Creativity is my Currency

Two things have been constants in my life for over forty years. One is Graphic Design, and the other is the I Ching or Book of Changes as it is called by the Chinese. Both things are talking about pretty much the same thing — how to find harmony, beauty, and truth — one deals with 2 dimensions, paper, canvas, or screen, and the other deals with the psyche and society and relationships.

RELATIONSHIPS between elements — alignments, contrasts, color differences, when does something look wrong, and when does it look RIGHT? Is there an absolute rightness and wrongness? My abilities as a graphic designer took a quantum leap when I discovered that there WAS an absolute rightness place in the process of designing something, and when you hit that sweet spot, your design goes from good to great. If you overshoot the mark you start to lose the vibrancy. If you mess around too much with mediocre directions you miss the mark. I have found time and time again that if I follow the images that pop into my head at the beginning of a creative project a great idea will emerge. So it is requires judgment and receptivity.

Trusting First Instincts

For example — I recently created this image for my client Ashok Pannikar, for his blog about thinking and the image that popped into my head was the statue of RODIN, the Thinker, with some “sparks” around his head. When I shared it with my client he was concerned that it was an overused cliche, so I knew that I had to create an image that transcended “cliche.” 

It was AI that made the “creative leap” that led to an image that I could not have created or afforded to create with any authenticity. As I was searching for themes of democracy and asking it to integrate an image of Rodin and the statue of liberty, in a series of mediocre or overdone images there was this one:

This image became the cover of my client’s article
How to Think about Yet Another Consequential Election CLICK TO READ

The I CHING too, is all about relationships — between yin and yang, human and divine, male and female, right and wrong. It is a system of measuring consciousness, and it’s number system mirrors the DNA number system. And like graphic design, harmony, beauty, truth, alignments, contrasts, measurements, are it’s guiding lights. 

Where the two come together, the I Ching and Design, is that they have been — as ways of being or directions for my attention in my life– supreme teachers and guides, teaching me that there is a right way and a wrong way to EVERYTHING, and when I apply it to the development of my character and my consciousness, it makes Life itself the teacher, and all things are pointing me in the right direction, the tragedies and missteps, as well as the moments of brilliance that shine through when I’m Present and paying attention.