"Kick Out the jams”: Creative strategies to kick start the illustrator’s imagination

The accident has long been acknowledgedas a catalyst fororiginal thought and can offer new insights to the practitioner wishing to develop thingswhich have never been contemplated or seen before. If we accept Virilio’s (2007) description of the accident as “profane miracle”, how can we instigate such mishaps, or even recognise their potential in the increasingly homogeneous digital landscape in which Illustrators find themselves?Is it even possible to override the restrictive mental parameters we are preconditioned to accept?This paper will aim to locate ways in which students of illustration can thrive by instigating accidents or disrupting the inhibitive characteristics of the technologies that surround us. I intend to seek out contemporary illustrators and investigate how they jump starttheir own creative process in order to develop a repertoire of strategies that reveal, or disclose,ways in which eurekamoments can occur. It will investigate whether the D.I.Y mind-set (forever associated with punkattitudes and tastes) that encouraged experiments, riskand feedback, is still relevant to current illustration practices. It will point towards ways in which art educators can incite innovativevisual thinking and nurture image makersthat stand in opposition to algorithmical mediocrity; Illustrators match-fit for the 21stCentury.