Feed your design.

Explore new avenues of inspiration or run the risk of falling into a creative rut and losing your creative spark! We are social commentators of our time. We design in response to what is happening around us. Much of what we do is digital but does this mean our influences need to originate from there? Of course not! Thankfully, inspiration abounds. Expand your creative horizons and explore other methods of creating. I am certain your journey will lead you down unexplored pathways and maybe to your next brilliant visual communication design solution.

To put what I preach into practice, I stepped out of my own creative box and participated in a weekend warrior glass blowing class last weekend. Glassblowing is the art of shaping a mass of glass that has been softened by heat by blowing air into it through a tube (1) I'm pretty quick with developing a concept and effectively merging type and image, but handling glass blowing tools and manipulating molten glass was like learning to walk all over again. Literally! Almost every move you make requires thought when holding a 1000 degrees fahrenheit glob of glass at the end of a four foot metal pole! (This glob is known as a "gather" by the way!) 

The studio manager allowed me to take some images while class was in session.

An example of a gather at the end of a blowpipe inserted into a hot, hot, hot "glory hole" oven. The glory hole is the opening of the furnace used to keep the glass hot and workable. The cylinder can be heated up to 2300 degrees fahrenheit!

The blowpipes lined up in an orderly fashion being preheated. Always take the one on the far right, it's been in the warmer the longest amount of time!

A glass worker sitting at the workbench holding a caliper (tongs that help create and control the molten glass piece). An assistant helps rotate the blowpipe as another seated in the background prepares to blow into the blowpipe creating a bubble. 

A detail of the glass bubble.

Adding a base to the bubble form.

The base is attached!

You must continually reheat the entire piece to keep the glass pliable and prevent it from cracking. This reheating process is termed "flashing." 

Shaping the piece with a very charred paddle. 

Only the top portion of the piece is inserted into the oven in this image. The goal is to heat up only the top lip. Once heated, quickly rotate the blowpipe and the top flares out! Yeah, there were a lot of "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" at this part of the process.

After the piece is detached from the blowpipe, the finisher uses a blowtorch melting down the jagged pieces on the base. The piece is then placed into an annealing oven to evenly cool the outside and the inside of the molten glass assuring the glass won’t cool too quickly and crack or break. (2)

The worker bees in one very hot hive!

In conclusion

Exploring other creative outlets will inspire you and feed your design! Remember, these avenues don’t have to be directly related to graphic communication either. Working digitally can often feel too sterile. Now's your chance to get your creative hands dirty. As I conclude this post, I can state two points with confidence: one, I will be integrating this imagery into some sort of design piece in the near future and two, I WILL be taking another glassblowing course very soon! What an incredible experience. 

Blog Resources: 

(1) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glassblowing

(2) http://www.glassblowers.org/HotGlassDictionary.htm