could be of people you are a fan of (the art of a celeb or character) or an artist's work. What you can make is "love letters" to see the work through someone else's eyes. You can use another's tools that inspire you, but you should be transparent about it. Honesty is better than originality.
Q: Hi, Perhaps to add to a previous question, how do you balance the creativity and sketches when building a portfolio with trying to show more work that may be more presentable to a company/studio(the more standard stuff)
A: Jelinek showed us one printed portfolio book on his design works, highly finished/polished but had pages of sketches to show some of the ideation. He had done this on purpose, tailoring a portfolio for a specific design role. It's best to optimize for a role or recruiter, because as Jelinek says, "It's like comparing babies." (talking about Sophie's Choice by William Styron, which Jelinek briefly goes over the story just for context).
The "White/Blank Canvas", an artist's enemy, idealizing a design and it not being how we want, and we're taught techniques and rules but barely ever have time to discuss ideas and creativity. Immediately we were given another reading, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman, as something to check out. And he raises something from Dr Anil Seth, "Our brain is set to crashing ambiguity of choices. 85% of what we see is the brain's construction. Blank canvases have nothing, so how can we create from nothing?" Jelinek talks about how even just a random squiggle can become something- finding something from nothing. These choices are not random- everything we consume is a map of our cognitive thinking. He never thought he was talented, he was just driven for ideation and practising.
It is very hard to communicate what is in our heads (our cognitive load). A good way to offload this cognitive load is by externalizing it, so putting it on paper. Sketching can be the same. What we want (idealized art) is not always what we get. Doodles, mockups, sketches, acting, can be great tools for this. Virtual Reality and using your own body can be great for this too.
We are taught techniques and rules but not ideation- Jelinek's PhD is based on this. In the future, he hopes to create a curriculum around ideation. And now that real-time is available, ideation became more important- 10 years ago this was not the same. The older creators feel that ideation is their uniqueness and have a negative look on ideation.
The concept of ideation (and the word itself) does not exist in all languages, so if you do not know, it can be hard to explain how you came up with ideas. Some people use conceptualization in place of ideation but Jelinek feels that they aren't quite the same, or at least not enough to use the words interchangeably.
Someone in the chat said:
"Came for the ideas, stayed for the philosophy."
Jelinek next looked at the question to do with feeling overwhelmed with the freedom you have in a concept. He said that [you] can apply context or limitations. Get conditions and it can define what is wanted or expected. Talking is a part of the ideation process and feedback from other colleagues- take others' ideas. Live sketching, talking, and sharing are good ways to combat the freedom. Too much freedom can be like a blank canvas.
He then kind of moves to a different series of questions, discussing making a story and being unable to start at the beginning, usually having a vague idea of the middle, the end is hard to even think of and the beginning is worse yet. To which Jelinek said (and I'm paraphrasing/writing in my own words here) that you do not always have to follow the 3 act structure, you don't even need all of a story.
These next sets of notes I have no idea where they fall, I may have missed a question that was in the chat at the time. It is still good advice, I just don't have its context. It may have something to do with the last question from the image about getting new ideas with a "different flavor."
Jelinek starts this off with, "Even if you practice a lot it might be counterproductive." He talks about how muscle memory can cause [you] to fall into routine and stop or prevent new or fresher art- that different art. Artbreeder or Gaugan can be good for this, both are AI-generated art websites. While AI cannot create art pieces with intent, it can take the knowledge of different artists. It can be much like keeping artbooks around you. But it does need human input. New tools can aid in design, you can now focus on what you wanted to do rather than what you have to. This relates back to when you had to animate the fire before you could start on the actually important piece (to you).
There were some more reading material given to us as well as his website with some of the readings on it. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture by Juhani Pallasmaa, Livewired by David Eagleman, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David J. Chalmers.
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