+ 31.10.2013

CREATIVITY IN DESIGN

Creativity is the fundamental survival skill for a changing world. Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between unrelated, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking and producing. If you have ideas but do not act on them, you are imaginative, but not creative. Creativity is the process of bringing something new to being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to  new life. The experience is one of the heightened consciousness: ecstasy. A product is creative when it is novel and appropriate. A novel product is original, not predictable. The bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates further work and ideas, the more the product is creative.

Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product, service or process that creates value for business, government or society. Some people say creativity has nothing to do with innovation, but in my view it is a crucial part of the innovative product. Innovation cannot happen without creativity. The key metric in both creativity and innovation is value creation. 

In current world, this far leading left-brain linear, analytical computer-like thinking is being replaced by right-brain empathy, inventiveness, and understanding as skills most needed to adapt. In other words, creativity gives you a competitive advantage by adding value to your service or product, and differentiating your business from the competition. 

Can creativity be learned? Certainly! A study (link) reveals that we are naturally creative and as we grow up we learn to be uncreative. The reason for that is that the educational system was designed to train us to be good workers and follow instructions. Creativity can be developed by learning and applying creative thinking processes. The ability to generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a function of five key behaviours that optimize your brain for discovery:

1. Associating: drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields
2. Questioning: posing queries that challenge common wisdom
3. Observing: scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify new ways of doing things
4. Networking: meeting people with different ideas and perspectives
5. Experimenting: constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge

Beliefs that only special, talented people are creative-and you have to be born that way- diminish our confidence in our creative abilities. The notion that geniuses such as Shakespeare, Picasso and Mozart were `gifted’ is a myth. Researchers examined outstanding performances in the arts, mathematics and sports, to find out if “the widespread belief that to reach high levels of ability a person must possess an innate potential called talent.” The study concludes that excellence is determined by opportunities, encouragement, training motivation, and most of all - practice. Few showed early signs of promise prior to parental encouragement. No one reached high levels of achievement in their field without devoting thousands of hours of serious training. Mozart trained for 16 years before he produced an acknowledged master work. Moreover many high performers achieve levels of excellence today that match the capabilities of a Mozart, or a Gold Medallist from the turn of the century.” (The Vancouver Sun, Sept.12/98)


Tips for being more creative and innovative:

Believe you can change the world.
Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
Know when to work alone and when to work together.
Share - tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
No politics. No bureaucracy.
The customer defines a job well done.
Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
Invent different ways of working.
Make a contribution every day. If it doesn't contribute, leave it behind.
Believe that together we can do anything.
Invent.

More thoughts about creativity and the process of creativity:
The Process of Creativity

Great link about different tips and exercises for developing creativity:

Creativity at Work

Some creativity-related pdf materials:

Exploring Creativity in Design Process: A Systems-Semiotic Perspective

Assessing Creativity in Design: Emerging Themes for Engineering

+ 10.10.2013

1) Online Etymology Dictionary

design (v.)

1540's, from Latin designare "mark out, devise, choose, designate, appoint," from de- "out" (see de-) + signare "to mark," from signum "a mark, sign" (see sign (n.)). Originally in English with the meaning now attached to designate; many modern uses of design are metaphoric extensions. Related: Designed; designing.

design (n.)

1580's, from Middle French desseign "purpose, project, design," from Italian disegno, from disegnare "to mark out," from Latin designare "to mark out" (see design (v.)).

de-

active word-forming element in English and in many words inherited from French and Latin, from Latin de "down, down from, from, off; concerning", also used as a prefix in Latin usually meaning "down, off, away, from among, down from," but also "down to the bottom, totally" hence "completely" (intensive or completive), which is its sense in many English words. As a Latin prefix it also had the function of undoing or reversin a verb's action, and hence it came to be used as a pure privative - "not, do the opposite of, undo" - which is its primary function as a living prefix in English, as in defrost (1895), defuse (1943) etc.

sign (n.)

early 13c., "gesture or motion of the hand," especially one meant to communicate something, from Old French signe "sign, mark," from Latin signum "identifying mark, token, indication, symbol; proof; military standard, ensign; a signal, an omen; sign in the heavens, constellation," according to Watkins, literally "standard that one follows."

Ousted native token. Meaning "a mark or device having some special importance" is recorded from late 13c.; that of "a miracle" is from c.1300. Zodiacal sense in English is from mid.14c. Sense of "characteristic device attached to the front of an inn, shop, etc., to distinguish it from others" is first recorded mid-15c. Meaning "token or signal of some condition" (late 13c.) is behind sign of the times (1520's). In some uses, the word probably is a shortening of ensign. Sing language is recorded from 1847; earlier hand-language (1670's).

designate (adj.)

1640's, from Latin designatus, past participle of designare.

designate (v.)

As a verb, from 1791, from designate (adj.) or else a back-formation from designation.

designation (n.)

late 14c., "action of pointing out," from Old French designacion or directly from Latin designationem (nominative designatio) "a marking out, specification," noun of action from past participle stem of designare. Meaning "descriptive name" is from 1824.

designing (adj.)

"scheming," 1670's, present participle adjective from design (v.).

2) Definition of "design"

design

noun

1. a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or the object before it is made.

Example: "He has just unveiled his design for the new museum."

Synonyms: plan, blueprint, drawing, scale drawing, sketch, plot, diagram, delineation, draft, depiction, representation, scheme, proposal etc.

- the art or action of conceiving of and producing a plan or drawing of something before it is made.

Example: "Good design can help the reader understand complicated information."

- the arrangement of the features of an artefact, as produced from following a plan or drawing.

Example: "Inside, the design reverts to turn-of-the-century luxe."

2. a decorative pattern.

Example: "Pottery with a lovely blue and white design."

Synonyms: pattern, motif

3. purpose or planning that exists behind an action, fact, or object.

Example: "The appearance of design in the universe."

Synonyms: intention, aim, purpose, plan, intent, objective, goal, target, point, hope, desire, wish, dream, ambition, idea etc.

verb

1. decide upon the look and functioning of (a building, garment, or other object), by making a detailed drawing of it.

Example: "A number of architectural student were designing a factory."

Synonyms: plan, draw plans of, draw, sketch, outline, map out, plot, delineate, draft, depict

- do or plan (something) with a specific purpose in mind.

Example: "The tax changes were designed to stimulate economic growth."

Synonyms: intend, aim

Wikipedia

Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system (as in architectural blueprints,engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams and sewing patterns). Design has different connotations in different fields. In some cases the direct construction of an object (as in pottery,engineering, management, cowboy coding and graphic design) is also considered to be design.

More formally design has been defined as follows.

(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints;

(verb, transitive) to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)

Another definition for design is a roadmap or a strategic approach for someone to achieve a unique expectation. It defines the specifications, plans, parameters, costs, activities, processes and how and what to do within legal, political, social, environmental, safety and economic constraints in achieving that objective.

Here, a "specification" can be manifested as either a plan or a finished product, and "primitives" are the elements from which the design object is composed.

With such a broad denotation, there is no universal language or unifying institution for designers of all disciplines. This allows for many differing philosophies and approaches toward the subject.

The person designing is called a designer, which is also a term used for people who work professionally in one of the various design areas, usually also specifying which area is being dealt with (such as a fashion designer, concept designer or web designer). A designer's sequence of activities is called a design process. The scientific study of design is called design science.

Designing often necessitates considering the aesthetic, functional, economic and sociopolitical dimensions of both the design object and design process. It may involve considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design. Meanwhile, diverse kinds of objects may be designed, including clothing, graphical user interfaces, skyscrapers, corporate identities, business processes and even methods of designing.

3) Word "design" in Estonian 

Translation to word "design" from English to Estonian; the matches are then translated to English, leaving out the repeated word "design":

noun

1. disain
2. konstruktsioon - construction, build, structure
3. projekt - project, plan, scheme, draft, blueprint, scheme of designs, 
4. kavand - layout, sketch, draught, outline, plan, project, rough draft
5. kava - plan, project, scheme, layout, idea, intention, schedule, outline, syllabus, program, blueprint, proposal
6. mudel - model, make, sample, pattern, matrix, mode, template, style
7. muster - pattern
8. plaan - plan, scheme, project, blueprint, ground plan, layout, device, draft, map, outline, schedule, survey, intention, idea, contrivance, plot, program, setup, plat, conception, proposal, proposition, scheme of designs, set up
9. stiil - style, fashion, order, pen
10. visand - outline, sketch, study, draft, rough draft, plan, project, foul/ rough copy, delineation
11. konfiguratsioon - configuration
12. näidis - example, model, pattern, specimen, sample, exemplar, norm, standard
13. joonistus - drawing, pattern, outline
14. eskiis - study, sketch, draft, rough draft, outline, rough plan
15. kavatsus - intention, purpose, plan, thought, idea, resolve, intent, notion
16. joonestus - drawing, draft
17. arvutlus - calculation, computation, count, evaluation, reckoning, statement

verb

1. kavandama - sketch, outline, draft, project, plan, schedule, blueprint, map out, program, draught, engineer, chart, devise, envisage, indicate a plan, plot out
2. kujundama - form, shape, mould, fashion, model, decorate, frame
3. projekteerima - project, scheme, plan, form a plan, blueprint, develop
4. disainima - style
5. planeerima - plan, map out, concoct, glide, map, 
6. arvutlema
7. visandama - lay out, outline, sketch, delineate, draft, block, plot, rough out, set out
8. kavatsema - intend, purpose, propose, plan, project, schedule, calculate, scheme, set out, mean
9. konstrueerima - construct, develop

Disainer on tootekujunduskunstis loovisik, kelle tööks on luua, arendada ja/või kujundada tooteid, üldjuhul mingi tööstusharu tarbeks (näiteks mood, trükitööstus, meedia, arhitektuur, sisearhitektuur, reklaam, veeb, kõikvõimalik tootmine jne).

Translation: 

Designer is a creative person in industrial design arts, whose job is to create, develope and/or design products, generally for some industrial sector (for example fashion, printing, media, architecture, interior design, advertisement, web, all kinds of production etc).

+ 3.10.2013

   PRODUCT DESIGN HISTORY OVERVIEW

   The first use of the term "industrial design" is often attributed to the industrial designer Joseph Claude Sinel in 1919, but the discipline predates 1919 by at least a decade. Christopher Dresser is considered the world's first industrial designer. Industrial design's origins lie in the industrialization of consumer products. For instance the Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907 and a precursor to the Bauhaus, was a state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass-production techniques, to put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States.

   The Industrial Revolution in the UK

   At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, mechanized fabrication in the UK was still combined with individual craftsmanship and aimed at the continuity of societal and economic structures, as seen in Wedgwood tableware and the development of railway engines. The speed of technological advance throughout the nineteenth century, however, enabled manufacturers to seek greater profits by producing more for an expanding market with new customers. Manufacturers increased the degree and type of decoration on their products to enhance the status of their customers. This resulted in a variety of new styles such as Art Nouveau and Neo-Gothic. As a counterweight, the Arts and Crafts movement, which emerged in the 1860's and 1870's under the influence of artists such as William Morris, aimed at designing products that reflected the old ideals of craftsmanship.

Wedgwood tableware

Example of Art Noveau graphics

Example of neo-gothic architecture

Arts and Crafts movement, wallpaper by W.Morris

   The Industrial Revolution in the USA

   During the Great Exhibition held in Britain in 1851 to celebrate world industry, Europe became acquainted with American products and developments, which aimed at modern industrial mass production and functionalism. Over the next half-century the 'American system' was not only characterized by its production techniques but also by the entire organisation, influencing the business processes as well as the functionality and appearance of the products, resulting in new products such as Remington typewriters, Singer sewing machines, Kodak cameras, McGormick reaping machines and Ford automobiles. Due to increasing labor costs and a shortage of cheap labor, the USA focused on standardization. In the early years of the twentieth century companies such as Henry Ford produced relatively low-cost cars that existed of assembled complicated mechanical parts. Concepts such as efficiency, standardization and functionality became popular at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

Remington typewriter

Singer sewing machine

Kodak camera

McGormick reaaping machine

Ford model T

   Birth of the industrial designer

   Although industrial design was commonly incorporated into industry by the end of the nineteenth century, the profession of the industrial designer was still rather ill-defined, meaning that the activities of artists, architects, craftsmen, inventors, engineers, technicians and other personnel of larger companies were all labelled as industrial design. Only at the beginning of the twentieth century did the legitimacy of the industrial designer surface as a person who integrated all of these activities, incorporating, e.g. technological, functional, aesthetic and business aspects.

   Modernism

   In Germany, the Deutscher Werkbund, a precursor to Bauhaus, was founded in 1907, and aimed at integrating traditional crafts and industrial mass-production techniques. It focused on the societal role of design and art. Technology and machines could be used to improve people's taste and develop their cultural aspiration towards, for example, harmony and societal decorum. The benefits of technology were no longer available only for the elite. The movements arising from the turn of the century up to the 1930's, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Constructivism and Purism, advocated a new universal and objective style: the aesthetics of the machine. By glorifying machines and technical progress through objective shapes, they aimed at an improvement of the quality of life for all users. Modernism flourished.
   As of the 1960's, the German company Braun, along with Dieter Rams, applied to products the Bauhaus principles of the earlier years of the 20^th century, such as 'form follows function'. Rams deleted every superfluous detail and ordered the essential elements to give optimum support to functionality. He aimed for a neutral and harmonic aesthetic quality in order to allow the user to create his own 'image' of the product. As Rams mentions in his 'ten principles': "Good design is as little design as possible". 

Deutcher Werkbund poster

Bauhaus poster

De Stijl: Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld

Constructivism: Tatlin's Tower or Monument to the Third International

Purism: Le Corbusier Villa Savoye

   Streamlining 

   At the same time, the idolization of technology, progress and modernity was further effectuated from the 1940's until the beginning of the 1960's by styling products on the basis of symbols of progress, such as cars, aeroplanes and even satellites. Streamlining, originally derived from the shape of a drop of water, was 'the' way to express speed as a metaphor for energy that could liberate the user. It was the opposite of machine purity, and it diverted the attention from the inner workings of the product to its appearance. Thomas Hine (1986) coined the synthetic word 'populuxe' for this era of popular luxury for all. 

Streamlining design: Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin) by Norman Bel Geddes

Populuxe

   Electronic products 

   After the fifties, Modernism faded out in the West. Rationalism, objectivity, universalism and the application of technology and science to human needs and necessities were substituted by replaceability and consumerism. Without unifying ideologies, design got lost in 'prettiness'. Designers were focusing more and more on the 'package' and appearance of the product. Innovation became more popular than invention, and the professions of the designer and the engineer grew further and further apart, especially during the last decades of the twentieth century. The development of technology intensified; the size of the microchip decreased and, simultaneously, its possibilities increased. The technology push spurred on the functionality of appliances, thus offering the user unlimited possibilities and an enormous supply of electronic and digital products. Consumption and personal self-fulfillment were strengthened, and the gap between machinery and commodity increased.

Industrial design missed out on this major industrial development; designers missed the electronic boat, more specifically 'the interaction with the ungraspable'. The design of the physical form and the design of the interface of interactive products were separated. People working within the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community such as usability engineers did the engineering and interaction thinking, and industrial designers were invited to beautify the new machines. They did this by expressing power, rationality, functionality and self-interest. The products were based on 'cognitive' interaction with displays and dozens of neatly organised buttons, as can be seen in, for example, the microwaves, telephones, business equipment, medical equipment, computers and photo and video equipment from the 1980s and 1990s. 

Towards emotion and experience 

   In the 1980's, the post-modernist movement Il Nuovo Design, including the companies Studio Alchymia and Memphis, criticized this focus and approach. They advocated concepts such as diversity, discontinuity, eclecticism, ornaments, color and experience in order to create a more enjoyable and fancy world. The adage 'less is more' was replaced by 'less is a bore'. Around the turn of the century, a weakened version of their ideas rapidly caught on in commercial appliances, such as Alessi kitchen appliances, Swatch watches and Apple's colourfl iMac, and quickly seemed to turn towards a superficial form of fun and emotions, i.e. 'funnying' the look of products, which we could call 'form follows frivolity'. Around the same time Bauhaus-like objects were reproduced for the elite, becoming terribly expensive and sold in 'design boutiques'. Architects were assembling workers' living units into skyscrapers in the US. Design became exclusive.

The shift towards fun, emotion and experience was also a result of the sociocultural setting and the economic strategies of companies to survive. Companies introduced lifestyle brands to compensate for the loss of ideals, identity, belief systems and cultural references after the decay of Modernism. By adopting a brand lifestyle of one's choice, people found a way to regain a sense of identity. Designers helped to fuel consumption by repeatedly renewing the style of products, of which Swatch is a clear example. And they focused on brands and brand identity by designing the complete package, including machinery and commodity, appearance, services, 'experience', points of sale, advertisements, etc., such as Nespresso and Apple. Designers tried to envision the future through novel concepts, such as Philips' 'Vision of the Future' (1996), although many of those design concepts took the underlying computer logic and cognitive structures as given. 

Studio Alchimia: Alessandro Mendini

Memphis Group

Alessi: Juicer by Philippe Starck

Selection of Swatch watches from 1990's

Apple iMac

Nespresso brand logo

Apple brand logo

Vision of the Future - Philips Design

Knowledge economy

   With the move into the twenty-first century, we are shifting from an experience economy to a knowledge economy. People no longer have to rely on brands and product lifestyle to signify and create their identity; instead they are nowadays able to create their own identity or identities through a variety of social platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. We are becoming more and more digital and networked, which influences the profession of the industrial designer. 

Reuniting HCI and industrial design 

   Today we see that the two worlds of HCI and industrial design are coming together again. HCI people move towards experience, and industrial designers embrace the digital, although one can clearly see their history and thus differences in approach and focus. One sees many HCI people and computer scientists who are seeking to bridge engineering and art, science and art, or the three, as can be seen in Robin Baker's book "Designing the future" or in Hiroshi Ishii's work at MIT MediaLab. Moreover, the digital is often a starting point to connect to the real, e.g. with Ishii's Radical Atoms, and a cognitive approach towards experience is still dominant. One generally sees the engineering paradigm in this way of working and thinking based on externalizing knowledge, changing the world and taking the machine perspective, although the latter is more and more combined with a human perspective.

Industrial designers, on the other hand, tend to base their way of working and thinking on internal knowledge (often referred to as intuition), on changing the world and on a human perspective. Contemporary industrial designers are trying to find a way to connect the possibilities of new technology, intelligence and social platforms to people's being in a physical and social world; to map the discreteness of the digital to the continuity of us being in the world. Moreover, industrial designers are exploring their new role in the upcoming transformation economy paradigm in which value is created in communities, by addressing societal issues together on a local scale with all the stakeholders involved. For example, RED, a 'do tank' that uses innovative design to tackle social and economic issues, which was set up by the British Design Council in 2004, is one of the initiatives to find new ways. 

Robin Baker "Designing the Future"

British Design Council - RED