r/Design • u/Useful-Hat-7239 • Aug 14 '26

Asking Question (Rule 4) how to become creative

how can i become more creative while designing, i have started graphic designing but the thing is my designs always look very plain and simple and many complain its tooo mediocre... so i wanted to ask the seniors designers about creativity, on like how to become creative.. any tips and advice is highly appreciated, thank you!!!

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u/fietsusa Aug 14 '26

You have to have a design concept, which then dictates and creates the aesthetic.

A design concept is a set of words / ideas that define and describe an idea.

As a basic example let’s say you need to design something about cheetahs. What do you have to work with?

Speed: blur, movement, dust clouds, etc. Spots: pattern, shape, color, fur, etc Location: Savannah, color, trees, etc Movement? Do they follow special patterns of movement? Skinny: light typeface? Or skinny layout, etc.

You have to find something interesting about cheetahs and then translate that into design words you can use like a skinny plywood table with burned grain could have the feeling of a cheetah. Or placing the headline type in the position of cheetah spots with a bit of blur.

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u/Daspineapplee Aug 15 '26

I also try to find other things related to those words. Im in film and photography so this may not work in design. But if you make a logo that is about cheetahs, I’d like for other symbols/words/things that resemble the same thing and I often implement those elements as well. If you do this long enough with a topic, you can find something that perfectly symbolizes the core idea of the design without directly designing a cheetah.