Cards for creative liberation.
Infinite Directions is a deck of cards designed to stimulate your creative process. The cards become opportunities to spark intuitive creativity, offer jumping-off points for ideas, or simply help you get unstuck.
All you do: draw a circle, triangle, and a square card from the deck; together they form a sentence to respond to.
Optional modifications: Try modifying the deck by excluding certain colors or play exclusively with them. The shapes or “glyph families” on the backs can be used in the same way to alter the prompts generated by the deck. Use your imagination and create your own variations: draw a single card, leave a shape out, draw multiples of a single shape–there are infinite ways to use these cards. The creative process is the destination.
The story of Infinite Directions
My name is Isaac Karns and I’ve been making music for over 20 years. Currently I operate a recording studio in Cincinnati called the Marble Garden where I write music as well as handle production and recording for other artists. I’ve recently spent several years as a contract writer for large sync-music libraries where I was responsible for turning in new music every month, ultimately writing over 160 tracks in a little over 2 years. (You can hear that work here if you’d like.)
Through trial and error I discovered techniques to jump start my creative process and quickly shift gears when I would get stuck. I utilized samples, creative limitations, games and especially loved utilizing Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards. I learned to love the creative process and began to think the idea of “writer’s block” as a myth that can (and should) be dismantled with the right tools.
So, I dreamed up Infinite Directions cards to empower anyone that wants to think differently, to try something new, to see the creative process as fun and to realize that all directions are possible.
Do your best, with what you have, here and now; I hope these cards serve you well.
-Isaac
Infinite Directions: where they came from, who they’re for, and how to use them.
