No Missing Tools – Out Now

As children we experience the world as an inherently creative place. Any old box can become a train, a spaceship or a house. With just a few colouring pencils we can create the next artistic masterpiece, or bang out the greatest drum solo ever. But, as we enter adulthood, creativity becomes more challenging and we soon start to doubt whether we have what it takes, either in terms of talent or tools, to make a creative mark.

But, what if there were no missing tools? What if we could tap into those early impulses that motivated us to create with so much freedom and confidence? No Missing Tools is my attempt, through stories, examples, suggestions and a little hard research, to try and piece together a way to be more creative and to understand our creativity better.

It’s now over ten years since I came back to creative work full-time and No Missing Tools: Creativity In An Age Of Abundance is the distillation of everything I have learnt in that time. Experiences I’ve had, books and research papers I’ve read and most importantly, conversations I’ve had with literally hundreds of creatives, everywhere from dusty fields in the Himalayas, to boutique cafes in Hong Kong.

I’m really proud of this book. I’ve spent the better part of a year working on this and had the chance to collaborate with some great editors and designers to make something that I feel will be helpful to a wide range of readers, not just photographers and musicians. And, although I’ve been blogging for a long time now (nearly 14 years) No Missing Tools is also the most revealing and personal thing I’ve ever written. There’s a lot of stories in the book’s 282 pages that I’ve never shared before.

No Missing Tools: Creativity In An Age Of Abundance is available now. You can pick up a copy a paperback copy on Amazon for U$16 (also available in Amazon UK or Amazon EU), or order the Kindle version for U$6.79 (also available on all the global Kindle stores, check your local price), if prefer and there’s even a digital multipack available for U$10 through GumRoad that includes the pdf, mobi and epub versions (use the code “abundance” for a 25% discount till the end of the month on this version). Finally, there is a numbered, limited edition, hardcover version, printed in Japan available for U$65 direct from my studio in Tokyo.