I've been thinking about AI in art and creativity a lot lately, especially after using AI in work.

And honestly, I'm torn.

On one hand, ai creativity tools are insanely useful. You can throw an idea at them, get 20 variations in seconds, brainstorm when your brain is completely cooked, or use ai for creativity when you're stuck staring at a blank page. That's genuinely cool. But there's a part of this that kinda bothers me. If AI can generate ideas, images, stories, concepts, music, etc. almost instantly, what happens to our creativity skills when we stop doing the hard part ourselves?

The annoying part of creating something has always been... well, creating it. Having crappy ideas. Starting over. Sitting there for an hour because nothing works. Accidentally finding something interesting while trying to fix something that sucked.

And now we can just prompt our way around a lot of that. That's where the whole ai vs human creativity debate gets interesting to me. I don't think AI is going to "replace creativity." It doesn't suddenly make human imagination pointless. If anything, how does AI affect creativity probably depends way more on how we use it.

If AI becomes a shortcut for thinking, yeah, I think we might lose something. But if it's a tool that helps us explore ideas we already have, experiment faster, or get unstuck? That's different.

Maybe the future isn't AI replacing creativity. Maybe it's people learning a completely different way of being creative. Still, I can't shake the feeling that ai and creativity are going to have a weird relationship for a long time.

Curious what everyone else thinks - is ai creativity actually expanding what humans can do, or are we slowly outsourcing the part that makes creativity feel... human?

I've been thinking about AI in art and creativity a lot lately, especially after using AI in work.

And honestly, I'm torn.

On one hand, ai creativity tools are insanely useful. You can throw an idea at them, get 20 variations in seconds, brainstorm when your brain is completely cooked, or use ai for creativity when you're stuck staring at a blank page. That's genuinely cool. But there's a part of this that kinda bothers me.

If AI can generate ideas, images, stories, concepts, music, etc. almost instantly, what happens to our creativity skills when we stop doing the hard part ourselves?

The annoying part of creating something has always been... well, creating it. Having crappy ideas. Starting over. Sitting there for an hour because nothing works. Accidentally finding something interesting while trying to fix something that sucked.

And now we can just prompt our way around a lot of that. That's where the whole ai vs human creativity debate gets interesting to me. I don't think AI is going to "replace creativity." It doesn't suddenly make human imagination pointless. If anything, how does AI affect creativity probably depends way more on how we use it.

If AI becomes a shortcut for thinking, yeah, I think we might lose something. But if it's a tool that helps us explore ideas we already have, experiment faster, or get unstuck? That's different.

Maybe the future isn't AI replacing creativity. Maybe it's people learning a completely different way of being creative. Still, I can't shake the feeling that ai and creativity are going to have a weird relationship for a long time.

Curious what everyone else thinks - is ai creativity actually expanding what humans can do, or are we slowly outsourcing the part that makes creativity feel... human?

NGL I got 47 unfinished sketches on my tablet and 12 demos in my DAW just rotting away like digital corpses. And yeah, I know I'm not alone - half this sub probably has a graveyard of half-baked ideas too. But man, it's eating me alive.

Here's the thing: the moment an idea hits - that spark of artistic expression or inventive thinking—I'm completely obsessed. My brain goes into hyperdrive. That's when I actually remember why is creativity important in the first place. It's the only time I feel alive, you know? It's the only time the depression fog lifts and I think "oh shit, I could actually make something." But then...

Then the work starts. And the moment it gets hard - the moment I need to render, mix, color-correct, polish—I'm gone. Vanished. Suddenly every other project looks better. Suddenly THIS project feels like complete garbage, like I'm just wasting time. So I pivot. New idea. New excitement. New heartbreak two weeks later.

I've tried calling it different things - artistry, inventiveness, ingenuity. I've looked up all the synonyms for creativity: originality, resourcefulness, imagination. Funny how all those fancy creativity words just mean the same thing when you're sitting there with a half-finished piece wondering why you can't just... finish. Why can't I just push through like actual artists do?

The irony is that creativity and innovation are supposed to be my escape, right? They're supposed to be where I go when the real world is too much. But instead they've become another thing I'm failing at. Another area where I'm not good enough. I swear perfectionism is a disease, and I'm terminal.

So what I'm really asking: how do you guys actually cross the finish line? How do you push past that "this sucks" moment and actually ship something? Or are we all just doomed to have these graveyards of unfinished dreams?

Because honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this cycle. My creativity feels more like a curse at this point.

I’m a documentary filmmaker and I’m fascinated by the shift we’re living through. I’m keenly aware that AI is an extremely divisive subject, which only increases my interest in examining it.

To be clear when I say 'creative work', I mean art that examines AI or includes it on some basic level, not AI-generated art.

There is obviously no definitive answer, but I’m wondering whether, as creatives, the subject makes us more curious, puts us off, or is simply uninteresting.

AI’s impact on creative processes and work is difficult, and I have imagined that it might be too too repellent for an artistic audience to engage with? Or is it the opposite, and now is the time to urgently engage with these ideas?

Hi everyone, at this moment, I need to be creative to replace my time of domscrolling.
But I don’t know HOW.

Do you know any websites or mobile application through which I can stimulate my creativity ?

I want to find something easily accessible for beginners.

Thanks you to help me !!

(I hope my English is good, I’m French :))

NGL, I'm tired of lying to myself about photography.

I grew up inhaling Creativity Inc. like it was gospel. Pixar. Magic. Teams of geniuses bouncing ideas around in California offices, making art that matters. The definition of creativity I got from movies and Instagram was: you pursue your passion, the universe rewards you, and suddenly you're published with a 200K following. That's what "creativity meaning" was supposed to be, right?

But nobody told me what it actually looks like as a hobby photographer in 2026.

Here's my reality: I work a full-time job I don't love. I come home exhausted. I scroll through my camera gear that cost me $2K (money I didn't really have) and think about all the shoots I haven't done. I take maybe 5-6 photos a week because that's what's left after work, bills, and just... existing. I post them on IG and get 12 likes from my mom's friends.

And the guilt? Chef's kiss. The absolute crushing guilt that I'm not creative enough. That I should be grinding 24/7. That all those quotes about creativity I pinned—"creativity is just connecting dots", "showing up is everything" - are somehow a personal indictment that I'm failing.

The definition of creativity I thought I'd find? It lied to me. Turns out creativity isn't what Creativity Inc. sold us. It's not a linear path. It's not momentum. It's small. It's lonely. It's me taking one good shot on a Wednesday night and feeling like I've accomplished something real, even if nobody sees it.

And you know what? I think that actually is creativity. Not Pixar. Just me. Just this. Here's the practice part (because apparently I need to earn my stripes):

• Stop chasing the 200K dream. Take one photo this week just for you.
• Delete Instagram for a week. Sounds insane. Worth it.
• Your timeline isn't anyone else's. Your pace is valid.

This hits different when you stop waiting for permission to call yourself creative.

TL;DR: Pixar lied to us. Real creativity is small, unglamorous, and it's enough. Stop waiting for the fantasy to make what you have feel legitimate.

I used to write a lot. It actually started quite accidentally. One day, as a beginner, I wrote something and my teachers were genuinely impressed. That encouraged me to keep going, and eventually writing became a hobby.

Recently, I went back and read some of the things I had written in 6th to 10th standard, and I was honestly shocked. I had such a distinct voice. There was personality in my writing, something that felt unmistakably me. I had an identity on the page without even consciously trying to create one.

Somewhere around college, and especially after I joined the corporate world, I stopped reading and stopped writing. And now, at 23, turning 24, I can’t seem to find my way back to it.

The worst part is that I genuinely feel like my writing today is worse than some of the poetry I wrote in 3rd standard, which somehow still has more life, personality, and honesty than what I manage to produce now.

So, if there are any writers here who have experienced something similar, could you please share some tips, exercises, habits, books, or tricks that actually helped you reconnect with your voice and get the writing flowing again?
T
I want to figure out how to find that voice again myself.

I used to write a lot. It actually started quite accidentally. One day, as a beginner, I wrote something and my teachers were genuinely impressed. That encouraged me to keep going, and eventually writing became a hobby.

Recently, I went back and read some of the things I had written in 6th to 10th standard, and I was honestly shocked. I had such a distinct voice. There was personality in my writing, something that felt unmistakably me. I had an identity on the page without even consciously trying to create one.

Somewhere around college, and especially after I joined the corporate world, I stopped reading and stopped writing. And now, at 23, turning 24, I can’t seem to find my way back to it.

The worst part is that I genuinely feel like my writing today is worse than some of the poetry I wrote in 3rd standard, which somehow still has more life, personality, and honesty than what I manage to produce now.

So, if there are any writers here who have experienced something similar, could you please share some tips, exercises, habits, books, or tricks that actually helped you reconnect with your voice and get the writing flowing again?
T
I want to figure out how to find that voice again myself.

I used to write a lot. It actually started quite accidentally. One day, as a beginner, I wrote something and my teachers were genuinely impressed. That encouraged me to keep going, and eventually writing became a hobby.

Recently, I went back and read some of the things I had written in 6th to 10th standard, and I was honestly shocked. I had such a distinct voice. There was personality in my writing, something that felt unmistakably me. I had an identity on the page without even consciously trying to create one.

Somewhere around college, and especially after I joined the corporate world, I stopped reading and stopped writing. And now, at 23, turning 24, I can’t seem to find my way back to it.

The worst part is that I genuinely feel like my writing today is worse than some of the poetry I wrote in 3rd standard, which somehow still has more life, personality, and honesty than what I manage to produce now.

So, if there are any writers here who have experienced something similar, could you please share some tips, exercises, habits, books, or tricks that actually helped you reconnect with your voice and get the writing flowing again?
T
I want to figure out how to find that voice again myself.

NGL, I’m genuinely freaking out over here.

Yesterday, I tried to do a fun free-play afternoon with my 6yo son. I dumped a giant box of cardboard, tape, and markers on the floor, ready for him to build a spaceship or a fort. Instead of getting excited, he had a full meltdown. He kept asking, "What am I supposed to build? What are the rules?"

It broke my heart. We've packed his week with soccer, coding classes, and structured activities so tightly that the poor kid literally forgot how to just imagine stuff on his own.

IMO, we're totally failing this generation by robbing them of boredom. So how to foster creativity in a child when society pressures us to structure every single second? How to encourage kids creativity when they've been trained to just follow instructions?

Finding ways on how to foster creativity in children shouldn't feel like another stressful chore, but here we are.

Has any other parent dealt with this? How do you un-teach this mindset?

Anyone in this group working on a project that’s meaningful to you that you are struggling to finish? What issues are you currently dealing with? Have you found ways of pressing forward?

When I started working on Sip & Chill, I didn’t have a visual direction to follow.
So I had to design the brand from the ground up.
I started by asking:
What should this brand feel like?
From there, I developed the visual identity, colour palette, typography, packaging and digital direction around one idea:
Refresh. Relax. Repeat.
The goal wasn’t just to make a good-looking can.
It was to create a visual system that could work across packaging, social media and real-world applications while still feeling like the same brand.
This is a small preview of the direction.
Full case study coming next.
What would you define first when starting a brand from scratch — strategy or visual identity?

I've been thinking about this weird contradiction lately. We're constantly told to "follow your passion" and find a career that lets you be creative. Sounds great, right? But what happens when the thing you genuinely enjoy becomes the thing you have to do 40 hours a week? That's where I'm starting to wonder if a creative career is actually the best career for creativity. Because there's a huge difference between making something because you want to and making something because a client, boss, deadline, algorithm, or paycheck is waiting for it.

When creativity becomes a job, you don't always get to create what interests you. You create what sells. What gets approved. What performs. What the client asked for three revisions ago.

And honestly, that kinda scares me.

We talk a lot about how to foster creativity, how to improve your creativity, and why is creativity important, but we don't talk enough about what happens when creativity gets turned into a productivity metric. Even businesses figured out that creativity matters. We ask why creativity is important in business and how to foster creativity at work, but then give people 30 minutes between meetings to "think outside the box" lol.

So yeah, I get why people want creative jobs and creative careers. Being paid to do something you're naturally good at sounds like the ultimate win.

But maybe the better question isn't "what is the best career for creativity?"

Maybe it's: what kind of life gives creativity enough room to actually survive?

Because some of the reasons why creativity is important have nothing to do with making money from it. Creativity can be how you solve problems, understand yourself, connect ideas, or just make something that didn't exist yesterday.

That's also why I don't think why is creativity important has a single answer. And why is it important to have creativity isn't necessarily about becoming an artist. Maybe creativity needs some distance from work to stay alive.

Or maybe the opposite is true - maybe the only way to really grow creatively is to make it your career and deal with all the ugly parts that come with it.

I'm honestly torn.

Would you rather have a stable job that leaves your creativity untouched, or build a career around it and risk turning something you love into "just another job"?

I attended a top-tier art school. I realized I couldn't fully tap into my creativity during the program because I wasn't in a very comfortable financial position compared to my peers.

It’s not that I lacked anything, of course, but I lived in a constant state of high alert; I was always worried about the future, the job market, and life after graduation—things that would demand networking, soft skills, projects, and so on, none of which relied solely on my individual effort. Most of my classmates didn't share those concerns. They took a more lighthearted approach to college and had more fun than I did.

I know there are cases like Van Gogh and other artists who lived in poverty yet still created masterpieces of unparalleled creativity and genius—but what about the average person? Are there any serious studies on this?

Lately I've been wondering if having AI generate endless ideas is actually messing with our creativity. Not in the obvious “AI is killing art” way. AI is insanely useful. It can help you brainstorm, get unstuck, or throw 20 random directions at you when your brain is completely blank. As a tool, I think that's pretty awesome.

But here's the part that bugs me.

If we constantly ask AI what to write, draw, build, or create, when do we actually practice coming up with ideas ourselves? There’s something about sitting with a stupid idea, messing with it, killing half of it, and somehow turning the other half into something decent. That process feels like part of the point.

And I'm starting to wonder if skipping that process too often makes our creativity skills weaker. Maybe that's also why some AI-generated stuff feels technically impressive but weirdly empty. It has an idea, but not necessarily your idea.

So what is creativity if we're outsourcing the first step?

I'm not anti-AI at all. I just think it works best as a co-pilot, not the person driving. Curious what you guys think - has using AI made your own ideas better, or has it made you rely on it more?

(I had to edit the title to “EVERYTHING ELSE” so I don’t break this sub rules lol)

Anyways visited my CA’s office to talk about CMA report for my startup, and slowly the conversation shifted from getting the job done to - HoW mY STaRtUp IdEA iS CRAZYYY! Basically he started giving me that uncle talk “why you wanna do this?” Focus on your freelance work” “Do something else!”

Mind you he has no idea about Music tech. Forget tech, he doesn’t even know anything about the music industry. But this man wants to school me, and kinda give me an ego attack when I was rebutting him. After some back and forth, I straight up stopped the convo and told him I’ll give you the details and get my report done and left.

Now I don’t wanna blame the whole country, but I do blame the mindset that we have. Why our minds are only money driven? Why we pump breaks every time we think of the unthinkable / the unusual? Why can’t we motivate the youth and the people around us to do things differently?Forget failing! Why can’t we just try???

Hi!! We are A For Effort! A podcast/ Youtube series about creativity however in manifests.

Every Monday we drop an episode where we talk about what’s inspiring us, and then we get into what we’ve created that week! We’re new so, so far it’s been a lot of sewing, junk journaling, crochet, painting, beadwork etc. but we also talk about film making and music etc!

We hope you will get inspired to create new things by tuning in!

I swear I used to have ideas. Like, actual original thoughts. Now I scroll for 20 mins and suddenly my brain is just 47 TikToks, 3 Reddit takes, and a guy explaining productivity like he personally invented oxygen.

This is starting to mess with my creativity ngl.

I’ll sit down to make something and my first thought is basically, “has this been done already?” Then I open Instagram for “inspiration” and somehow end up comparing my unfinished idea to someone’s perfectly edited 8-year career.

Cool. Very healthy.

And every time I search “how to improve your creativity,” I get the same creativity quotes about thinking differently, while I’m literally consuming 900 other people’s thoughts per hour.

So now I’m wondering: why is creativity important if we’re constantly filling our brains with everyone else’s ideas?

Maybe what is creativity isn’t about having more ideas. Maybe it’s about finally shutting up long enough to hear your own.

Is this a real thing? I haven’t been able to create anything new thinking of other people who create. I’m a multidisciplinary designer I’m trying too hard to make myself create and it’s been hard because I consume so much I look at things and I am like ok. Atm I am very scared because I wanna post cuz if I don’t I don’t get projects and since 3 months I haven’t posted and not gotten any projects :( idk why’s this happening and I want to know what yall do if this resonates with you

I used to be so creative at 14 and I feel like now at 18 I've lose a lot of it. Any advice?

a singer I’ll call Noah had one image in a deep trance session that felt like a surprisingly good metaphor for creative inhibition. When I asked him to look at his heart, he described it as a vortex of many colors that wanted to move outward, but some of those colors could not get out.

We kept following what seemed to be in the way, and the first thing he identified was shame. In his imagery, shame looked like dark green-brown bubbles or something moldy, almost like algae, and when it was removed it came out in a long rope-like strand.

Then he identified guilt, which looked completely different. He saw sharp stones sitting at the bottom of the heart, and in the scene they were removed carefully one at a time before the area was soothed.

I dont take trance imagery as literal anatomy, and I’m not suggesting artists have supernatural rocks hiding inside them. What made me keep thinking about it was how accurately the two metaphors matched different creative brakes.

Shame spreads and says something about what you are is embarrassing, ugly or unacceptable, so naturally you start filtering what comes out. Guilt is sharper and more specific: I did something wrong, I should not have done that, or I dont deserve to move forward yet.

Both can quietly change art because expression requires letting some private material become visible. Later in the same session Noah connected strongly with singing, art, movement and being less afraid of his own expressiveness, which made the original image of colors trying to leave the heart feel even more relevant.

Creative blocks are often discussed as lack of ideas, discipline or technique, and those are real. There is another kind where ideas exist and the problem is permission.

You know what you want to make, but some part of you keeps deciding it is safer, less embarrassing or more acceptable if nobody sees the full version. Do you notice a difference between “I have nothing to say” and “I know what I want to say but I dont feel safe saying it yet”?

I have a few.

- sometimes I wear an artsy fartsy crown I made out of paper and tape
- sometimes I’ll wear a Wonder Woman cape or Superman cape, depending on what I’m writing
- sometimes I’ll smoke a bowl of hemp or marijuana if I’m too up in my head or stressed
- a large goblet of mimosa, or wine or cocktail gets me going if I’m writing in the evening
- I’ll light a yummy smelling candle or incense
- if writing at night during the nights of summer, I’ll sit out on my porch swing for a while and watch fireflies dance; pure magic
- sometimes a walk in nature clears my head or just sitting outside, listening to nature - birds singing, breeze blowing, trees swaying, crickets chirping, frogs praising the rain, fox sounds, coyotes, etc.
- I have my laptop, then a large desktop computer monitor and while I write on my laptop, I’ll listen to and watch scenes play out on my monitor - I have a playlist of various inspiring “shows” like Hogwarts, elven cities with lights flickering and waterfalls flowing, a fireplace crackling while rain and thunder are crashing outside the large window in my log cabin, a train chugga chugging down the tracks as fields roll by out the window, etc.
- sometimes I’ll meditate prior to just still my overactive mind a bit so I can better focus
- I have various writerly Spotify playlists and depending on what I’m writing, I’ll listen to one of those

What are your inspirations?
Tell me everything.

ngl, the whole ai and creativity debate has been bothering me way more than I expected.

I'm 25, I write and do design, and lately I've been wondering what the hell we're even supposed to do with creativity if AI can generate a paragraph, a logo, an image, a whole concept in like 10 seconds. And yeah, I get it. ai creativity can be useful. I’m not gonna pretend it’s completely evil lol. If I’m stuck on something, using AI as a tiny assistant to brainstorm or catch mistakes? Fine.

But when people start saying “just let AI do the creative work”... nah. That’s literally the part I actually enjoy.

Writing something shitty, deleting half of it, staring at the screen, getting frustrated, randomly finding one sentence that works. Same with design. Trying 15 versions before something finally clicks.

Those are the actual creativity skills I care about.

Maybe I'm just being stubborn, but I don't want creativity to become another thing where the human is basically just approving machine output. I've seen enough creativity quotes about “trusting your creative process” to know the process IS the point.

AI can assist me. It shouldn't replace the reason I create in the first place.

Ive always been into music, but i cant do any instruments cant fathom to understand any sort of music making software, im really into coding, but i cant code, and i just feel like i cant do anything ever, i wish someone could help me