A dear friend of mine years and years ago, gave me a mug that said “Bloom Where You’re Planted.” I remember thinking, “sure, that’s easy for you to say, you didn’t leave your home of 30 years.” I had moved over 700 miles away from where I had been born and raised. In fact, it had seemed like I had stepped back in time by at least 25 years and into another culture. I had moved from northern Delaware to middle Tennessee.
Everything was different and I mean absolutely everything! Shopping carts were now “buggies.” Your groceries were pushed in the buggy to your car. People said goodbye and ended the engagement with you by saying “y’all come back now.” “Bless your heart,” was meant as sympathy for practically everything. And then their was this one (which I totally didn’t understand and had to ask for an explanation): “you’re just too much jelly for one biscuit.”
Well, 30 years later, bloom where planted, has taken on a new perspective. By now you must be wondering what has this got to do with design.
Well, remember, the basic premise of this blog is ideas and their conceptualization. Ideas can come from anywhere, especially the great outdoors. The photo above, is a candidate for the idea, “bloom where you’re planted.” But that seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? Sometimes the best ideas are found in the simplest things. Say a word to yourself right now, any word will do. I choose “dog.” Write down a list of words/phrases that use the word dog in it. For example, dog tired, in the dog house, dog eat dog world, sick as a dog, dog days of summer, let sleeping dogs lie, dog-eared, etc. You get the point. So now you have ideas to work with from very different perspectives. And those differences can be golden where creativity is needed. What would you do with the phrase, Bloom Where You’re Planted?
