This is a guest post by Robert Morris Google+
The ability to be creativity might seem like an abstract skill: not necessarily useless, but not imperative. However, creativity carries over into all areas of your life. It can help you make better decisions, be a better leader, find innovative ways to increase sales, and help with problem solving skills. There are two kinds of creativity: technical creativity and artistic creativity. Technical creativity has to do with finding creative solutions to everyday problems. Artistic creativity has to do with creation of art, music, or any other form of expression. Both can help your mind create new neural pathways, and allow you to think more broadly when presented with a difficult situation.
These ten online tools will help increase both your technical and artistic creativity. And there’s a decent chance you’ll have some fun as you explore them.
1. Paper by FiftyThree
Think of Paper by FiftyThree as a virtual artist’s sketchbook. Doodle as much as you want, or create works of art with the virtual pens, sketching tools, and writing tools.
2. Magic Piano
This online piano is great if you actually want to learn how to play some songs. But it’s equally fun if you just want to play around. You can choose from a large selection of songs to play along with. Get your creative juices flowing with Magic Piano!
3. Ninja Essays
You can use Ninja Essays to amp up your creative writing talents. Use Ninja Essays’ blog full of writing tips to learn new techniques and add to you “toolkit,” of writing techniques.
4. Dubble
Dubble lets you take a picture and mix it with any other photo in the world. Converge a photo of yourself with one of a tornado. Combine photos of friends. The possibilities are endless. Just imagine what fantastic images you can create!
5. Vyclone
Vyclone is a great app for socializing. When you and several other friends take video from the same event, Vyclone will weave them together from different angles to create several videos. This is an especially wonderful app for weddings, parties, and other big events.
6. Brain Plots
BrainPlots is a brainstorming tool to help you break out of your “box,” and unleash your most creative ideas. Even bad ideas can inspire brilliant ones. As you add in ideas, the app makes suggestions for a next step. You can either accept or reject the suggestions.
7. Doodle Buddy
Doodle Buddy is an iTunes app that lets you draw, finger paint, stamp, and create to your heart’s content. You can connect with friends online to draw together, or work on your own. Use it to spark your creativity, or just to take a break from the real world for a while.
8. Snap Guide
Snap Guide gives readers a DIY guide for any activity they would like to do. Have you always wanted to learn how to build a birdhouse, make the perfect tiramisu, or change the oil in your car? Snap Guide will show you how. You can also add your own Snap Guide for the things you know how to do.
9. Fyuse
Fyuse is a phone app that will change the way you think of photos and video. Fyuse may one day do for photos what Google did for Internet searches. We won’t just take a video; we’ll Fyuse it. The app captures multiple angles at once to make your images more interactive and lifelike.
10. Mind Tools
MindTools is sort of a self-help website for people who are trying to increase their creativity. The site provides a “toolkit,” full of ways to think outside the box about topics from Decision Making to Problem Solving. There is also a category specifically for Creativity, even though the entire site is a way to improve creativity.
With any luck, these website have sparked your creativity in some way. Whether you’re the artistic type who enjoys doodling or doing arts and crafts, or someone who is just trying to find ways to break outside of your comfort zone, you’re sure to find something interesting among these tools. What’s your favorite way to bolster creativity? Leave a note in the comments.
Robert Morris is a freelance editor from NYC, he loves online education, music and books.
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Photo Credit: Jeff Safi via flickr
