“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
This famous quote by Picasso is the premise for Austin Kleon’s renowned book, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative.
Based on his 2012 Tedx Talk, Kleon shows us how to “steal” ideas from everything around us, combine them with each other (along with our own ideas) to create something entirely new.
It is a quick, but informative, read that is focused on being actionable, wastes no time with fluff, and uses graphic illustrations and typography to engage the reader.
Steal Like an Artist is 10 chapters long, which act more like 10 secrets to achieving the same goal — stealing like a great artist.
Below is a brief summary of each lesson and how you can implement them into your life as a marketer, designer, writer, or creative in general.
1. Steal like an artist
It was Mark Twain who once said:
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
Nothing is original. Every piece of art or creative work has and always will have been influenced by something else.
What Can You Do?
Rather than trying to be original, focus on how you can remix, transform, and improve existing ideas — build upon them, advance them.
Credit: Austin Kleon, Steallikeanartist.com
Create your art through things you collect daily. Steal ideas from your friends, family, peers, music, movies, books, current events, and everything else you encounter.
By pulling inspiration from a variety of sources, you will not only come up with an idea that is unique, but rich in value and meaning.
2. Don’t wait until you know who you are to start making things
Whether you are writing, creating a new product, designing a website, or strategizing how to solve a problem, the only prerequisite to get started in creating is to forget who you are.
What Can You Do?
Copy your influencers when you first start out. Tap into the mind of those you copy and figure out who and what inspired them. Study their influencers, as well.
Eventually, you will adapt their ideas to your own approach and you will have evolved from copying. Once your own style is formed, others will begin copying you.
3. Write the book you want to read
There is a misconception that you should write a book based on the area you have the most knowledge. As an expert on a particular subject, the book will be a good read, right?
Not necessarily.
What Can You Do?
Many of us often have knowledge in areas of low interest to mainstream audiences — perhaps our professions or things we learned in school. Instead of succumbing to a textbook on these subjects, write the book that you’re dying to read yourself.
Your genuine enthusiasm and passion for the subject matter will make you dig deeper and create something greater than you originally thought possible.
It will help draw more greatly from your personal thoughts and ideas than a professional piece reiterating what many have said before you.
4. Use your hands
According to Kleon, “computers have robbed us of the feeling that we are making things.”
We have two working modes, digital and analog, to stimulate all areas of your mind and he suggests that modern creatives are losing sight of the latter.
What Can You Do?
Schedule time away from the computer and internet to use your hands. Write, draw, build, craft — do anything physical that creates a tangible result.
Something as simple as taking notes on paper during your next team meeting rather than on a tablet can help you channel this energy (or consider picking up a copy of Kleon’s Steal Like An Artist Journal like I did.)
As Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris, told NYTimes, “when we [hand] write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated…. There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain…Learning is made easier.”
5. Side projects & hobbies are important
Practice productive procrastination by working on side projects and hobbies that take your mind off work and serve no purpose to make money.
Hobbies like these act as a form of meditation and give your brain a chance to rest and recharge.
What Can You Do?
Don’t throw any parts of yourself away. We are often compelled to drop hobbies that don’t fit into the ideal public depiction of ourselves and pick up ones we think we should. Instead, let the aspects of what make you unique flourish and in turn, they will aid your ”required” tasks and projects.
6. Do good work & put it where people can see it
Appreciate the small audience you have in the beginning. Fewer eyes on your work relieves pressure and allows you to tinker and experiment until you get it right, but don’t be afraid to open up your audience.
What Can You Do?
Create great work, consistently improve, and share it with as many people as you can. Though there will be critics, sharing our work with others also helps us find like-minded people we wouldn’t likely have met. It helps us get new perspectives and improve our work even further.
While they vary from industry to industry look for communities both online and in-person to share your work.
Austin Kleon himself outlines 10 more tips on how to show your work and get discovered here, but here are some popular online communities/platforms for marketers and designers that I suggest you check out:
7. Geography is no longer our master
Keep going! In my full synopsis of Steal Like An Artist, I’ll dive into this and the three remaining secrets to boosting your creativity:
- Be Nice (the world is a small town)
- Be Boring (it’s the only way to get work done)
- Creativity is subtraction
To continue, click “keep reading” below.
