i started the creative columns with designers’ block, a creative problem. this month i will be adding another item to our list of problems; creative overflow.

creative overflow is something which happens to people who are very creative and have a hard time stopping that activity. their minds create more ideas their brain and body can handle, resulting into some catastrophic outcomes.

it is a problem some of us have to face. for a long time this predicament has been unknown to the public. until now! read on to find out what creative overflow is, how you can identify it, what harm it can cause, how you might possibly cure it and finally its great power when harnessed.

before i continue, it is imaginable that you might not have fully grasped the concept of creative overflow yet. that’s why i will try to explain this as simple as i can.

if you would see the generation of ideas as the generation of fecal matter, then a normal process is simply generating an idea and writing or drawing it down. this is similar to taking a dump; you get rid of the stuff inside you.
however, what if you were unable to knit that brown sweater, unable to lose those ideas? that could cause some congestion. that’s what creative overflow is like; unable to stop the motion of things and filling up like a balloon [i will get to the pop later].

for you non-designers there is an important learning moment [yes, i do learning moments]; how to identify an overflowing designer. because having a creative overflow is one thing, but having some ignoramus making it worse by providing fresh input for more ideas is not gonna make my day [the “fresh input” denotes any communication from and to the overflowing designer, because that is all it takes for him to form an idea].

identification can take place on either a visual or an audible level. visual identification is easy; just follow the light. the creation of an idea spawns a light-bulb above your head. a creative overflow resembles multiple light-bulbs above ones head, rapidly growing in numbers. and i don’t think you’ll be able to miss such a bright sight. the bigger the idea, the bigger the light-bulb.
identification within hearing range can become difficult in most urban situations. however, the more silent areas offer good hope in finding an overflow. just listen for that mysterious “pling”-sound. that’s the sound a new idea makes when it comes to mind and generates the according light-bulb. the bigger the idea, the louder the sound.

but beware! if you see someone walking around with a huge light-bulb there is a good chance he will create more huge ideas. and let me tell you; when that thing “plings” you don’t wanna be around. i was told that a pling at that loudness and frequency could potentially bring down an adjacent building.

so how is this creative overflow gonna do any harm to your persona you ask? that depends on the creative overflow itself.

a mild creative overflow will bother you to some extent. keep you distracted from your environment and the people around you. it will most likely cause nothing more than a few lost social contacts and small to medium accidents. nothing to really worry about here.

everything above a mild overflow will keep you awake the whole night and never provide you with any mental rest. forget buddhism, yoga or any other zen-creator for that matter. this is beyond your cure, mere mortals do not have the power to end this. having identified this you will strike fame and glory with those ideas [like genetically-altered bananas with zippers] until you finally go insane. from there on it is a straight right into the mental institution where you spend your final days desperately trying to convince people of your innovative capabilities.

so how are we gonna get rid of this problem? i heard cyanide is a good cure, but then again that would end all your problems. you could do what you normally would do: write or draw it down. that usually creates a little bit more room in your mind-drive. however, a person suffering from creative overflow will most likely run out of paper fast. and when he finally gets that promised set of e-readers with e-ink he is probably going to need a pair of faster moving fingers.

and what about one of those direct links to your brain they’re working on? such a technology has a lot of potential. but downloading all those ideas at high speed is going to require some serious juice. i don’t know about you though, but i am not all that down with a fuel-cell battery up my behind.

another option could be to use some kind of medicine that will paralyze your brain. this way your mind could stop generating ideas. but having said that i am also afraid it might stop doing other things, like telling your lungs to breath.

nonetheless i cannot depart without discussing the power of creative overflow. there have been some occasions where certain people where able to harness the greater force that is called creative overflow. these people come up with the best ideas in the world at the speed of light [or something else really, really fast]. thanks to those eternally-overflowing designers we now have: doggles, vista, flexplay, gizmondo, pippin and many more great ideas [feel free to click these links for more information on those fabulous ideas].

so, dear reader, i have shown you one of the most mysterious problems of creative people. i hope you take value of the things you learned today. please share your insights and opinions below, even if you are new to our studio. tell us what you think, even if you are not familiar with coherent problems, we value all opinions.

jan van der asdonk is a contributor to studio469 in the shape of his creative spamming, manifesting itself in his somewhat distorted views and theories of the world around him. feedback, topic requests and fan mail are all very welcome at jan@studio469.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 8:00 and is filed under Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.