This week we looked at creativity, what it is, how to foster it and also looked at computational creativity. Creativity is apparently defined as the production of something valuable, useful, novel, original, and worthwhile. It is inventiveness. But I don’t think you can define creativity that simply. There are so many opinions on what creativity means and what process it involves, it is a philosophical and scientific question that people have studied and discussed for centuries.
I believe that everyone is creative and creativity can be based on knowledge, not always just some divine spark of inspiration, the more expertise you have in something, the more you can creatively think about that subject, but sometimes theres just a spark of inspiration and something great comes from it.
Creativity is human nature and having looked at the more artistic side of creativity during my Fine Art study, I realised that so many people don’t actually believe they are creative because they don’t produce art, music or poetry etc. But it’s just not as simple as that, creative thinking comes in many forms. Imagination, inventiveness, ideas, problem solving and many more.
JP Guilford an American psychologist studied human intelligence and is most famous for his work around convergent and divergent thinking. He identified five elements of creativity. Fluency, flexibility, originality, awareness and drive. To understand those elements I think helps you to understand what creativity is.
Fluency is the ability to produce a large number of ideas or problem solutions.
Flexibility is the ability to come up with a variety of approaches to a specific problem
Originality is the ability to produce something new
Awareness someone with awareness has the ability to see connections and possibilities beyond the obvious. I think it was Einstein who said ” Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else has thought”
Drive the people with drive have the motivation to stick with a problem and find a solution.
THE ICEDIP MODEL
I see this as a kind of strategic approach to the creative process which I think helps people that don’t necessarily see themselves as creative realise that they are. It outlines six working phases and I think helps to bridge the gap between creative thought and logical processing. (Convergent and divergent thinking)
Click below for definitions:
My favourite part! This is where no idea is a bad idea (well until you decide it is later on) its the spontaneous part of the process where you come up with all of the ideas.
What am I doing?(I ask myself regularly), this looks at what the problem is and what you’re trying to achieve. A bit more logical.
Look at your work in progress and see what could be improved, be open to change and criticism.
The self critical stage after clarification where you look at the ideas with more of a strategic thought process.
This is the bit I struggle with the most, I struggle to leave it alone and let it sit. I know it works, but my brain wont let it be. You have to almost forget the idea exists for a while.
The grafting phase! drafts upon drafts, clarifications and more drafts.
GESTALT PRINCIPLES
These are one of the first things I looked at when I became serious about being a designer (trying to be a good one at least), it always fascinated me how connected design and psychology are. I could go on for ages about the connection between psychology, behavioural science and design, but I will just briefly touch on Gestalt as it is a great one to learn about for creativity and design thinking.
It looks at the laws of human perception and human perception informs design. In simple terms, our brains are built to see structure and patterns and try to organise things, so that we better understand our environment.
We see things in groups, different elements when they are connected to each other, visually are perceived as one and more related to each other.
If things are in the same region they will be perceived as a group, but they don’t have to be connected.
We identify if something is in the foreground (figures) or the background (ground) and we categorise background elements as less important than foreground.
We are drawn to it, it feels more organised. You can direct someones focus by using symmetry and Asymmetry.
The element that stands out visually is the focal point and will draw attention, you can do this by playing with other principles to make an element stand out.
If things look alike, we group them, sort of pattern recognition. Things that are the same colours or shapes, we naturally group them together.
We see the whole even if it is not there. Our brain fills in gaps.
We are more likely to see continuous and flowing lines than broken or jagged ones. Our eyes follow paths and the direction of the flow until it finds another object
Similar to similarity (say that 10 times fast), connectedness and common region. If things are in proximity to each other but look different we still group them.
Things that are pointing or moving in the same direction, we group together.
Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working. - Henri Matisse
Along with briefly exploring what creativity is ( I say briefly because it is such a vast subject) and some models and principles to keep in mind. I have also looked at ways to foster creativity, particularly in the workplace, which are sometimes not the most creative environments. I think to better foster creativity in general, it’s important to understand that there are different types of creativity. Arne Dietrich is a professor of cognitive neuroscience. Some research he published in 2004 in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, described four different types of creativity based on where it comes from in the brain.
Arne Deitrich created the Knowledge Domain with four distinct processing modes:
- Emotional
- Cognitive
- Deliberate
- Spontaneous
Looking at some different ways to foster creativity:
There are so many different ways to brain storm but in short brainstorming is an informal and more relaxed way to ideate within a set time, anything counts and is added. There are written approaches, one at a time approaches, virtual approaches, solitary approaches, it just depends on what you need to achieve and who your team is as to which method you choose.
Mind maps are more visual and structured and I think it goes back to gestalt principles, connectedness and common region, it helps our brain process and shows us how the different elements are connected. It encourages radiant thinking and enables you to see the whole and the individual parts.
This is one of the group brainstorming methods, it’s sort of pass the parcel with ideas.
Write your assumptions then define the opposite, come up with potential solutions. Helps to see things from a different perspective and can help with bias too.
It’s exactly how it sounds, it’s sort of a vision board and a visual and hands on way to be creative.
Bringing weird, often unrelated things together to create new innovative ideas by cross pollenating. Combining items to ideate as many new products, services or experiences as possible.
This is a time constrained method with a folded up piece of paper creating 8 sections. 8 ideas in 8 minutes, fast paced idea generation for solutions to problems.
SCAMPER is an acronym for substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other uses, eliminate and rearrange. Ask questions about existing product for example what can I substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other uses, eliminate or rearrange about elements of a product or service.
While learning about computational creativity and AI, I listened to Simon Colton talk about the first computer generated musical called Beyond the Fence, set in 1982 and is about a woman called Mary and her daughter called George who are celebrating one year living at Greenham Common peace camp protesting against the arrival of US cruise missiles. When Mary is faced with losing her child to the authorities she finds an unlikely ally in the shape of US airman Jim Meadows. This is quite literally close to home as I actually live a 10 minute walk from Greenham common and I love the thought that AI thought of a story around this area.
It also made me wonder, what else can AI do? What does it already do that I don’t even notice? How can it help me do my job? How can machine learning power UX and enhance the user experience for actual humans. You see how AI can affect user experience in things like Siri and Alexa, even the chat bots you get on some websites and apps. They all deliver intuitive responses to user requests but the possibilities are endless as technology advances. AI driven user experiences seem to be the future.
AI driven design seems like an exciting concept as it would enable us to collect vast amounts of data and analyse it faster than we humans can and we would then be able to more intuitively design and connect users to products and brands. Imagine being able to use AI driven design to create numerous variations of a brand and have individuals experience a product in a bespoke way, depending on the user. It takes CX and UX to another level.
I currently work in automotive research and one of the most talked about topics is automation and electrification of cars, the safety aspect of this technology is so important and while its not quite there yet. It is happening, but safety is vital to the success of this technology. I hope it removes the user/driver error and makes the roads safer but I wonder what the cost of removing the human element and human judgement will be.
I currently work in automotive research and one of the most talked about topics is automation and electrification of cars, the safety aspect of this technology is so important and while its not quite there yet. It is happening, but safety is vital to the success of this technology. I hope it removes the user/driver error and makes the roads safer but I wonder what the cost of removing the human element and human judgement will be.
As a graphic designer I wonder how much easier my job would be if the mundane tasks like cropping, resizing and colour correction were to be automated based on the AI knowing the item you are designing for. How much time would be saved? Adobe is currently working more intuitive and automated tools using AI to decide how to stitch things together for example.
It will potentially reduce production costs and improve turnaround. On the flip side of that, will we all eventually become even lazier consumers? floating round like potatoes, in a fully catered for environment, where every whim is met like in the movie Wall-e. Or will we forget how to be creative if there is not a need to be?
The purpose of AI is to assist not to take over all and I think it’s an exciting prospect to think about having our very own AI virtual assistants to help us innovate and create.
Select one or more of the ideation techniques discussed this week, then apply them to the following challenge:
Choose an existing artefact that is the output of someone’s creativity. This could be a poem, short story, illustration, song or anything else you think is interesting. Modify the artefact in some way using the techniques you selected. The aim is to remediate it into another form of the artefact.
As with all attempts to channel inner creativity, there are no rules for this exercise. Instead, you are encouraged to dive straight in and not think too hard about it. Select your initial artefact, blast through the ideation techniques to find ways to modify it and let the output happen organically.
So, for the ideation technique, I decided to go with good ol’ Crazy 8’s, I like this process as its simple, quick, gives you little time to second guess yourself (which I tend to do) and for a brief like this I think it is perfect as its a “don’t think too hard and dive straight in” scenario. Trusty sketch pad and pen at the ready…
Because part of the brief was to not think too much I chose art and artists as the main focus (I went with what I know, while its not very “out of the box” thinking…for a quick challenge to modify an existing artefact I think thats fine) and used the crazy 8 method to decide what to do with the artists or art as you can see across the page in my wonderfully calligraphised ( is that even a word?) piece of paper. No, really, excuse my handwriting – I was going for quick not legible…oops.
I will type it out below to decipher my scrawls.
In the first box I listed a few of the more famous artists that popped into my head as I think something that resonates with a lot of people may have a better effect.
Below that I thought about pieces of art that each artist are most famous for and while art is obviously subjective they all embody some sort of emotion or feeling. What if we flipped that emotion to portray some other feeling?
Below that I thought of creating a game from one of the pieces and what instantly came to mind was pin the ear on Van Gogh (I am sorry ha!)
Again underneath that I thought about adding a modern twist or to age something. To change the timeframe would perhaps change the meaning you perceive.
To the top right I thought about blending styles and mashing signature styles together or flipping the style on its head and creating something realistic that was once impressionistic or abstract or vice versa. Living subjects become dead or Van Goghs starry night becomes a sunny day with fluffy clouds.
Next I considered changing the use or method of delivery, art can tell a story, so why not change a painting into a poem or short story or make some sort of music that you feel sounds like the image.
Then I thought about taking something away, removing a key element of the composition or a focal point.
Finally I considered changing the medium, so if something is a painting, turn it into a digital design, pencil drawing or collage. If its a 3d work, turn it into a 2d sketch or animate it.
From this 8 minute session I came up with an idea.
Picasso has always caught my attention and while his morals may have been questionable, his art is I think some of the best there is. The first time I saw his work in person was as a kid, it amazed me the depth he created with what was seemingly a wonky faced, multi coloured, weirdness and as a kid I loved that it wasn’t “normal” looking.
Once I was older and I traveled to Barcelona and of course saw Gaudi architecture and lots of other creative mastery, but I made a point to visit the Picasso museum. That is part of why I chose this subject.
I looked at The Weeping Woman series which was created in late 1937 – this depicts Dora Maar who was his mistress and muse. I took the colour pallet and toned it down and did a quick rough sketch of her on my Ipad.
But instead of following the style of Picasso, what if I make it more realistic and not a painted, painting at all, but a digital drawing instead, it wont have the depth or paint strokes, it wont have the surrealism (cubism?). What will be left? It wont be a master piece but it will be something new. I think I caught her likeness quite well for a quick turn around piece.
I think I played it safe when it came to my challenge brief, I feel like I stuck within the realms of what I know quite well and did not explore many other possibilities. While I enjoyed having a doodle and making Dora my style, I think next time I need to think outside the box a little more.
This week I have done a lot of reading about creativity and scientific studies, I think this has helped me understand creativity a lot more than before.
Not a fan of the layout of this blog I don’t know what I was thinking but I am keeping it so I don’t do it again. Design skills out the window!
I feel like I have achieved a lot this week. Good layout – not one of them.
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
- Pablo Picasso
- PETTY, G. ‘How to be better at creativity' [online]. Available at: https://geoffpetty.com/creativity/ [accessed 06 June 2022].
- INTERACTION DESIGN FOUNDATION 'Gestalt Principles' https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles [accessed 06 June 2022]
- GUILFORD, J.P (1967) Creativity, yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Journal of creative behaviour 1(1), pp.3-14 doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.1967.tb00002.x
- DIETRICH, A (2004). The cognitive neuroscience of creativity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11(6), pp.1011–1026. doi:10.3758/bf03196731.
- DIETRICH, A 'The cognitive neuroscience of creativity' https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03196731 [accessed 06 June 2022]
- DONAHOLE, S 'How Artificial Intelligence Is Impacting UX Design' https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2021/04/how-artificial-intelligence-is-impacting-ux-design.php [accessed 07 June 2022]
- CHITRANSHI, A 'AI impact on UX design and vice-versa' https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2021/04/how-artificial-intelligence-is-impacting-ux-design.php [accessed 07 June 2022]
- For later reading -Arne Dietrich's Website
The Design thinking playbook
Lewrick, M., Link, P. and Leifer, L., 2018. The design thinking playbook. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.