Does The Internet Affect Creative Thought?
Has the flow of information on the Internet
affected how we think creatively?
I recently finished reading a compilation of scientific studies on this subject. Some scientists say No, and others say Yes, without any definitive coalescing of ideas on this subject. But the subject is intriguing, nonetheless.
As a Jewelry Designer, do we think through our projects and our artistic lives differently today, than say, we would have 20 years ago before the Internet? Has the Internet changed your way of thinking as a Jewelry Designer?
Here’s what the Internet might do to our thinking:
1. Attention Span
Supposedly out attention spans are shorter, and we expect things to come to us in smaller bits or packages. Do we find, as Jewelry Designers, it getting more difficult to stay focused on one thing, one theme, one technique, for too long before bopping off to something else? Have our projects become simpler, less embellished, more dependent on a spectacular clasp or a particular gemstone, to the detriment of other “design” possibilities within the rest of the piece?
Or have we learned to be more “liquid” in our thinking, able to take in more facts, more ideas, and organize these more coherently? Do our Jewelry Designs emerge from greater control over more ideas, and ideas coming and changing faster? Is this more intricate complexity? Are we more able to incorporate ideas cross-culturally and cross-nationally? Are we able to design more, for more?
2. Information Overload
The Internet is a chaotic collection of boundless information. Are we too aware of too many styles, materials, techniques, fashions, trends? Is our ability to draw with billions of colors on a computer screen paralyzing when it comes to choosing among the more restrictive colors of available beads? Do we seem to end up with more unfinished projects, because we don’t have enough time to start the next new idea, if we finished?
Do we end up buying too many materials and too many types of materials because we’re less and less sure what will be relevant when, and because we keep findings out about new materials and new techniques and new fun things to do and with which to experiment? Do we too often try to mix media within our pieces, to the success of none of the different types of materials? Does all this information become paralyzing to the extent that it halts us from working on our designing and making?
Or, do our designs seem more coherent, more integrated, sexier because we have more information available to make us think, keep us aware, help us integrate complex ideas? Are we more willing to do and more successful in doing multi-media projects? Does mastery over more ideas make us feel more powerful, more motivated, more experimental?
3. Time Wasted on Email, Facebook, Twitter and the Like
We spend more and more time socially interacting on-line. Do you find spending time on emails, message boards, forums, facebook, twitter and the like is time you could have spent on designing and making jewelry? Is a lot of this time redundant, goal-less, wasteful? Does time spent with these online social networks end up pulling you in even more directions, than if you were not so socially connected?
Or, does the time spent here help you design better, or help you sell your pieces better, or make you a better consumer of the parts you use in your pieces? Do you feel you can problem-solve faster with this broader access to more people and more frequently? Does this broader access help you narrow down your choices to a manageable few?
4. Fostering Shallowness, Distraction, Credibility
We are used to getting information in small bits, scanning tons of information briefly and superficially, and making choices based on insufficient information — no analysis, no in depth questioning, in very disconnected ways.
Are you less interested in finding meaning, history, depth in the designs, techniques or materials that you use? Are your designs becoming more simple or straightforward or less challenging? Do you care less about your pieces beyond following a set of steps and completing your projects? Do you feel that the title “Jewelry Designer” has less credibility, less currency, less status, less importance relative to your work designing jewelry? Do you think less about the place of your jewelry in the world? Is it less important that your jewelry resonate with feeling, or impact people’s lives? Are you less interested in references from the vintage or traditional past, and overly concerned with the “hot” idea of the moment?
Or, do you feel more forced or encouraged to try more difficult and challenging designs? Does the Internet make you ask more questions of your work and find more relevant information — history, culture, personality, fashion — and the like? Are you more likely to contemporize traditional designs, revitalize vintage pieces, or adapt traditional techniques?
5. More Confidence, Less Continued Confidence
The Internet gives us a sense of power and place, but it is very fleeting.
Do you feel more important, more established, more credible because you have your own website or are selling on Etsy? But do you, at the same time, feel this confidence and credibility is more fragile, more easily challenged, more here today and gone tomorrow? Does selling your pieces on line make you feel stronger, more powerful, more relevant than selling your pieces in a local store? But at the same time, does selling on line make you feel more vulnerable, less established, more easily and likely to be challenged by many people around the world?
Or, do you see the Internet as opening up new markets for yourself that you can conquer, ad infinitum? Has it motivated you to do things where before you felt stuck or afraid?
6. More Competitive With Time
The speed of information on the Internet is much faster than the ebb and flow of information and time around you. So do you feel, in today’s world, it is much more difficult to keep up? Do fashions, styles and techniques change faster than you can adapt to these changes? Do you feel your competitive market getting further and further from you, at a faster and faster pace? Do you feel your Jewelry Designs, and your strategies for selling these designs, become “yesterdays” all too quickly?
Or, does the rapid pace of the Internet, somehow set a more rapid, directed pace for yourself? Do you see more possibilities, and feel more motivated to keep up with them? Do you see time as a challenge, and go for it? When we see the term “hyperlinked”, are we more apt to focus on the “linked”, rather than the “hyper”?
The Internet may make it seem that the framework for good jewelry design is somehow larger. The information more extensive. And changing. Very rapidly. There seem to be fewer clues on how to weed through all this information, to reject what is irrelevant or unnecessary. It feels too easy to get caught up in this ever-speeding-up whirlwind of stuff.
The Good Jewelry Designer will continue to learn the fundamentals and make choices accordingly. We always want to let in the environmental influences around us. But these influences still need to be managed. As always.
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Other Articles of Interest by Warren Feld:
Disciplinary Literacy and Fluency In Design
Backward Design is Forward Thinking
How Creatives Can Successfully Survive In Business
Part 2: The Second Essential Question Every Designer Should Be Able To Answer: What Should I Create?
Doubt / Self-Doubt: 8 Pitfalls Designers Fall Into…And What To Do About Them
Part 1: Your Passion For Design: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
Part 2: Your Passion For Design: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
Part 3: Your Passion For Design: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?
I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to click the CLAP HANDS icon at the bottom of this article.
Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).
Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).
Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.
Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.
Add your name to my email list.
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CONQUERING THE CREATIVE MARKETPLACE: Between the Fickleness of Business and the Pursuit of Design
How dreams are made
between the fickleness of business
and the pursuit of jewelry design
This guidebook is a must-have for anyone serious about making money selling jewelry. I focus on straightforward, workable strategies for integrating business practices with the creative design process. These strategies make balancing your creative self with your productive self easier and more fluid.
Based both on the creation and development of my own jewelry design business, as well as teaching countless students over the past 35+ years about business and craft, I address what should be some of your key concerns and uncertainties. I help you plan your road map.
Whether you are a hobbyist or a self-supporting business, success as a jewelry designer involves many things to think about, know and do. I share with you the kinds of things it takes to start your own jewelry business, run it, anticipate risks and rewards, and lead it to a level of success you feel is right for you, including
· Getting Started: Naming business, identifying resources, protecting intellectual property
· Financial Management: basic accounting, break even analysis, understanding risk-reward-return on investment, inventory management
· Product Development: identifying target market, specifying product attributes, developing jewelry line, production, distribution, pricing, launching
· Marketing, Promoting, Branding: competitor analysis, developing message, establishing emotional connections to your products, social media marketing
· Selling: linking product to buyer among many venues, such as store, department store, online, trunk show, home show, trade show, sales reps and showrooms, catalogs, TV shopping, galleries, advertising, cold calling, making the pitch
· Resiliency: building business, professional and psychological resiliency
· Professional Responsibilities: preparing artist statement, portfolio, look book, resume, biographical sketch, profile, FAQ, self-care
548pp.
SO YOU WANT TO BE A JEWELRY DESIGNER
Merging Your Voice With Form
So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the Jewelry Designer’s perspective. To go beyond craft, the jewelry designer needs to become literate in this discipline called Jewelry Design. Literacy means understanding how to answer the question: Why do some pieces of jewelry draw your attention, and others do not? How to develop the authentic, creative self, someone who is fluent, flexible and original. How to gain the necessary design skills and be able to apply them, whether the situation is familiar or not.
588pp, many images and diagrams Ebook , Kindle or Print formats
The Jewelry Journey Podcast
“Building Jewelry That Works: Why Jewelry Design Is Like Architecture”
Podcast, Part 1
Podcast, Part 2
PEARL KNOTTING…Warren’s Way
Easy. Simple. No tools. Anyone Can Do!
I developed a nontraditional technique which does not use tools because I found tools get in the way of tying good and well-positioned knots. I decided to bring two cords through the bead to minimize any negative effects resulting from the pearl rotating around the cord. I only have you glue one knot in the piece. I use a simple overhand knot which is easily centered. I developed a rule for choosing the thickness of your bead cord. I lay out different steps for starting and ending a piece, based on how you want to attach the piece to your clasp assembly.
184pp, many images and diagrams Ebook, Kindle or Print
SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS:16 Lessons I Learned Doing Craft Shows
In this book, I discuss 16 lessons I learned, Including How To (1) Find, Evaluate and Select Craft Shows Right for You, (2) Determine a Set of Realistic Goals, (3) Compute a Simple Break-Even Analysis, (4) Develop Your Applications and Apply in the Smartest Ways, (5) Understand How Much Inventory to Bring, (6) Set Up and Present Both Yourself and Your Wares, (7) Best Promote and Operate Your Craft Show Business before, during and after the show.
198pp, many images and diagrams, Ebook, Kindle or Print
BASICS OF BEAD STRINGING AND ATTACHING CLASPS
Learning Bead Stringing Is More Than
Putting Beads On A String And Tying On A Clasp
There is an art and skill to stringing beads. First, of course, is the selection of beads for a design, and the selection of the appropriate stringing material. Then is the selection of a clasp or closure, appropriate to the design and use of the piece.
You want your pieces to be appealing. You want them to wear well. You want someone to wear them or buy them. This means understanding the basic techniques, not only in terms of craft and art, but also with considerations about architecture, mechanics, and some sociology, anthropology and psychology.
In this book, I go into depth about: (1) Choosing stringing materials, and the pros and cons of each type, (2) Choosing clasps, and the pros and cons of different clasps, (3) All about the different jewelry findings and how you use them, (4) Architectural considerations and how to build these into your pieces, (5) How better designers use cable wires and crimp, as well as, use needle and thread to string beads, (6) How best to make stretchy bracelets, (7) How to make adjustable slip knots, coiled wire loops, and silk wraps, (8) How to finish off the ends of thicker cords or ropes, so that you can attach a clasp, (9) How to construct such projects as eyeglass leashes, mask chains, lariats, multi-strand pieces, twist multi-strand pieces, and memory wire bracelets, (10) How different teaching paradigms — craft vs. art vs. design — might influence the types of choices you make.
452 pp, many images, illustrations, diagrams, Ebook, Kindle or Print
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