julissacabral

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Vernacular Type Project. Guene. New Braunfels, Tx

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I like the quote you mentioned, “Leaving a comfort zone is sometimes necessary to succeed, even if it means facing the unknown” because it is true that no idea is a bad idea. If a person throws out a million crazy ideas during the  creative thinking process it just might lead to a tiny spark of inspiration. This inspiration can lead to the outcome of a great solution. I think it is great when designers make word lists or brain dumps because this helps all of theses possible solutions be put on paper. After some process of elimination, the designer can successfully zone in on the best solution and carry it out for the consumer. So overall, it is true that applying your intellectual abilities to a problem can randomly generate a unique solution and ultimately lead the designer to be successful.

What is Creative Thinking?

         The definition of creative thinking to me is understanding, learning and then solving a problem but in a unique way with a different perspective. When solving a problem designers should try to avoid traditional resolutions and think outside the box. Everyone not only designers can use the creative process when trying to solve a problem for example mathematicians, scientist and engineers. When using the creative process you will explore new challenges, and create new unusual fresh and original solutions. As a visual communicator I think creative thinking is highly important since you want to appeal to the viewers eye, communicate your message intellectually and in a different way. My creative thinking process includes three main components connecting experiences, stepping away from traditional thinking and the epiphany stage.

          When presented a problem you have to connect experiences to find your creative solution. Meaning you have to be knowledgeable and be intellectually competent. In the design industry this can mean you’re inspired by other designs and designers as you view their works, technique and styles. Maybe just looking around your surroundings in pop culture, doing research or just memorizing something inspiring from the past. In an article by Brain Pickings they mentioned how Steve Jobs agrees with connecting experiences to your problem as he mentions “Creative people… were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” He explains that creativity is just connecting things. When designers are trying to solve a problem they can connect their experiences with their own problem. The designer should ask themselves how their experience relates with their problem, if their experience is applicable with their problem, and if possible manipulating that experience in their own way to make it solve the problem.

          During your creative thinking process designers should step away from traditional thinking. In other cliché words try to step outside the box. Designers should be willing to take risk and accept change. To do this they have to generate as many ideas as possible. My design professor taught us to put on paper numerous sketches of whatever I’m thinking. By doing this I am eliminating unoriginal ideas I had in my brain and pushes me to create new ideas. Creating a word lists is the same concept. You will then eliminate all of the unoriginal ideas and pick one or two ideas that seem unique but also solve the problem. Generating numerous ideas creates a non-traditional way of thinking that’s important in the design industry since people want to be visually interested to their surroundings. In Inkbot Design’s webpage they state “…Leaving a comfort zone is sometimes necessary to succeed, even if it means facing the unknown.” 

             The epiphany stage (or so I like to call it) happens later on after you’ve thought about a problem for so long. Randomly you will get a creative solution in your head out of nowhere. It is important that you sketch or write down that solution in order for you not to forget later on. Like the famous quote of Don Draper “Just think about it deeply, then forget it. An idea will up in your face.” Being able to randomly think of a solution is simple but you should be able to create that idea into reality also instead of letting it wonder off in your brain.

         I find these three components important when trying to think creatively. I allow my brain to welcome previous memories or background knowledge, I think about the problem in a different point of view while trying to step away from the obvious solution and I find the epiphany stage important since your brain randomly creates a unique idea but it is your job to implement that idea to create a unique solution. Thinking creatively is applying your intellectual abilities to your problem. Taking these steps help you achieve a successful resolution without having to be creative yourself.

Sources

Brain Picking “I,Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words via 200 Quotes” Maria Popova, www.brainpickings.org

Inkbot Design “Creative Thinking” Radovic Zorana, 2016

http://inkbotdesign.com/creative-thinking

Quote from Don Draper

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The Apple iPod was a great example of creative thinking and I agree that it wasn’t a problem people thought needed to be solved. They probably ran into many design problems and set backs before ultimately coming to the final product. There had to be a lot of creative thinking throughout the entire creation of the first iPod which is why I think it’s such a great example. Not to mention, the million little details that had to be thought of like icons, settings, and usability. The designers effectively thought outside of the box and revolutionised society as well as the entire music world. Now you turn and everywhere you look people have Apple products like the iPhone, AirPods, and MacBooks in their reach at every hour. Apple has become a familiar product and has their own ecosystem that is usable across different interfaces. Their consumers are loyal and are proof that Apple successfully used creative thinking to their benefit.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinking as defined by Alison Doyle is “looking at something in a new way. It is the very definition of ‘thinking outside the box.’” It is a skill that people are born with but that can also be learned and enhanced. Nowadays, it is becoming more important to think creatively in the way a business is run or how to improve the product they sell, in finding new solutions to old problems as well as solutions to problems people do not even know they have. While many people pair the word “creative” with “artistic,” that is not always the correct way to interpret the former. What they should think of is things like “innovative,” “original,” and “problem-solving.” In the design field, it is helpful to be both “creative” and “artistic” but in the end, it is the ability to create something new that will win over users, not the aesthetics of the design. 

One example of someone using creative thinking is Tony Fadell, who had a big hand in the creation of the Apple iPod. Back in 2001, he was part of a team trying to come up with a new way to listen to music. Some of the problems he and his team realized were that CDs had limited space, MP3 players were too slow and had a short battery life. They came up with a product that gave the user the ability to add 1000 songs to their device, they could choose the song they wanted to listen to easily and quickly, and they could carry it in their pocket. Most people see not being able to carry around 1000 songs in their pockets as an inconvenience or unfortunate. Maybe because the technology was new, it might even be unthinkable to be able to carry 1000 songs with you. However, most people did not see that as a problem that needed to be solved. Even still, Steve Jobs, Tony Fadell, and their team saw this as an opportunity to create something that would revolutionize the way people listened to and thought about music.

A second example of creative thinking is the story of Airbnb. Joe Gebbia is one of the co-founders of Airbnb and says that one of the most difficult parts of making their business successful was designing for trust. They needed to create a “well-designed reputation system” which they found was essential for creating a business that is completely based on trusting a stranger in your most private space, your home. Gebbia explains in the TED Talk linked below (35:32) that their mantra while designing the app was “fun and friendly.” To make their business take off they really needed to think outside the box. They expressed this by focusing on things like tone on voice, showing a face whenever they could, the color palette, they even made the comment and message boxes the perfect size for people to give just enough information. These are only a few of the things that they had to be creative about in order to accommodate for a new need they discovered. 

There are two kinds of designers according to Fadell: the ones who come up with innovative ideas whose inspiration is totally unknown, and the ones who have a process that they follow, much like the design thinking process. Training yourself to think creatively, as this latter type, is not as hard as it sounds, but it does take practice. Some tips are to re-conceptualize the problem, get other people’s insight, embrace something absurd, and visually consume as much as you can. The more you see, the more you can be inspired. 

Works cited 

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/creative-thinking-definition-with-examples-2063744

https://www.sparringmind.com/creative-thinking/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ted-radio-hour/id523121474?mt=2&i=1000418611913

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“Human-centered design is as much about the consumer as it is about the designer.” I completely agree! I think that both parties ultimately balance each other out. If the designer isn't familiar with their consumer they cannot effectively create a design that will suit their needs. Therefore, as you said, the designer can take measures to create possible solutions so that the consumer can give feedback. After research and feedback, the designer can now successfully understand what it is their consumer needs and create the best solution. Overall, I completely agree that human centred design is more focused on understanding the consumer. It helps people in a much more effective way and generates great solutions.

Human-Centered Design

Human-centered design is as much about the consumer as it is about the designer. The mindset one has when designing must match what they are trying to achieve. Some basic mindsets that IDEO recommends are accepting failure, embracing ambiguity, empathy, creative confidence, and optimism. To reach innovative and impactful solutions, one must have the proper philosophy to approach creative problem-solving.

Human-centered design is based around a repeatable and practical approach to innovative solutions, therefore IDEO has a collection of methods as a step-by-step guide to start thinking about people. They separate it into three different categories: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation, which are similar to the steps of design thinking with IBM. When starting, there are some basic questions that one must tackle before even getting to a strong concept, which include: What tools can I use to understand people? How do I conduct an interview? How do I get started? While these mostly follow basic communication skills, it is important to have that base before getting into the nitty-gritty of the design process. A better understanding of concepts like body language, conversation starters, and resource flow can, in the long run, help your team come to a better conclusion and solution for its audience. Ideation is the next step in the process and again has a series of questions that one should consider at this point: How do I make a prototype? How do I know if my idea is working? How do I make sense of feedback? How do I turn my learnings into an opportunity for design? The answer to most of these questions relies again on those basic communication skills, not only within your team but also with the people you’re trying to help. Each iteration of a prototype should be based on feedback and attempt to answer every problem while still holding true to the original intention. While feedback can sometimes be discouraging, it is key to remember the mindsets that are necessary for this process and continue to brainstorm and innovate on the product. The final step is implementation of the product, including live prototyping, evaluations, and pilots. The questions in this stage are: How do I assess if my solution is working? How do I make my concept real? How do I plan for what’s next? There’s a need to define success in this stage to measure and evaluate how your solution is working. A team must continue to receive feedback and interpret it into improving the product before it goes to print or market.

These steps are very similar to the steps of design-thinking, however, each one is more based on understanding the consumer more. The goal of human-centered design is to help people more efficiently than basic design methods and to create innovative solutions. There are many case studies recording the success of these methods, available online at designkit.org. To highlight a one, Vroom is a human-centered take on Early Childhood Development. This project’s design focused on immersion and being able to empathize with the users by immersing one’s self in their lives and communities. These methods and steps can be applied to almost any project, like Vroom, to work better for those who use it.

Works Cited

“Introducing the Field Guide.” Design Kit, IDEO.org, www.designkit.org/.

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i realized that Cisco’s logo does not only represent an electromagnet but also, the San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge

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Discover space designs in the new DAILY MINIMAL design week 

DAILY MINIMAL - Space Design Week (.01)

A new geometric design every day 

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Human Centered Design & Creative Thinking

“Coming up with ideas should never solely rely on a question and answer approach to information gathering” (Glitchka). This is true because there needs to be some sort of balance to it by finding unexpected options through different discovery methods. These discoveries can be made through exercises such as word associations, mind maps, and brain dumps to help throw every possible idea out there on the table. This helps a designer because it frees new possibilities that may have never seen the light of day.

           Human centered design is all in all a creative way to solve problems. It generates solutions based off of different methods of design thinking and helps designers break down barriers that hold them back creatively. Human centered design is both the manner in which you think and how you go about utilizing it. It consists of three phases including inspiration, ideation, and implementation (What Is Human). In the first phase you open yourself up to all possible ideas by thinking freely and trusting that you will find your solution. In the ideation phase a designer will come up with hundreds of ideas to find the best fit. This includes reworking one idea over and over and coming up with different variations of that same option. The designer then must take advice from those who they are designing for. After all, they are designing for their users needs so the user should be allowed a voice when working on a project. It would only further the success of the designer (Steen). A designer must take all feedback, both good and bad, to ultimately come to a final solution. This final solution will be put out for the users to enjoy in the implementation stage.

           An example of this process can be portrayed through the development of thinking like a kindergartener. Kindergarteners are unlike the rest of society today because of the way that they are learning in the classroom. “[They] are constantly designing, experimenting, and exploring [on a day-to-day basis]” (Resnick). For example, two children are building towers out of blocks and as they add more blocks the tower starts to get very tall. Seemingly out of nowhere, one of the towers tumbles to the ground and the children argue about whose fault it was. Once their conversation ends they agree on building a stronger tower that can grow even taller than the ones before. They ask their teacher for help and she pulls up some pictures of real skyscrapers. This is when the children realize that in all the photos the towers have wider bottoms than the tops. After coming to this conclusion, they then build their wooden block tower to be the same as the ones in the photos (Resnick). This is one of many examples that prove that kids use this train of thought, creative thinking, and it leading to successful solutions. It would be extremely beneficial if as a society everyone were to carry out this style of problem solving in the work place or at school. There are many discoveries just waiting to be made. Imagine the endless possibilities.

Works Cited

Glitschka, Von. “Creative Thinking Methods.” Lynda.com - from LinkedIn, 2 Dec. 2015,

www.lynda.com/Illustrator-tutorials/Creative-thinking-methods/109450/119904-4.html.

Resnick, Mitchel. “All I Really Need to Know (about Creative Thinking) I Learned (by Studying

How Children Learn) in Kindergarten.” ACM Digital Library, ACM, dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1254961.

Steen, Marc. “The Fragility of Human-Centred Design.” PhilPapers, 1 Jan. 1970,

philpapers.org/rec/STETFO-7.

“What Is Human-Centered Design?” Design Kit, www.designkit.org/human-centered-design.

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Project 2 Letter Forms: Roughs of both letters and final versions of both letters. One letter had to be man-made and the other natural. There also had to be one as a serif and one as a san-serif. 

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Poster for Dock 6 Collective by John Zabawa

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No. 381

A new geometric design every day

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Coconut Milk by Grinning Face - by Leo Burnett Design, Toronto

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“The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.”

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The Perpetually Lost

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Prototype

Gustav Klutsis. Projects series for stands and propaganda facilities. 1922

Constructivism flows over the process from image to structure and from spatial structures to its production.

Keep reading

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Project 1 Pictogram System: The final, the rough inked version, and a set of thumbnails. 

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Essay 1

          Design thinking is a method that can be implemented not only in the creative sense, but in any problem-solving situation. In fact, many businesses are beginning to follow this module and implement it into mandatory staff training. This is because the process of design thinking helps to break down the necessary steps required to understand how an issue or idea can be solved. The design thinking process has five stages: empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. If used correctly, these stages will result in any problem being solved in a much more efficient manner.

          Nigel Cross states that “everyone can - and does – design” (3). This means that whether professional or not, people all over the world have some part in designing. This is important because in the first step of the design process, empathizing, everyone who has had a problem first needed to immerse themselves in the situation. In the design sense, “empathy allows design thinkers to set aside their own assumptions about the world in order to gain insight into users and their needs” (Dam). This stage is necessary in order to move on to the next step, defining. Once all the information has been gathered, one must decide on what the problem truly is. For example, a store owner’s problem may be conflicting employee schedules, while a designer’s may be a book cover. Defining the problem is a crucial stage because it is what will begin generating ideas. Cross agrees by saying that “designers recognize that problems and solutions in design are closely interwoven” (10). If one knows the root of the problem, then it is possible to find a solution.

          The next stage in the design process is ideation. This is where all possible solutions are put out onto the table. Every possible idea, good or bad, must be thrown out. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, at the start of this phase it is dire that one brainstorms a variety of opinions and possible outcomes to result in a large pool of ideas. Designers may make word maps, or hundreds of small sketches to build their pool, while a store owner may try making different variations of worker schedules. This leads to the next stage of the process called prototyping. This is where the possible solutions get roughed out. The store owner may decide to mock up a select few new employee schedules, and the designer may make a few select roughs of what the book cover could look like. After prototyping their ideas, the next step is to test them. Designers or evaluators rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase. (Dam). The store owner may test his new employee schedules and find out that some may not work. The designer may find that the client did not completely love the book cover. Both of these outcomes are okay because it is a part of the entire design process. In the end, there will be a successful outcome.

          No matter what the setting is, the design thinking process can be implemented in any situation that requires solving. It is perfect for not only designers, but everyone else as well. It is extremely convenient due to the fact that it does not have to followed in exact order. One can always take steps back in order to revise and edit their ideas that may not have worked initially. When one follows these design thinking stages, it becomes much simpler to find any solution to a problem. Design thinking as a whole has become reliable and efficient in any circumstance.

Cross, Nigel. Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work.Bloomsbury

Visual Arts, 2011. Accessed 19 May 2018.

Dam, Rikke, and Teo Siang. “5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process.”The Interaction Design Foundation, www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process. Accessed 19 May 2018.

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Winston-Salem based creative studio, Device - dramatic branding work for Sutler’s Spirit Co and their Gin.