Ideas About Ideas

The source of the creative impulse is a mystery. Where do ideas come from?

Any theory about inspiration must be offered with certain reservations. Ideas may come from anywhere, anything, any time, any place. For the most part. however, I believe that they spring from rather unromantic, sometimes unexpected, or even unsavory sources.

The artist is a collector of things imaginary or real. He accumulates things with the same enthusiasm that a little boy stuffs his pockets. The scrap heap and the museum are embraced with equal curiosity. He takes snapshots, makes notes, records impressions on tablecloths or newspapers, on backs of envelopes or matchbooks. Why one thing and not another is part of the mystery, but he is omnivorous.

Wildly heterogeneous as his inspirational treasures appear, curiosity is the common denominator and the pleasure of discovery an important by-product. The artist takes note of that which jolts him into visual awareness. Without the harvest of visual experience he would be unable to cope with the plethora of problems, mundane or otherwise, that confronts him in his daily work.

These stencils were purchased in a Paris paintshop many years ago. The possible applications were many and varied, from book jackets to fabrics to advertisements. Formal rather than historic or fashionable considerations were reasons for using this typeface.

Ideas may also grow out of the problem itself which in turn becomes part of the solution. The coincidence of the letters OP in the magazine title with the initials of the company division name - Office Products - suggested this solution (IBM 1981).

The sources of pictorial ideas are without limit: a visit to the museum, a casual glance at a picture postcard, or shop window, or something seen the day before in a book or newspaper are potential stores of inspiration. This pro file with a staring eye, which /recalled seeing in a book on Etruscan art, prompted the idea for the illustration of this 1946 Container Corporation advertisement. The haunting eyes are germane to the message the advertisement is designed to convey.