Kevin Rossi Presents 5 Steps To A More Creative 2021

After the year that’s been, it is easy to feel a little flat and lacking in the creative department. We asked Kevin Rossi Design to inspire new creativity in 2021 with these five easy tips pondered while Kevin was on holiday.

Creativity in Interior Design

In interior design as in all aspects of life it’s safe to agree that 2020 cannot possibly be described as an ordinary year. In hindsight one thing that stands out is how invaluable creativity can be. Being creative is an important element in most industries as it allows you to think of new methods and create something out of the ordinary, or simply survive unprecedented times. According to writer Marc Chernoff, “When the mind is aware of the circumstances, confident in its abilities and enthusiastic about the material, creative ideas may flourish into ground-breaking, sensible solutions”.

That’s said, when we take creativity into Interior Design, it is a key component and vital for the ultimate success of a project, however, the designer has to simultaneously mesh the creative concept with a practical outline that includes logical problem solving to enhance the interior of a space to achieve a more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space.

The three main pillars for creativity are Awareness, Confidence & Enthusiasm.

The design process stimulates ventures into the unknown, the designer takes up this incredible journey and goes into directions no one has gone before. Embarking on a project is always a risk and therefore can be scary, being fear driven though effectively squashes creative ideas before they have a chance to develop. For this reason, confidence is key!

The creative person has the ability to invent and develop original ideas, especially in the fields of arts. The best designs display a passion or a spark which is lifeblood for creativity, at Kevin Rossi Design, we yearn to transform and create. We give into leaving the world better than we found it.

Creative Environments & Sparks

There is nothing nicer than having the privilege of spending time in environments that stimulate our creativity. The design of a space needs to take a variety of elements into consideration, such as, creative colours, lighting, shapes, materials, space and even sound.

I was inspired to write this from The Protea Wild Retreat, a haven that encompasses many of these elements… guest cabins, lots of timber, flourishing fynbos garden surrounded by fully grown trees, paintings, animal sculptures, a large vintage pan mounted to the wall and open lounge with comfortable furniture and a round outdoor swimming pool overlooking the Bitou valley.

Apart from the sensorial aspects and many eccentric touches, we had the pleasure of interacting with a variety of interesting professionals including a musician, designer, fine artists, a retired CEO and a vintner, all adding to the colourful creative inspiration. This diversity of professionals not only made our end year holiday exciting, but also a fun place to work from. Unusual places tend to help spark creativity.

Is Creativity Genetic?

This has long been a debate affecting professionals and people from different industries and walks of life. Is creativity inherited or learned? It’s actually both.

Creativity is “technically” inherited, it’s more of a common human trait than we realize. In fact, a widely cited study by George Land found that children are born creative but lose their creativity as they transition through life and into adulthood. Whether this creative corrosion is caused by life experiences, schooling, the fear of failure or all of the above is up for debate, but the good news is creativity can be moulded and re-learned.

For me, creative inspiration comes from many places sometimes from Pinterest, or magazines, from television adverts, nature, travel and many other sources. It is important for me to maintain my creativity therefore I take a more intentional approach to it. I’m not just looking for creative campaigns anymore, rather more creative ways to lead, sustain and grow as an interior designer.

The dance between creativity and intelligence

According to neuropsychologist, Dr Katie Davis, creativity is a definitive sign of intelligence because it requires thinking flexibly outside the box and necessitates the ability to shift and change patterns of thinking from one way to another.

Taking interior designers as an example, designers relish the sight of a blank piece of paper. This is because they see what’s not yet real, and then make it real. The construction industry, relies on the input of interior designers to solve problems in clever, original ways.

Creativity in Society

Since we have established that creativity within Interior Design it allows us to view and solve problems more openly, creativity also opens the mind.

What sets a Design house apart from its contemporaries is alternative (and creative) ways of thinking, and ultimately problem solving. A good example of this is our Quendon project in Sea Point. Challenged by size, we had to re-look our options to include a pantry in the kitchen area. To get around the issue of insufficient storage space, what we did in the end was create a flexible structural element that could extends out from an existing cupboard that it shared space with, resulting in the design of a cupboard within a cupboard. The beauty of using a ‘creative solve’ to achieve the desired outcome!

Nowadays, if society has lost touch with its creative side, it is an imprisoned society. In that generations of people may be closed minded. The Bauhaus movement which was condemned 1933 in Nazi Germany, is a classic example of this.

The conclusion – is that creativity is positive! Or like Rita J. King says, The Creative Adult is the Child Who Has Survived. It is associated with humour, altruism and positive thinking. For us as interior designers, creativity connects us to ourselves, to the world and beyond. It is stimulated by environments as well as beyond the physicality of things.

At Kevin Rossi Design, our creativity is the closest thing we have to magic, in the sense that creativity is the spark second only to the creator himself – now that’s impressive!

About KRD – Kevin Rossi Design is a growing interior design studio based in Cape Town. Our projects for 2021 varies from bachelor loft apartments, beach front town houses, up to high end residential properties in Camps Bay. At the head of the company, professional interior designer Kevin Rossi adds a contemporary flare to the design, with decorative patterns and elements that reflect local design with a twist. Kevin Rossi Design will be expanding to Johannesburg from February 2021 onwards. For more information on our objectives for 2021 and our projects, visit our social media platforms.