The subtle art of stepping into an idea — Martin Weigel

I usually don’t know what I want until someone shows me, or until I encounter it in the world for the very first time. That’s why, when I work with a creative professional like an illustrator, I am careful never to lead them too much about what silly ideas I think I have; I want to give them maximum freedom to put their own stamp of creativity on m... See more

The feel of things vs the think of things.

My mentor John Borthwick recently turned me to the phrase: “The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it.”

I’m thinking about how the only way to get better at making things is to make things, and to let the thinking happen inside the work – where you can judge a thing based on how it feels –... See more

First, you need to cultivate a deeper relationship with your gut. The more our world becomes measurable and quantifiable, the more we need spaces that preserve what can't be measured—the hunches we can't explain, the patterns we feel but can't prove. A jazz musician knows when to break rules in ways no theory explains. A good copywriter can feel wh... See more

Here are some other techniques people use to access and maintain the zone:

• Introducing a long delay between when you do the work and when it is shown to the world. Annie Ernaux writes about this in A Simple Passion, a memoir about how she becomes obsessed in a banal way with a man who is having an affair with her—the thought that others will read th

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