Creativity Exposed: What is Creativity, Anyway?

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011, posted in Designolosophies with No Comments

There are a lot of talk surrounding creativity and what it’s all about. One thing that us designers know for sure is that we need creativity in order to thrive in this industry. But how do you define or describe creativity? And what is the real meaning of creativity? According to Robert Sutton, the author of a fantastic (and curiously provocative) book called “Weird Ideas That Work: How To Be Build a Creative Company“, creativity is actually far less mysterious than you might think. In his book he sums up that creativity results from using old ideas in new ways, places and combinations. Look around you… All products, services and theories are not conjured out of thin air. They exist because of these three key creativity exploration of using old knowledge in new ways:

1. Variance

Creativity variance is enhanced by bringing ideas that are old in other places but new to us or our clients. This involves digging into our old ideas (TIP: never throw away any idea! Make an archive of it) or other people’s old ideas and forming a new link of ideas thus creating new creative variances that leads to innovations. With all of those new ideas being formed we are sure to encounter a lot of dumb, bad, lousy and crazy ones. But the key here is to keep on trying new things because you will never know maybe that one wild and crazy idea might be your next golden ticket. Hence variation is a hallmark for creative individuals to come up with exciting new ideas that leave their competitors running back to the drawing board and wondering why they didn’t think of that before.

2. The “Vu ja de” mentality

Pronounced “voo-zha-day”, means seeing the same old thing in new ways. If deja vu is the feeling that you have had an experience before even though it is brand new, then vu ja de is what happens when you feel and act as if an experience is brand new even if you have had it or seen it many times before. You might have work on the same exact (boring) routine or task hundreds of time before and then one day you discovered a new and more efficient way to do things, thus increasing productivity. When applied to design, vu ja de can to be use to jar people out of the numbness and lifelessness of modern life, whether its with the usage of unusual colors, shapes and sizes on product designs. No matter how the vu ja de mentality is used, it has the ability to shift opinion and perception. Think of it as a splash of color appearing on your monochrome television set. It has the power to shake things up! For example, take this unique urban installations along various seafronts around the world. With a splash of design and color, these installations have created a much needed vibrancy to an otherwise dull and lifeless seafront. Source: CoolHunter.net

3. Breaking from the past

Clinging to the past means being safe and secure to a lot of people, and this might hinder innovation and the birth of new ideas. In the contrary, new ideas or innovations might result in higher risk of failures too. Does this mean you should stop creating or innovating new products, services or ideas? Of course not. Because we are living in the world where people’s taste always changing and new technologies are constantly being developed. These are the times when innovation and new ideas are crucial. But don’t discard your old ways just yet, instead replace them with better new ways. A good example of breaking from the past… Tea bags had always been square since they had been introduced in 1951 to British consumers; no once ever thought of changing the shape. Then in 1985, Tetley began doing research on consumer reaction to round bags. They went national with its round bags in January of 1990 and its tea market rose from 15 percent to 20 percent. Not to be outdone, PG Tips secretly developed and launched its new 3-D shaped tea bag a.k.a. The Pyramid tea bag in 1996 which promised faster brewing process than the other shaped tea bags (and beating out Tetley’s round tea bags sales number along the way). In essence, the shape of tea bags didn’t change for 34 years until these researchers saw the same old thing in a new way! vu ja de!

New Ideas come from old ideas

If you want to constantly being creative, you need to keep finding new places and ways to use your existing ideas and keep persuading others that your ideas are new and valuable. So how do you spark new ideas and persuade others that it is valuable? I will answer that on the next article…

Further Reading:

- Weird Ideas That Work: How To Be Build a Creative Company, by Robert Sutton - Design Remix: Your Creation Gives Me Inspiration to Create New Design