Archive for August, 2010

Newsweek reports that creativity is on the decline in America. That’s no surprise, but what is good about this article is the connection they are making between creativity and problem-solving—and the need to get it back into our kid’s schools at the core level. Good news, not just an optional art class.

“The new view is that creativity is part of normal brain function. Some scholars go further, arguing that lack of creativity—not having loads of it—is the real risk factor.

The potential consequences are sweeping. The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care. Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.”

I find kid’s work incredibly inspiring. There’s nothing like their fearless (and simple) representations.

Test your creativity here.

Christophe Neimann | Greenwillow 2010

Subway is a book best appreciated by New Yorkers or those that have spent some time on New York City’s subway. Former New Yorker, (now residing in Berlin), Christophe Niemann writes and illustrates a graphic tale of a dad and his two boys as they make a day of riding the subways through Manhattan, Brooklyn, Harlem and points between. With his gift for wit and simplicity, Christophe illustrates the entire book with public symbol iconography, a sparing palette and loosely applied gouache. He has even drawn public symbol rats, dogs and cats! He has celebrated the web of underground trains, tracks, stations and its system of numbers and letters. The boys in the story—no doubt his—are in charge; read the signs, navigate the grid, and always know what’s happening next.

This book originated from Christophe’s New York Times blog, Abstract City. He has successfully taken an adult story and language and made it into a story about life in the city and the beauty beneath only through a kid’s eyes.