Welcome in, designer friends. We’re usually told to learn from design mentors, creative directors, or the latest Figma plugin. But what if I told you one of the sharpest guides for creativity isn’t even a designer?

Jiddu Krishnamurti, often called one of the great thinkers of the 20th century (and yes, Nikhil Kamath is a fan), never opened Adobe After Effects or worried about font pairing. And yet, his wisdom has deeply refined my creative work. His books like Freedom from the Known and The First and Last Freedom, where he unpacked clarity, awareness, and freedom of thought with razor-sharp precision.

Now, why should that matter to us as designers? Because beneath all the grids, color palettes, and motion curves, design rests on the same fundamentals Krishnamurti spent his life exploring: clarity, rhythm, balance, simplicity, and the courage to break free from conditioned patterns.

The fun twist? Krishnamurti never wanted to be a “guru.” Yet his teachings end up being the kind of design mentorship we didn’t know we needed. Not in the sense of “here’s how to animate a button,” but more like “here’s how to cut through the mental clutter so your creativity actually has space to breathe.”

So let’s dive in. Below are five lessons from Krishnamurti that have quietly refined how I approach design, from motion videos to messy prototypes, and how they might help you too.

1. Observation Without Judgment

Krishnamurti said: “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

Sounds lofty, but it’s the prescription for designers: stop tweaking your own work too early!

We’ve all been there. You drop something into Figma, look at it for 0.2 seconds, and go, “Ugh, trash.” That reflex is great for sourcing Balenciaga, but lethal when applied to your own ideas. I’ve killed more good concepts in that knee-jerk moment than I care to admit.

Now I try to sit with my designs like I’m watching a stranger’s work. No quick labels. No “meh, not trendy enough.” Just looking. Strangely, that neutral space is where real clarity shows up.

2. Creating Space for Insight

“In the space between two thoughts, there is truth.”

Design culture glorifies the hustle. The faster you deliver, the better. But anyone who’s wrestled with a messy After Effects timeline at 2 a.m. knows that forcing progress rarely produces brilliance.

The real breakthrough sneaks in when I pause. A short walk. A coffee. Even staring blankly at the wall. It feels counterintuitive, but it’s exactly like motion design. The holds, the pauses, the decelerations. That’s where rhythm and meaning live.

Designing without pauses is like music without silence. Just noise.

3. The Pathless Land of Originality

“Truth is a pathless land.”

Early in my career, I worshipped “the process”: wireframes → mockups → prototypes → animation → Clean → Linear → Safe.

But honoring my best work came when I cheated. Jumping from sketch to animation. Mixing grog doodles with digital prototypes. Inventing wild hybrid workflows that made no Behance sense but felt alive.

Krishnamurti’s reminder liberated me from design dogma. There isn’t one “correct” path. Creativity often happens in the shortcuts, the detours, the rule-breaking experiments.

4. Freedom from External Authority

Krishnamurti warned us about authority shaping the mind. For designers, that authority is everywhere: trends, client feedback, likes on Dribbble.

Of course, feedback matters. But chasing approval as the north star leads to hollow work. I’ve fallen into that trap, designing for applause instead of impact.

When I stopped asking, “Will this get likes?” and started asking “Does this feel true to the problem?” that’s when my work actually began resonating. The irony: the less I design for validation, the more validated I feel.

5. Simplicity as Clarity

Krishnamurti wasn’t about aesthetics, but he was about stripping away noise.

Designers, myself included, often equate complexity with sophistication. More layers, more animations, more flair. But clarity usually emerges through subtraction.

One project stick I spent days obsessively over-designing an explainer motion video. Crazy transitions, micro-animations, the works. It looked slick, but nobody could actually follow the message. When I finally stripped it back to the essentials, the design worked. It breathed. It communicated.

Simplicity isn’t “less is more.” It’s “less, but better.” (Sorry, Dieter Rams.)

Wrapping It Up

Design is exhausting. Deadlines, vague briefs, endless revisions. Krishnamurti doesn’t give us design tutorials. What he offers is much rarer: a way to cut through the noise of our own minds.

For me, his teachings have become less about philosophy and more about practical creative survival.

Pause. Observe. Break the path. Stop chasing approval. Strip back to clarity.

That’s not just good philosophy. That’s good design.

I’ve been playing fingerstyle for over 3 years now and learnt it on my own without any teacher, but in this process i did hell lot of mistakes, the mistakes that could've saved a lot of time, i’m gonna be writing/ sharing tips that could help you save your time and boost your guitar playing.

1.HOW YOU HOLD YOUR GUITAR MATTERS A LOT

The position of the guitar is very essential, your right hand and your left hand must be tight enough making sure your chest muscle has a strong hold to the back of the guitar, it gives a great balance as well as the best tone if u learn to hold your guitar in a proper way to get the best finger-style guitar playing, you have to make sure its completely straight when you look down from your chest, placing your guitar on your thigh in a proper manner whenever ur playing in a sitting position, overall u need to practice to hold your guitar in a proper way to get the best results.

2.THE “RIGHT HAND” TECHNIQUE.

The six strings in guitar , should be paired with your 4 fingers, resting your pinky finger is a bonus , the ring finger with the low E string, the middle finger with B string, the index finger with the G string, the thumb takes care of the three bass strings i.e “E”, “A”, “D”. The easiest way to achieve is to make a claw position keeping ur hand down, pinky finger makes a huge part if you rest it on the guitar it helps u to make sure ur hand doesn't move away while plucking the respected strings with ur fingers, gives a great balance while plucking.

3. ACHIEVING THE BEST TONE.

To get the best tone it is always suggested to pluck the strings from ur right hand at the start of the sound hole, plucking it in a proper manner ,keeping ur finger nails in a proper medium shape gives the best tone as well. Using a good premium strings with suggested gauge of .12 for finger-style , my suggestion would be using ELIXIR , D’ADDARIO , these are the best guitar string brands for acoustic and gives u the best tone for finger-style guitar playing.

4. PRACTICING FINGERPICKING PATTERNS.

easiest way to boost your finger-style playing, is practicing patterns, this makes ur muscle memory stronger , you will start to learn to use your left hand as well as right hand that is shifting chords and playing the strings , the more you practice patterns the more you will start to develop easy fingerstyle playing and developing muscle memory , use patterns which great fingerstyle players use it , keep repeating the same patterns with different chords, with time depending on how much you practice it , there will be a development of smooth right hand playing, the left hand takes care of the chords.

5. LEARN SONGS/ARRANGEMENTS

my key to success throughout my guitar journey was only because of learning songs, when u start to learn u favourite songs and you see that you are able to play it without any pause , you develop a massive confidence and motivation to keep learning, i went through youtube and started to learn intros of my favourite songs based on guitar, my first ever intro that i learnt was “nothing else matters” by Metallica, it gave me hell lot of confidence when i was able to play it on my own, as everyone says practice makes a man perfect, i kept on learning one arrangement , than play it for weeks, it developed a lot of muscle memory, producing correct tones, than i start learning more and more songs , focus on one arrangement play it through weeks after learning, than understand the theory. OVERALL if u want to master the fingerstyle guitar playing , u need to learn it in a proper way, to save years of practice.

ENJOY YOUR GUITAR JOURNEY, THANK YOU FOR READING :)