Creativity & Genre

This week, we discussed the importance of the creative process when going out to begin a project. To build a solid foundation, we began by watching a TED Talk called The Theory of Creativity by Duncan Wardle. This presentation went into depth on the importance of creativity in the modern world and how it will be a core function of succeeding in the present and future. During his TED Talk, Wardle states, “...if we’re not curious and if we’re not playful I believe that when it comes to the next decade, creativity and intuition, they’ll be our survival skills...”. This quote alone has shown that the creative process is very important because it can be a key part to our survival in the future. Not only did we watch a TED Talk on the importance of the creative process, but we also read an article that went into depth on this as well. 

The article we read was “An Interview with Ron Beghetto: Subtle Nuances of Creativity in Learning and Life.” by the author Michael F. Shaughnessy. This article discussed Ron Beghetto’s thoughts on creativity and the learning process. He believes that people should grow their confidence in order for them to take creative risks in their lives. This confidence will be able to allow them to pursue more creative projects. When discussing creative projects, Beghetto states, “Not only do such activities help young people identify and recognize their own creative strengths, but also provide them with an opportunity to make a real-world creative contribution to others.”. This struck a chord with me, it made me realize that just by working creatively by myself, I am training myself to make these contributions in real-world situations.  

The importance of the creative process is not the only thing I focused on. I also had done research into other magazines and authors that are in the same genre I am attempting to embody with my own magazine. Two authors I researched are Jess Faraan and Sarah Dyer. Both of these authors publish very different content, but I like bits and pieces of what each of them do. Jess Faraan is a photographer that publishes zines full of her own photography, with no text. These photos embody an aesthetic I want to bring into my own magazine. These photos show emotion and creativity in the form of everyday people and objects. What I would do differently from her work is that I would include text in my magazine, while she does not. Sarah Dyer was a writer for the Action Girl newsletter. This was a newsletter that embodied the riot girl movement of the 1990’s, which was a movement based on punk feminism and liberation for women. What inspires me about Sarah Dyer’s writing is its pure breaking of societal norms and how it goes against the grain. How I would differentiate from this, however, is that my writing would not be in the same format that it is in her newsletter, and I won't be discussing the same topics that she discusses, and I will be including photography in my magazine. 

The vision I currently have for my magazine is a magazine that is just as aesthetically pleasing as it is enjoyable to read. I want to have both my pictures and my physical literary content in my magazine to be both interesting and out of the ordinary. I think this approach will end up creating the best content because I have never been interested in creating something that is, to simply put it, boring.