David Hillman Curtis is a filmmaker, designer and author who interviews some of the world’s leading graphic designers and art directors for The Artist Series. I was introduced to The Artist Series by Maria Popova in her wonderful weekly blog Brain Pickings. Maria reviewed Hillman Curtis’ interview with Paula Scher and says;
The reason we find this interview particularly compelling is that, when talking about how she created the iconic Citi logo on a napkin in a matter of seconds, Scher echoes our founding beliefs in combinatorial creativity — the concept that ideas are born out of the myriad pieces of stuff populating our memories, our knowledge base, our mental pool of inspiration and resources, and creativity is simply the capacity to put those together in incredible new ways.
In the interview, Scher talks about how long does it take to create a new idea, a new design. She says;
How can it be that you talk to someone and it’s done in a second? But it IS done in a second — it’s done in a second and 34 years. It’s done in a second and every experience, and every movie, and every thing in my life that’s in my head.
Watching the film reminded me that the value of creativity should never be judged by the time it takes to come up with an idea, but how well the idea goes towards solving the business problem its creator has been charged with solving.
You can watch the rest of the films in The Artist Series by clicking here.