A brain dump is the act of writing down or expressing all of ones thoughts, ideas and feelings without any judgment or organization. I was recently thinking about what makes certain projects more successful than others and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it was the amount of effort that I put into the brainstorming or beginning stages of a project. The more I spend on the beginning stages, the stronger the foundation for my actual design is.

During my brainstorming process, I typically like to begin a project by blurting down as many ideas onto a page as possible, otherwise known as brain dumping. I try to fill out at least a full page of ideas and fill the spread with notes to myself. My biggest struggle with it is having to keep reminding myself that it doesn’t need to be pretty or organized. It’s simply a place where I’m trying to work through ideas and think of as many options as I can. Most of my ideas come from the environment around me. I surround myself with posters, art, and knick-knacks so that when I get stuck I can look around and get my brain thinking again. If that doesn’t work, I go to google and look up images and iconography thats associated with the subject that I’m working on. After I finish sketching out as many ideas as possible, I like showing them to a friend or professor and getting their thoughts on them. I love hearing from an unbiased perspective and constructive feedback at this stage is the easiest to adapt too. They help me see things that I’ve become blind to. From there, I chose my best idea and move into developing it and bringing it to life. Brainstorming is important because it builds structure, sparks creativity, and helps clarify your goals. Its the stage where you can make mistakes without any consequence and often find your best ideas by accident. Plus, brain dumping is a great brainstorming habit to get into.

I’ve noticed that at the start of most of my favorite projects I started with a brain dump. With the more time I spent exploring the subject of a project, the more time I spent figuring out what I wanted the end product to be. One of my favorite projects, the Möbius strip project, I was able to actually pick a couple of the ideas from my sketchbook page and make it real. Such as the cat and mouse and the chain links, they turned out really well and were definitely my stronger ideas out of the group. But while I was staring at my sketches, they sparked other ideas that I pursued. Like the art galaxy or the crow, these ideas were a bit less fleshed out and I should have taken the time to draw them out but I had fun making them.

When I’m going back in my sketchbook I like looking back on my scattered ideas, they are messy and a bit chaotic but there’s so many sketches that I could use for other projects too.

Overall I think I tend not to give the brainstorming process as much credit as it deserves. I like rushing through it to get to the the main bulk of the project but I’m trying to remember to slow down and really flesh out the foundation of my works and it gives me a greater appreciation for the creative process as a whole.

Thanks for reading!
Emma <3