Author: Austin Kleon
Publisher: Workman Publishing Co.
Date Published: February 28, 2012
Length: 160 Pages
About The Author
Austin Kleon is a writer and artist. He speaks about creativity and being an artist online for organizations such as SXSW, TEDx, and The Economist.
Unlock Your Creativity
Question: "Where does an artist get his ideas?"
Answer: "He steals them."
The author believes that a creative person is inspired and motivated by other people's work. All creative work builds on what came before and nothing is completely original.
This book features clever photos, graphics, charts and quotations to make the case for good theft vs. bad theft.
Favorite Quotations
"You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life."
"If you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research."
"Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by."
"Not everybody will get it. People will misinterpret you and what you do. They might even call you names. So get comfortable with being misunderstood, disparaged, or ignored -- the trick is to be too busy doing your work to care."
My Thoughts
This is a short, entertaining and FUN book to read. I believe the author has accomplished his goal in getting people to think about creating awesome books, art, music, plays, businesses, etc.
You don't have to be a genius to create...you just have to do good work and share it with people.
Mr. Kleon provides a chart on page 39 that illustrates the differences between plagiarism and research/influence/remixing/transforming.
The light bulb truly came on over my head as I read this book. The message is very simple and nothing really new...but VERY inspiring. It is something we all need to hear and act on.
My Rating: 5 Stars Out Of 5
FYI ~ I read a print copy of this book from my local public library.
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