Coming up with your summer reading list? Whether you are lounging by the pool, sitting on a plane, or just looking for sanity in between the craziness of all your kids being home, we have some great reads to help you enrich your creativity and inspire your art! Below are 10 of our favorite books for inspiring and feeding our creative souls. Enjoy!

1. Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelley

"Being human centered is at the core of our innovation process. Deep empathy for people makes our observations powerful sources of inspiration."

2. Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon

1. Steal like an artist.
2. Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.
3. Write the book you want to read.
4. Use your hands.
5. Side projects and hobbies are important.
6. The secret: do good work and share it with people.
7. Geography is no longer our master.
8. Be nice. (The world is a small town.)
9. Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)
10. Creativity is subtraction.

3. Change by Design by Tim Brown

"The design thinkers I have described here are not minimalist, esoteric members of an elite priesthood, and they do not wear black turtlenecks. They are creative innovators who can bridge the chasm between thinking and doing because they are passionately committed to the goal of a better life and a better world around them. In the process they are helping to make our societies healthier, our businesses more profitable, and our own lives richer and more meaningful."

4. It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules."

5. Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull

"If there are people in your organization who feel they are not free to suggest ideas, you lose.  Do not discount ideas from unexpected sources.  Inspiration can, and does, come from anywhere."

6. The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp

"When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it."

7. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows."

8. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

"There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't and the secret is this: it's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.

What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance."

9. Damn Good Advice by George Lois

"Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything."

10. The Little Spark by Carrie Bloomston

"Why bother making a painting or a song if you could just say it with words? Art picks up where words stop."

 

 

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