MAKING MONSTERS

First thing you might ask is do we even NEED another article on design? I mean you go through the libraries and bookstores (or on-line) and there's a TON of stuff out there already. But maybe that's just the point, there's nothing with any “point” to it... They all tell you “this is the way to get Photoshop to make chrome type” or some such nonsense as that. Or they tell you how to make design following the “cookbook” approach, “take a dingbat and do this to it...””then make the color hex number 000995”. I didn't want to go that direction.

It is my firm belief that what is missing is the whole process of “ideation”. That is making and coming up with ideas. This process CAN be dissected and filleted with a little effort. We can do a “creative autopsy” and rebuild the monster any way we want once we know the secret of creation... brings up the old memory of “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein” where Dracula pulls out Dr. Frank's book “Prometheus Unbound, the Secret of Life”. YES, its all about how to be a MAD scientist!

So if we follow the metaphor a bit here's how it goes:
you dig up “dead bodies”, that is you look and see what has already been done in the design world or what the competition is doing.

Then you start constructing the beast out of various parts.

All this is done with the idea of making “him” better than all his parts. Its a “gestalt” kinda thing. The sum of the parts is greater than each of them seperately.

You then need to breath “life” into these bones. The idea needs to be hooked up with electricity. The “fire of the Gods” needs to come down from heaven and energize the work. It needs to sell product!

Of course if you REALLY want to do this sort of thing with graphic design you have be ready to live the solitary life alone in the castle, angry villagers are going to storm the castle carrying torches asking you to bring out the monster and so on. Not to mention you can't get good help, I mean that little hunchbacked guy is really not thinking when you ask for the “brains” to be brought in and rounded up.

So let us build a monster and in the mean time find out a little more on how ideas work and how to make them happen FAST! Keep in mind that you will be somewhere near the edge of the law, for those that are “strict” artists (I mean you REALLY are uptight, and have to do only “original” artwork) this is going to be an uncomfortable experience robbing the dead.