The Creative Machine. Next Edition.

The 10,000-volt creative workshop that unleashes your creativity.

Nea Machina has become the creative bible of making and inspires students and agency creatives, artists and graphic designers, people who design products and explore the limits of what is possible. Now in its third edition, the book encourages readers to make powerful use of the “special tool known as the hand” alongside the computer and passionately advocates for the combination of reason and intuition.

What began as an experiment has evolved into the high-caliber, time-tested Nea Machina workshop: a creative method that does not artificially limit itself to the mind and computer, but instead lets the “power tools”—the gut and the hand—play their part.

Thomas and Martin Poschauko put this creative machine to the test in a self-experiment. They set themselves the task of producing as many different works as possible over a four-month period, consistently building upon a portrait and the title of the experiment: Nea Machina. The experiment gained momentum, resulting in 1,000 high-quality works, and they realized: there is method in the madness.

They turned it into their first book (unfortunately completely out of print and trading at sky-high prices) and gave numerous workshops, in which they witnessed how even supposedly non-creative people became powerhouses of ideas. They refined their teaching methods and revamped their workshop. They became celebrated speakers on stages around the world.

Thomas and Martin Poschauko open up new horizons and encourage people to explore new paths by letting go. They pack years of teaching experience, valuable tips, and stunning examples of their own work into this book. In doing so, they inspire even those who cling to the familiar and the shy “I-don’t-know-if-I’m-creative” doubters.

With a unique blend of raw creative energy and a well-developed didactic structure, these two top designers guide you through a school of perception that turns the familiar upside down. Through playful experiments, the use of alienation, playing with associations, and the balance between letting go and setting limits, they awaken your creative potential and the desire to live it out.

They skillfully structure their workshop, on the one hand, into practical case studies that they personally comment on and which serve as inspiration for you. And on the other hand, into chapters in which the Poschaukos offer theoretical reflections and provide food for thought on life, work, and realizing your potential.

(Publisher’s text – reproduced with kind permission)