The Coffee Shop is a great stage for the creative process. During my art school days, I would sketch the people around me at Szasz, a Hungarian Deli/Coffee Room located on Granville Street in Vancouver. Those random thoughts that “meander like a restless wind inside a letter box” can be better observed in a social setting and can lead to those euphoric, aha moments, your own hidden treasure.
The coffee shop is a rich place is teeming with colour, noise, texture, steam + pattern. People are coming and going with barristas yelling out names when their work of art is ready. Plus, there’s something about sitting down over a great coffee and allowing yourself to simply be that invites the imagination to want to come out to play. I recently watched a great TED talk on this very subject. How the coffee shop was instrumental to innovation and great ideas. They were a healthier social meeting place than the usual pub hangout.
1. Find the right fit. Find a coffee shop you like, even if it’s because of the anonymity. While meeting someone socially at a coffee shop has merit, sitting there alone allows you to observe more and listen. And to get in touch with what’s going on inside your head.
2. Start a journal and jot down those ideas and observations. When you start, don’t be paralyzed by the initial blank page. Take the “whatever comes up” approach to get over the initial stage fright of feeling pressure to write something significant. The genius usually comes later. So be messy about it. Begin with a doodle if that helps start your creative engine. Find the right pen to write things down. Introduce different colored pens or markers if you are so inclined, like SARK, the transformational creativity diva. The variety of tools can invite a sense of play and invite divergent thinking. Sketching your ideas is a great warm up, even if it’s in the crudest, stick figure way. Some of the best sketches I’ve seen are drawn by people who don’t know how to draw because there’s no effort to try to make it special.
