In terms of school, I used my creative abilities in order to gain the best grade I could in the creative courses I took, such as GCSE Art and A-Level ICT. I created according to a brief, which took the form of a mark scheme, trying to tick all of the boxes that this mark scheme included.
With regards to clients, I began by creating graphics just to help people out whilst also having something else to add to my portfolio. More recently, I have created graphics and websites for clients with the added incentive of a financial reward - which is always nice.
However, a big chunk of my creativity in the past few years has been for my own benefit (mostly graphic images made on Photoshop); having the freedom to make whatever I wanted, being able to incorporate my own interests into my creative output and most of all, the satisfaction of seeing something that I have created myself that I like and that I can show to other people.
To sum all of that up, I'd say that my creativity in the past few years has been in order to see/have something that I have made that I like and that other people like.
I created for school because I was told to - or at least that's how each project started. I had/still have a tendency to turn a school based project into a personal project. For example, if I have created something that meets a certain aspect of the mark scheme perfectly, but is not something I particularly like or am satisfied with, I go back and refine this aspect of the piece until it is something I am happy with, regardless of what the mark scheme says. This was probably my downfall with certain projects, but it meant I was happy with my creation and proud to feature it in my portfolio.
I have created for clients because they asked me to. This was the result of creating for my own benefit, as this work got noticed by various people and I was therefore presented with another reason to create.
So why did I start making graphics for my own benefit? This was down to a mate who had started making some pretty cool stuff on Photoshop; I just said, 'hey that's pretty cool, how'd you do that?' So he showed me the basics and I went from there. I enjoyed having a blank canvas on my screen and an amazing picture in my head, and the challenge of transferring that amazing picture from my head to the blank canvas on my screen. The satisfaction of doing so formed a desire to create - so I did - not for any particular purpose.
Like any normal being, in the future, I want to use any creative skills I may have picked up in exchange for monetary reward. However, if I have the time I would love to continue to create things - any things - just for me, that I like and that are interesting to me. And anything else I make I want money for!
Research can most certainly help me get to a point where I can offer my services for regular financial gain. For example, I currently have a new personal website which offers my services, but I don't get a steady flow of requests. Why? Because properly conducted research, the key ingredient, was missing from the creative process. Research into how to market yourself and advertise such a website would go a long way to increasing the amount of users that stumble upon the site. The research starting point that would be most beneficial in this instance is 'for', as this involves researching what is happening in other related disciplines. This allows you to understand how other, similar services have made themselves known and how they are sustaining that interest.
With regards to creativity in general, I feel most drawn to the 'In front of' research starting point, as I feel creativity is all about meeting some kind of goal; whether it be a brief set by someone else or just a picture in your head. People's reactions to the work measure how well that goal has been met and the work can the be revised in order to meet it better, resulting in a better final piece.
I feel there is a place for all of the research starting points in certain situations, but the one which I feel is most irrelevant is the 'In through' research starting point. This is because I feel the creative output is the only really important thing. Excluding obvious practical factors such as time and expense, if two people produce the same output, then their various processes to reach that output are irrelevant.
