A Spindle

Your daily reminder to leave the trail.

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A good daily reminder, we think.

Creativity is connecting the dots.

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A simple way to look at creativity is as connecting the dots.

Every idea you have – for a work of art, or a photo, or a writing project – all start from the ideas and inspirations your brain has gathered over time. Eventually, when faced with a new project or problem, your brain attempts to connect seemingly unrelated dots in order to come up with a new idea.

To quote Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

Which is why we created this free creative poster for you to print out and hang around your home or office. You can download the poster-sized PDF of the poster right here.

Be sure to share the inspiration with your friends and co-workers too.

The eight best places to be a creative.

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As a creative, being surrounded by inspiration can be a powerful boost for creativity.

Whether you’re an artist looking to live in a constantly shifting world of the best art, a musician hoping to hear new sounds every day, or an daydreamer simply looking for the next big thing, there’s no better way to surround yourself with inspiration than going where all of the biggest dreamers go.

If you want to be constantly surrounded by new and wondrous inspiration daily, here are photos of the eight best places to live and visit. Cities where you’re sure to encounter something that sparks your greatest ideas. What are you waiting for?

#8 Hong Kong

Photo by Thomas Birke.

#7 Stockholm

Photo by Johan Klovsjö.

#6 Chicago

Photo by Lenn Langevin.

#5 Sydney

Photo by Jason Hoover.

#4 Melbourne

Photo by Atilla2008.

#3 Toronto

Photo by Blursurfing.

#2 London

Photo by Carlo.

#1 New York City

Photo by Andrew Mace.

Have you ever thought about this?

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Everything started as an idea. From computers and cars, to walking on the moon and microwavable popcorn. It all started with a small idea in somebody’s brain.

Thinking about it now, there’s no telling what your ideas will become.

Thanks to you, Aspindle is one year old!

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Wow. Aspindle is now officially one year old!

Time has flown by, and we’re still growing, but we wanted to take a second to quickly thank you for hanging in there with us over the past year. We started this company with the goal of sharing creative possibilities, empowering people like you to fuel their creativity and do more with it.

Today we’ve become a leading source of creative insights and the best resource for ebooks specifically about creative thinking.

With your help we’ve donated quite a bit of money to a world charity, we’ve collaborated with some of the most innovative authors, and we’ve even been featured in the AmEx OPEN Business Forum.

What’s coming over the next year, we can’t fully say. But we do have a lot of new books in the works, we’re working with authors all over the world to get you the resources you need to be even more creative and do more with your ideas, and we’re planning on sticking around for a very long time.

So, without further ado, thank you for the past year! We couldn’t have made it this far without you.

Maria Popova on combinatorial creativity.

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“Everything builds on what came before, and that we create by taking existing pieces of inspiration, knowledge, skill and insight that we gather over the course of our lives and recombining them into incredible new creations.”

What you just read is a major part of creativity today: combinatorial creativity.

The notion that everything we create today is somehow built on the ideas and inspirations of the past is very intuitive. Which is why this presentation by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings (where the above quote is from) struck me as the perfect inspirational piece for the day.

Watch and be enlightened (note that the audio quality is sub-par, so you’ll have to turn your speakers up and really tune-in).