Creativity prompts can be anything that will give you inspiration and get some ideas flowing. Prompts are usually used to instantly trigger a reaction and most times the very first spontaneous impression they give you is the one that is the most useful.
One of the biggest problems with prompts that you find already generated for you is that for the most part they aren’t always geared toward the sort of thing you would like to create. The absolute best way to overcome this problem is to make your own prompts. It’s incredibly simple, free and fun.
Make Your Own Creativity Prompts
Open whatever program you use on your computer to write stuff, any program will do as long as it lets you change fonts. I’m using Microsoft Word.
You have a rough idea of what you want to create, or perhaps no idea whatsoever, either is just fine. You can use fonts as creativity prompts to get you going.
You need a word or a few words, choose any you like. If you don’t have a clue you can go to Title Build It to see how you can develop an idea through building a title to get you started.
Once you’ve picked a few words, they can be random if you like, go through the fonts you have available and begin to apply them to your chosen words. You can change the color, add effects, go all caps, anything that inspires you.
Each different font sets a different mood or characteristic for the words you typed. You can match fonts until you set the mood you are hoping for for your project, or until one set of fonts sparks an idea you would like to chase.
I’ve done a few examples to get you started – and because I was having a lot of fun.
What’s a parade of fonts without the classic gore?
Sometimes the name of the fonts is enough to get an idea going, the creators showed boundless amounts of creativity in naming some of their fonts on the site I used. I wanted you to get an impression from just how the words looked giving you a chance to form your own ideas. I’ve purposely left the names off so you wouldn’t be influenced by them. They’re all listed at the end if you’re interested in finding them.
When I use creativity prompts like these I look at the shape of the letters. Some are haphazard looking, others more straight laced, and some rather prickly. Often I use words that will inspire the mood I’m interested in even if they aren’t going to be my title. I save it at the top of my page where I can refer to it while I create.
There is an endless supply of fonts available both for free as well as those you can purchase, there is no reason to run short. The ones found here are all freeware that can be found at 1001 Fonts . Some of the fonts are freeware but others are shareware or to be purchased, it’s easy to check before downloading.
Making your own creativity prompts is quick and easy, provided you don’t take too much time playing with your fonts, I originally had 15 here. I broke it down to five ’cause I thought I might have gone just a tad overboard.
- Birdland Aeroplane
- BlackChancery
- Lockergnome
- Shlop
- Still Time