June 4, 2008

Some creative professionals credit past mistakes as moments of realization. At this year’s TED conference, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi explained that a lot of his ‘design ideas come from mistakes or tricks of the eye.’ Mistakes are illuminating because they are unexpected. But you don’t need to screw up in order to find randomness.

Consider a few strategies for building randomness into everyday work and life:

• Take advantage of mistakes. When you do make an error, allow yourself to briefly continue down the same path. If only for an alternative perspective (which is sometimes difficult to get), use every mistake as a lens to see things differently.
• Travel without a map. When we venture beyond our comfort zone, we often over-compensate with extensive planning, maps, and itineraries. Instead, consider traveling somewhere without plans. Behance has interviewed many prolific Creatives that cite getting lost as the best way to find new solutions.
• Explore projects in unfamiliar creative fields (and if you don’t mind a Behance self-reference): When our team developed the Behance Network, we purposely featured a cross-section of work from different fields. The featured gallery always includes an eclectic set of striking projects from different fields. And if you’re brave, you can take a daily stroll through the most recent gallery that contains unfiltered brand new projects published by creatives around the world.

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.