Don’t Play It Like the Flute An Article by Matthias Ott matthiasott.com Don’t play it like the flute. Play it as if it was the wind whistling through the desert dunes. No matter what you love to create, there is something to be learned from the way Hans Zimmer approached the Dune score. We are all striving to create work that is novel, innovative, memorable, and inspiring. To get there, however, we tend to focus on getting things right, on avoiding mistakes, on “being professional”. Yes, it is important to have the commitment, dedication, and attention to detail of a professional. But being right? That will only take you so far. What is much more important is to approach the problem in front of you with curiosity and an open mind. With an urge to explore what can be found beyond the ordinary, beyond the right way of doing things. If you want to create something that nobody has come up with yet, it is important that you try out all the crazy ideas others are afraid to try, that you build prototypes, improvise, and freely play with the materials and the technologies you have at hand. musiccreativitynoveltyexplorationcuriosity
Painting With the Web An Article by Matthias Ott matthiasott.com So much about [Gerhard Richter's painting process] reminds me of designing and building for the Web: The unpredictability, the peculiarities of the material, the improvisation, the bugs, the happy accidents. There is one crucial difference, though. By using static wireframes and static layouts, by separating design and development, we are often limiting our ability to have that creative dialogue with the Web and its materials. We are limiting our potential for playful exploration and for creating surprising and novel solutions. And, most importantly, we are limiting our ability to make conscious, well-informed decisions going forward. By adding more and more layers of abstraction, we are breaking the feedback loop of the creative process. A constant dialogueConstant reflection and refinement How do you know when your paintings are finished?Designing with code artwwwcreativityprocesscode
Field Notes on Science and Nature A Book by Michael R. Canfield www.hup.harvard.edu An endless living worldWhy Sketch?Letters to the FutureOne and a Half Cheers for List-KeepingLinking Researchers Across Generations+8 More The Student, The Fish, and Agassiz
An endless living world If there is a heaven, and I am allowed entrance, I will ask for no more than an endless living world to walk through and explore. learningnaturereligionwalking
Why Sketch? An Essay by Jenny Keller What you have observed closelyA single imageParallel refinementColor reproductionThe negative spaces+4 More Conversational drawingThe Beauty of the Overlooked
Letters to the Future An Essay by John D. Perrine & James L. Patton The lapse of many yearsThe Grinnell SystemJim's systemJohn's systemRecord them all+3 More
One and a Half Cheers for List-Keeping An Essay by Kenn Kaufman I don't need that birdList-chasingThe maximization method
Linking Researchers Across Generations An Essay by Anna K. Behrensmeyer Future valueTime capsulesTools of the digital ageFive basic rulesBonewalks+1 More
Why Keep a Field Notebook? An Essay by Erick Greene Pick one thingLab notebooksHybrid journalsA fertile incubatorBest practices
The Spoken and the Unspoken An Essay by Karen L. Kramer What is unspokenResearch questionsQuantitative data collectionAnthropological rapportScan samples, focal follows+4 More The observer effect
Note-Taking for Pencilophobes An Essay by Piotr Naskrecki MantisAn extension of my brainRecordingsThe era of paper
The Evolution and Fate of Botanical Field Books An Essay by James L. Reveal To serve as a reminderSterile creaturesFurther and further away
The Pleasure of Observing An Essay by George B. Schaller AbbreviationBeyond dry factsA study should persistPrecious intangible valuesIndependent fragments of existence+1 More
In the Eye of the Beholder An Essay by Jonathan Kingdon Haven't you noticed?Wordless questioningOutlinesAgents of thought and experiment
Untangling the Bank An Essay by Bernd Heinrich Specific aimsMore than a witnessPeculiaritiesSecrecyIf it wasn't written down+1 More
A Reflection of the Truth An Essay by Roger Kitching The need to recordMental infrastructureScientific writingA three-layered process of documentationIncidental details+1 More