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There’s so much variety and approaches in creative thinking that there isn’t a wrong way of doing it; all creative thinkers use synthetic creative thinking, being able to come up with original ideas while being innovative. Mind mapping is a really good tool for bringing basically our whole brain onto a board or paper to show all our ideas; by combining both it allows us to narrow down our thoughts and ideas to pinpoint the concept we’re trying to deliver. We as creative thinkers dive into many forms of art which we can define as spontaneous art. Spontaneous art for myself and probably many others is a main key player in delivering our ideas and concepts into fruition; which this can also connect with problem finding. I personally keep a sketchbook in which I practice my drawing skill so that it won’t get rusty and in return it helps me pull my emotions onto an image. For creative thinkers drawing or sketching should be a basic skill to attain while other forms of art are a plus in skill growing and creative thinking. I know we have software’s that can execute perfectly clean images, but the feel differentiates completely; if we had to do everything by hand as it was before, hand skill would play a big role in our execution. Just as “Picasso used the process of painting to find inspiration and direction while painting; he didn’t plan before he began painting” according to R. Keith Sawyer; this is true for most people when we just dive into any creative exercise it can help us formulate our concept. The next stage would be an oral presentation of our concept to a person or group of people in which they would hear you out and give feedback on the idea. By allowing ourselves to present our ideas and thoughts to someone else takes courage and practice since we always have a corner in our mind that tells us that our idea is not the best. By having a listener without giving any feedback until the end of the presentation, gives us practice in articulating our thoughts in a cohesive way that hopefully will make sense to the listener. The beauty of this tool is that if the receiver is not understanding what we’re trying to send, we either we need to work on our delivery of information or get their feedback in what needs to be improved for a clearer understanding. Having a different viewpoint through someone else is helpful and eye-opening at times, because we do tend to stare at our work for most of the time that we may overlook small or big details. Although honestly at times we are stubborn and feel that our original idea or stage of work is the best one and we just don’t want to bend to any feedback given; or the opposite is wanting to fix and improve an idea or problem to the point that we want it to be so incredible that we’re not letting ourselves accept another direction. This leads to having flexibility in our concept thinking or job field since its beneficial to adjust in any given situation, but the challenging part is knowing when to let go of an idea or field that is not working for us, then we have made a bigger step in accepting change. As the text references “when you’re doing something unrelated to the design assignment, assuming you’ve prepared, ideas may pop into your head”. I agree with this quote; when I’m not really trying or taking a break from a project, that those are usually the times that I’ll get the best ideas. In being out and about looking at articles or even talking with a person themselves, their characteristic inspires me at times into delivering that characteristic into a concept. There’s so much variety and approaches in creative thinking that there really isn’t a wrong way of doing it; its just about being able to have the curiosity to learn and gain knowledge in improving our craftsmanship in what we deliver to the world.

Citation source:

           Creativity in adults and children is typically analyzed through something called a Torrance Test. It is comprised of two parts, a verbal and a figural test. The Verbal test evaluates creativity on a verbal level…

and the Figural test asks participants to complete drawings and utilize their imaginations…

…using cues like these:

          Using the Torrance Test, a 2019 Polish study by Dorota Jankowska and Maciej Karwowski found that children from higher socio-economic households had higher creative thinking ability at the start of a formal education (Kindergarten), but as the school year progressed the household’s income had almost nothing to do with the rate at which a child adapted to and implemented taught creative thinking processes. A similar study regarding race and social class was conducted by Joseph Moreno and John Hogan in 1976. They came upon a similar conclusion, that education and environment effected a child’s creative thinking ability more than un-controllable factors such as race.

           I find that these results make me slightly uncomfortable. It’s not that I believe low-income, non-white, uneducated parents can’t produce creative children, what makes me uncomfortable is that the structure and resources required to promote creative thinking abilities are not made available to all children. Both of the studies above discussed the influence of quality education on children’s measurable creativity, which, unfortunately, is something that low-income neighborhoods and their surrounding schools do not typically have access to (because of tax-dependent funding). Matthew Lynch, an author for “The Edvocate”, expresses this sentiment in his article “Poverty and School Funding: Why Low-Income Students Often Suffer”. In it, he laments the fact that Title I schools have been receiving less and less funding every year since 2010, meaning that low-income students are missing out on learning resources, which furthers the creative gap between low-income and high-income schools.

           Furthermore, Jankowska and Karwowski acknowledged that the key to higher creative thinking ability in pre-school aged children is “…both autonomy and structure”. From both personal and professional experience, autonomy and structure for a child are easier to achieve in a safe neighborhood, in a home that receives consistent and adequate income, and with at-least one parent or responsible caregiver available to the child at any given time. They also tied the number of books present in a home to a child’s Torrance Test score before being enrolled in formal schooling. This means that families with more disposable income and with educated adults in the home have a higher likelihood of sending a creative child into the school system.

Design Writing

           The idea of design thinking is ever flexible, allowing viewpoints and concepts to grow into something that wasn’t thought, initially. Additionally, these initial concepts continue to grow into more hypotheses that construct a field of stemming possibilities, thus creating an array of varying potential. Design thinking and implementing ideas have a limitless capacity of outcomes in the modern technological world we live and create in.

           Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the design company that popularized the term design thinking, states “Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.” Designthinking.ideo.com, Brown’s primary engine, which drives this concept of design thinking, is people. Someone highlights an issue, and wants to transform it into a physical, useful, and innovative tool for other people. With design thinking constantly adapting to new technological ways of creating, there is a repetitive cycle of methods evolving to feasible, viable and desirable conclusions. This ever-evolving process implements, empathizes, defines, ideates, prototypes, and tests the concepts that are presented.

           A designer’s mindset is creative and innovative, taking action and bestowing solutions, rather than focusing solely on a problem. This thought process requires imagination, intuitiveness, and thinking logically or illogically, outside of the box for the end user to deem the outcome diverse and beneficial. Imagination is a key characteristic to jumpstarting the design thought-process. The next step after implementing a vision is to empathize; consequently researching the user target and listing ideas that would become a successful solution. After researching and brainstorming, definition and ideation of the concept are up next; integrating and finding the problem while generating value-added, unique, and even off-the-wall ideas, which seem cohesive to the end user’s benefit. Thereafter ideation and narrowing down the best concepts, creating many different physical prototypes and versions of the designs is when the user and designer hone in on the most desirable and viable compositions.  Analysis and feedback stem from created designs and eventually, the ideas evolve into the development cycle to be updated and restructured. It is important to keep in mind that design thinking is constantly changing the way people judge a design as successful, thus creating a time for criticism and innovative thinking, which is detrimental to improving a prototype.

           Inspiration, implementation, and ideation consistently bounce off of each other, thus spawning new ways to make a completed design even better than it was before. There are many examples of this modern concept; the progression of large wired telephones to computerized cellular phones in the palm of our hands, or the advancement of the first Apple Macintosh computer to the slim, lightweight MacBook Air that one may take with them anywhere they go.

           The concept of ice making was also a major design thinking resolution; a couple men in the late 1800s cut blocks of ice during the winter and brought it to the consumers who wanted it. Thirty years later, the idea of innovation was to create a factory that produced ice in any season and having an iceman deliver it. Another thirty years go by and the prototype of ice making is implemented into homes through refrigeration, creating easy access for everyone through their personal ice machines. This improvement of an initial idea is a perfect example of the way design thinking continues to improve consumer feasibility and accessibility.

           In conclusion, learning by doing is critical in the process of design thinking.  A concept or physical prototype must be tested and critiqued in order for improvement to be achieved, therefor evolving an idea into it’s greatest potential.

When researching human centered design and the thought of creative origination, I came across David Kelley’s belief that creativity lies within anyone and everyone. Kelley is the founder of IDEO, a community of designers, entrepreneurs, engineers, teachers, researchers, and more. In his younger years, he went to a psychologist (Dr. Bandura) at Stanford where he discovered the thought process behind phobias and the confidence to overcome them. Bandura presented a concept to Kelley known as “self–efficacy”: “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.“ In other words, self–efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation. Bandura described these beliefs as determinants of how people think, behave, and feel.

For wanting to work in a creative environment surrounded by people he liked, Kelley created IDEO, and made a commitment to making great things happen in the world. His passion is to “help unlock creative confidence in everyone from students to business executives.” He is a jack-of-all-trades; he received his masters in engineering as well as product design, and was awarded an honorary recognition that “distinguishes contribution to design education.”

After reading articles about Kelley and his accomplishments, his ideas about design thinking and human-centered design cannot go unnoticed. His communities of designers in multiple places around the world focus on helping their clients and partners at the individual, organizational, and societal level. They assist clients by building their creative capacity and ability to grow, adapt, and routinely innovate. Human–centered design is a large contributor to the process of innovative advancements in our modern world, and a quote from IDEO’s website that draws my attention is that “you can move forward faster if you take a look back.” Meaning, we advance in the design world by looking back at previous concepts and constantly push the idea that they can always be evolved into something better than before.

As humans, we always want more, or the next big thing—this is where the designers come into play and reflect on whether something needs to be revisited. As the technology of the modern world continues to be ever-advancing, human needs seem to accelerate. Therefore, complex problems are best solved collaboratively. “Even as our methods evolve in response to new, complex challenges, we’re always designing solutions for people first. We’re building to learn, and learning as we build, through inspiration, ideation, collaboration and implementation.” Nevertheless, we must not forget how important the past is helping us shape the intention for the future.

Kelley, David, and Tom Kelley. “Creative Confidence.” IDEO Is a Global Design and Innovation Company., Oct. 2013, www.ideo.com/post/creative-confidence.

Tillman, Ashley, and Chelsea Takamine. “Open Reflections: Looking Back on a Year of Impact.” OpenIDEO, 2017, www.openideo.com/content/open-reflections-2017.

Cherry, Kendra. “How Self Efficacy Helps You Achieve Your Goals.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 7 Oct. 2019, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-efficacy-2795954.

1. Reframe The Problem or Phrase Question Differently 

When we phrase a question or problem in a different light, we are more likely to find more solutions. We often look at things from a single angle preventing us from seeing all the possibilities.  Some ways to think more creatively for this are  to phrase the question differently or to put the problems in a different scenario. 

2. Avoid Logical Thinking

Logical thinking can prevent us from innovative thoughts, because when we think logically we only use what we know. Creative ideas are built from what we do not know. To facilitate this process, you can look for inspirations from music, arts or people. Or you can use your dreams to come up with solutions. Studies show that dreams help us problem solve and one advantage is that dreams do not follow logic, but instead give us insights. 

3. Avoid Following Rules 

This point relates back to point 2, because we usually stick to rigid ideas or beliefs about how things work or should work. Instead, we should become more flexible and ask ourselves the question ‘what if?’ What if we tried? 

4. Avoid Being Practical 

This point relates to the methods we use to problem solve. Sometimes, we tend to stick to one method and not try other ways. Instead, we should be trying to combine different ideas or methods together. 

5. Try Not To Force Creative Thinking 

We are often most creative when we do not try to be. Sometimes, ideas just come up to us through insights or unique experiences. Certain dreams are one of them, but we do not really control what we dream about. 

6. Talk To Others 

We often like to see ourselves as the experts and that we should come up with ideas alone. But truth is ideas usually comes from the outside. We get ideas from talking to people who may or may not be expert of your area but they bring to you their own knowledge and expertise.

7. Embrace Ambiguity 

Most problems are ambiguous and may not actually have a straightforward solution. But isn’t it our goal to find a solution? To think creatively, we must accept that each problems are unique and that it will take time and creative effort to find a solution. 

8. Embrace Failures 

Not all great ideas work out. In fact, most innovations are failures at the start. You just have to keep working at it, find out what went wrong, and keep trying. 

9. You Are Creative 

You just need some inspiration. It helps if you are patient and explore different ideas. Often times, other ideas inspire us to come up with our own. Furthermore, know your own strength and values you can add to old ideas to make them creative. 

10. Practice Practice 

Being creative is also an art. You have to become self-aware of what makes you creative, when you are most creative, and what you are most creative at. Start paying attention to what you’re good at and start doing some work. Keep making something new everyday.