more from the 'Meta' on the creative process...(see previous post)

Continuing my deep dive into the creative process, here's more on how it is to see, think, act, feel and understand in the creative process..

Look familiar?

How to see in the creative process...

Recognise that seeing comes before reading and everything we see is relative to it's surroundings (J, Berger et al. 1972)

(for more on this revelatory book see my post on 'Ways of Seeing')

Observe

engage in formal analysis and observe the world through the formal elements* ie line, shape, texture, colour and form in order to remove cognitive biases and learnt assumptions about beauty, truth, genius, civilisation, status and taste etc

How to feel in the creative process..

Uncertainty and Discomfort Challenges.

Tolerate ambiguity, embrace uncertainty and step out of your comfort zone, to deliberately practice creative process skills.

Psychological Safety for Creative Exploration.

Create an environment in which you feel safe to take interpersonal risks and express ideas without fear of negative consequences or judgment

Creativity-Supportive Relationships.

Build trusting relationships that support co-creation and act as emotional safety nets, allowing you to fully explore your own creative processes.

Creative Self-Efficacy and Emotional Regulation.

Develop confidence to perform creative tasks and cope with negative and debilitating thoughts and emotions in the creative process, such as self-doubts, self-limiting beliefs, fear of failure, or performance-induced anxiety.

...we've all been there

Resistance to Conformity.

Overcome pressures to conform and fears of social exclusion due to strange new ideas or ways of thinking.

Motivation, Passion, and Inspiration.

Tap into your passions, interests, and aspirations to facilitate authentic creative expression, engagement in creative processes and the exploration of personally meaningful ideas.

How to think in the creative process...

Expertise and Technical Skills in a specific discipline.

Develop and practise the necessary expertise and craft, to produce creative works within a particular field.

Curiosity and Exploration (Trans-Disciplinary)

Explore ideas and 'wicked'* problems within and across different disciplines. Taking every opportunity to explore different areas of knowledge, experiences and idea possibilities.

Openness to Unusual Ideas, New Possibilities and Serendipity.

Be open to strange and surprising ideas, new opportunities beyond preconceived opinions and the happy accidents that advance ideas in unexpected ways.

Challenging Assumptions.

Question assumptions, cognitive biases and idea fixations, explore different perspectives, lateral thinking and possibility thinking and develop flexible and adaptive thinking under changing conditions.

Idea Generation and Play.

Embrace playful, non-evaluative, divergent* thinking and ideation processes, to develop trust in your own intuitive and imaginative thought processes. Search for multiple solutions, regardless of practical considerations. Expressing ideas externally to make intuitive knowledge explicit, so new associations can emerge.

Idea Development and Iterative Analysis.

Dig deeper into ideas through critical analysis and convergent** thinking processes, for example, analysing, challenging, and evaluating the quality of ideas (for aspects such as originality and usefulness), and to iteratively revise, recombine, and synthesise ideas to discover new possibilities

Idea Incubation and Time Allowance for Unresolved Questions.

Allow for idea incubation processes, to let ideas develop over time. Understanding is deepened and new associations are formed through subconscious information-processing.

…reminds me of a quote I use alot...(Thanks Austin)

“Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing" Austin Kleon, 2012

How to act in the creative process...

Translate your passions into your work. Engage in reflexive practice regarding your own developing creativity.

Risk-Taking, Experimentation, and Learning From Mistakes

Actively experiment and adopt a learning-through-doing focus around creativity and failures.

...it's all about the process, get obsessed with it!

Collaboration, Co-creation, Community of Practice, and Peer Feedback

Support creative group processes, build a community of creative practice, and engage in peer feedback moments.

Empowerment Through Agency, Autonomy, and Initiative

Creativity is learned by doing; actively and consistently immerse yourself in creative processes. Creative growth and trust in one’s intuitive thought processes require time, effort and initiative.

How to understand in the creative process...

Reflect on creative processes to achieve deeper and lasting learning. To uncover constructive and destructive thoughts, feelings and behaviours and become aware of how these inhibit or facilitate your creative practice.

Creativity Expertise

Frame creativity as a learnable, multidimensional process that requires the development of creative competencies and personal habits of mind and work, such as persistence, the ability to focus, observational skills, reflexivity, or a curiosity-driven learning approach.

How to adapt and improvise in the creative process..

Dealing with uncertainty

Flexibly manage and balance the tensions of creativity that repeatedly arise, such as intuitive versus rational thought, self-doubts versus self-efficacy, process versus product focus, divergent versus convergent thinking, rigour versus playfulness, structure versus freedom, or conflicting demands of different stages of the creative process.

How to find meaning in the creative process..

Creativity-in-Action

Engage in personally meaningful creative work with real-world consequences and position creativity in the context of different disciplines, to discover the applicability and relevance of creativity across contexts.

....Or as I call it, 'learning on the job'

Engage with the larger community of thought, for example; by exposing yourself to many examples of influential creative works, creators, and practices.

Thanks for sticking with the long read, I hope it goes some way to explaining the many dimensions of creativity and what it means to be a designer. I have found it insightful to understand the complexities of my own creative methodologies and as a barometer for designing curriculum for the design programmes I teach.

..Because creativity matters.

Glossary

*'Wicked problems are problems with many interdependent factors making them seem impossible to solve. Because the factors are often incomplete, in flux, and difficult to define, solving wicked problems requires a deep understanding of the stakeholders involved, and an innovative approach provided by design thinking. Complex issues such as healthcare and education are examples of wicked problems.' (IxDF)

**Divergent thinking is an ideation mode which designers use to widen their design space as they begin to search for potential solutions. They generate as many new ideas as they can using various methods (e.g., oxymorons) to explore possibilities, and then use convergent thinking to analyze these to isolate useful ideas. (IxDF)

***Convergent thinking is an ideation mode which designers use to analyze, filter, evaluate, clarify and modify ideas they have generated in divergent thinking. They use analytical, vertical and linear thinking to find novel and useful ideas, understand the design space possibilities and get closer to potential solutions. (IxDF)

references and citations:

John Berger, Sven Bloomberg, Chris Fox,Michael Dibb, Richard Hollis, 1972, 'Ways of Seeing', Penguin,

Austen Klein 2012, 'Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative'

Brauer, R., Ormiston, J., & Beausaert, S. (2024). Creativity-Fostering Teacher Behaviors in Higher Education: A Transdisciplinary Systematic Literature Review. Review of Educational Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543241258226

*Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2016, June 4). What are Wicked Problems?. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/wicked-problems

**Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2016, June 5). What is Divergent Thinking?. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/divergent-thinking

***Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2016, November 26). What is Convergent Thinking?. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/convergent-thinking