Onur Cobanli explains:
The real secret that most designers will not tell you; design inspiration comes from boredom. They will not tell you this because it undervalues their process and also most of them actually do not have enough introspection and self-awareness to trace back the source of their inspiration. But it should not undervalue their process; because a person who does not have any design thinking capabilities, skills or knowledge will not come up with a good design no matter how much they are bored; because there is a precondition to this boredom; you must be ready to intercept the inspiration when it comes, and intercepting the inspiration actually means making the neural connections in your brain; thus people call it the spark; as electricity goes through your neuros; the spark can only come to be, if there is a flow; for flow there must be two concepts that needs to be connected, for there to be two concepts that need be connected, you must be well educated, well thought, and actively thinking; you must have experience, knowhow and skills and you must be actively using and tapping into your experiences, knowhow and skills such that these neurons activate and help you connect the dots, literally, in your brain; then you have an inspiration; all you need for good inspiration is to study a lot, know a lot of things, exercise a lot and then sit calmly and think of everything you need to do; that’s it but it is not easy; as you see there is an initial cost of study, learning, practicing that needs to be paid, so you just work long enough until you acquire all such, and inspiration will be yours.