ImageStorming: How To Brainstorm Alone (When You Have To)

Brainstorms are fun. Usually they involve getting a group of people into a room together, using some kind of white board or collaborative location to take notes and inviting participants to shout out their best ideas. Unfortunately, sometimes you're faced with a creative challenge and can't pull together a team of people to help you develop ideas. You're on your own to solve it.

So, what can you do in this situation? Use images - or more specifically, use image search online. When I was in a similar situation trying to brainstorm concepts for the cover of my book last year, it was the combination of two images that led to the inspiration for the eventual award winning cover design. Searching for imagery works for most creative challenges, from a design oriented one like I had with my book cover, to a more executional brainstorm where you are trying to come up with marketing campaign ideas.

Here are four great tools that I use often:

1. iStockPhoto - This site has a wealth of photos, and most of them are available in a small size for just $1 in licensing fee. So not only can you use the collection of images, icons and graphics to get inspired, but if you happen to find one that you want to use for something, it won't eat your entire budget.
2. Google Images - The most obvious and standard tool, Google Images can be good or bad for what you are looking for, and is rarely in between. Due to the huge collection of images that Google will return for just about any search, you are bound to find images that don't match to your search very well. Sometimes this is good as it leads you in different directions, but other times the noise can win and the tool loses its usefulness.
3. Moodstream - A relatively new site from GettyImages, this is a very addictive online tool that lets you select particular moods based on several keywords and it will show you a stream of images to match that mood. If you are brainstorming based on emotions or more human terms, this could be the perfect tool to use.
4. Flickr - By far the largest photo sharing community on the web, I go straight to Flickr when I'm looking for more images of real life and real people as opposed to stock photography. You can often find more branded photos as well, which is really useful if you are trying to develop campaign ideas for a particular company or product.

Any other image search tools that you find really inspiring? Share them in a comment here and I'll add them to the list.

Comments

[Seth Gray]

Moodstream is really cool, thanks for the tip! Something I've found helpful for browsing/searching for images online without all the text, etc in the way is http://www.cooliris.com/product/ (firefox only, I think).

[Philip Graves]

Surprising though it may sound I find the Microsoft on-line clip art gallery useful. Despite the name it has photogrpahs (not just (usually) naff clip art).

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us&ofcresset=1

You can select what type of images you want on the drop down list.

Incidentally, don't confuse it by searching for more than one word - it's a lousy search function. One word and scan the results is best!

Philip

[Ted Pendlebury]

Rohit,
Having just found this blog, and checking out your book website, reading the intro, etc., I'm completely blown away and excited by what you have here. You're a genius! I can't imagine how anyone could read your introduction and NOT buy the book. I'll be purchasing a copy post haste.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Every bit of all of this lights so many bulbs in my brain, I can't wait to get to the next excerpt, buy the book, etc. Awesome stuff - I can't say I've always thought the same things, but it all rings so true in how I see things. I think this will give a tremendous lift to my future. Can't wait to read the book!
Thanks again,
Ted Pendlebury
Citrus Heights, CA

[Courtney A]

I actually find this site pretty helpful:

http://flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

It displays the most "interesting" photos uploaded to flickr over the past 7 days...you can refresh as many times as you wish to get a new set

[Clay S]

Interesting article. I just checked out moodstream - very cool.

Interesting that you brought up brainstorming alone - I just recently read an NY Times article said that the key to innovation is actually working in groups. They say whenever possible avoid trying to innovate on your own, because a group is necessary for true innovation. The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/business/07unbox.html?_r=1&em

[Nedra Weinreich]

I love this idea of using images to help with brainstorming. Could work with groups also. I'm always so word-focused that I think this method would help my creativity branch out.

[Sujan P]

Yet another interesting post Rohit. I just checked out Moodstream.com - its cool but it needs to be more user friendly. I usually search for ref. images in Google Images and use iStockPhoto for my business purpose.