Meccano days

One of Britain's leading inventors has warned that a 'Google generation' who rely on the internet for everything are losing creativity and practical skills because they spend too much time in front of screens. Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio, said he fears that the next generation of inventors is being lost, with young people often unable to make anything with their hands. But the 75-year-old inventor said that children have got to be taught hands-on, and not to become mobile phone or computer pendent, and could rediscover vital skills if schools used Meccano and other practical toys.

Say it with pencil

"This is how it was," says Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). "Architecture for me has always begun with drawing. When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since. The buildings do appear on paper the way you say, but they are not the result of gratuitous brushstrokes. The pencil is guided by so many thoughts stored away in my mental library. But, when I have looked at the site for a building, considered its budget and thought of how it might be built, and what it might be, the drawings come very quickly. I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say."

Collaboration and crowdfunding

Collaboration rather than the lone genius is what propels innovation. And sitting tight on ideas in the early stages of the design process is outdated. Says the project team behind the idea for adding an E-Ink screen to the back of an iPhone 5 case: 'Even a few years ago, it seemed unheard of to throw ideas out to the world very early in the process. Now it’s very viable and takes advantage of the best in the community to quickly develop products that the people will love.' Utilising crowdfunding, the 4-inch customisable screen called The popSLATE will be launched next spring. http://www.indiegogo.com/popslate

Idea formulation in the internet age

The study of languages has found that the background linguistic system, i.e. the structure, or grammar, of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather in itself the shaper of ideas. Formulation of ideas, then, is not an independent process but part of a particular grammar, and differs, from slightly to greatly, between different grammars, as argued by the linguist Benjamin Whorf*. This may suggest that ideation is a matter of different grammars. But, in the age of the internet and enhanced communication through social media technologies, is there an emerging global "super-grammar", or "super-ideation"? Or is this doubtful, in a similar way that the universal language project, as advanced by linguists throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, was doomed to fail, not least because of the inherent ambiguity and generality of language?** . * Carroll, J. (Ed.) 1954. Language, Thought, and Reality; Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, MA: MIT. ** Phemister, P. 2006. The Rationalists: Decartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Cambridge, UK: Polity

Words, words, and ... drawing

Q: "How do you design? Do you draw? Do you drape on a model?" A: "I design with words. When I'm in bed I write. Everything is really words which I communicate to my assistant, and then I start drawing. But first it's all about the words and the mood." Haider Ackermann, womenswear designer (Interviewed in Industrie 2012 Issue 5, pp 96-109) -------- This quote rings a bell with my research findings that language (written and spoken) is a major ideation tool. Or, that the role of language might be overlooked or underestimated in the early stages of the design process. [Jonson, B. 2005. Design ideation: the conceptual sketch in the digital age. Design Studies Vol 26 No 6 pp 613-624]

Talent and Creativity

"How do you spot talent and creativity? I don't know. I think that the fashion world now is so enormous that it needs different kinds of people. It needs hyper-creative people to move fashion forward. But it also needs dedicated, efficient, dynamic, smart people in all areas, whether we're talking about the creativity or we're talking about management. I don't think it's just about one mad spirit". Suzy Menkes, fashion journalist.

From idea to design decision

"Few people think about it or are aware of it. But there is nothing made by human beings that does not involve a design decision somewhere." Bill Moggridge (1943-2012); designer of the first folding laptop computer (1982), and co-founder of design firm IDEO.

Unity of design and material

'"Right from the beginning I had a clear idea of what to do with that pavilion. But nothing was fixed yet, it was still a bit hazy. But then when I visited the showrooms of a marble firm at Hamburg, I said: "Tell me, haven't you got something else, something really beautiful?" I thought of that freestanding wall I had, and so they said: "Well, we have a big block of onyx" ... "And so we decided to use onyx."' Mies van der Rohe, on designing the German pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain.

Constructivist ideation

Ideation, in the context of learning, can be seen as a form of Constructionism where learning happens most effectively when people are active in making tangible objects. In this way, we don't "acquire" ideas but "construct" ideas through exploring, testing and playing around with materials in the real world. In manipulating materials, then, ideas are given physical shapes and forms (2D/3D). Moreover, when using everyday items and found objects, the manipulation becomes acts of improvisation utilising techniques and processes such as assemblage, bricolage, or collage. Or, if you like, ABC of material ideation. https://www.dropbox.com/s/7orx128gkljfdzl/BEN_DRAFT02.mp4

Ideas communication: Diagram and doodling

According to Hideshi Hamaguchi, the Japanese engineer and inventor of the USB Stick, if you don’t have the talent for drawing but are good at strategic thinking, then you can still become a great product designer. All you have to do is connect the design to the strategy and then turn into a language the company management people and the consumer can understand. To keep creativity on the top and communicate the design, Hamaguchi intentionally uses both diagram and doodling to bridge logical and intuitive thinking. Source: http://www.yankodesign.com)

Non-designer designers

"The glossy, black and metal slab [of the iPhone] came about because Jobs had acquired great design taste, even though he wasn’t really a designer. Or was he? That depends on the definition we use. Jobs wasn’t a designer, because he didn’t have a degree in any design field. In his professional life, he didn’t directly engage in the kind of creative work that we usually associate with professional designers. Yet you needn’t have designer credentials to think and act as a designer. Jobs exemplified many of the traits of a great designer: He was creative, curious, exploratory, and playful. His father had taught him that it was important to care about the craft of anything you built. Influenced by Zen philosophy, Jobs paid close attention to the world around him and came to appreciate the kind of simple, refined aesthetic." John Edson

Love of ideas

"Just as Steve (Jobs) loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished." Jonathan Ive

Learning how to draw: iPad, or pen & paper

In the early stages of learning how to drive a car, the learner with a manual gear box tends to look at the gear lever when changing gear. In contrast, the learner with an automatic gear box can focus immediately on the overall task: driving. Now, and using the driving analogy, do novice designers when learning how to draw with pen and paper resemble the learner with the manual gear box, struggling with technique (using aids such as rulers)? Whereas the novice with an iPad is up there with the learner using the automatic gear box, immediately focusing on the overall task: drawing?

A2Z ≠ A2B

Ideators make room for a lot of spontaneity and flexibility in their everyday life. They experience sudden insights, make discoveries, and come up with fresh solutions to old problems. They seek alternatives to the usual routine way of doing things.

Letting go

Circumstances are always shifting and changing in the realm of design ideas. You may feel the need to return once again to a previous condition, just to see if things might have changed. If they have not, let go of the idea and leave in good conscience.

Timely effort

"It's not just effort that makes it possible for a new product to be a massive hit. It also has to be timely and technology should be ready to make a certain design a reality." Lee Minhyouk, vice president for design at Samsung Mobile, admitting in an interview with Reuters that his work does not yet match the work of Apple's Jonathan Ive.

The forgetful professor

Modern science tells us that if you train your working memory, it increases fluid intelligence, which is what gives you the ability to reason and solve new problems. Adds memory aid expert Tony Buzan: "As you train your memory, you become simultaneously more creative on all levels and fascinatingly, less stressed. It's because you're not trying to remember in linear ways, which isn't how your mind works." This suggests that if you train your memory, your physical brain cells make more connections and you'd get better at ideation. But does that help explain "the forgetful professor?"

Ideas communication

"It really helps if you can communicate your ideas. I work with so many different types of people – people from all over the world, people without a design background – so for meetings or phonecalls, it's key. Your ideas should speak for themselves, but people love to hear the story behind them." British designer Paul Cocksedge

Ive got an idea

'What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.

The nature of having ideas and creativity is incredibly inspiring. There is an idea which is solitary, fragile and tentative and doesn’t have form.

What we’ve found here [at Apple] is that it then becomes a conversation, although remains very fragile.

When you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you made a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea, and everything changes - the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.'

Jonathan Ive, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/sir-jonathan-ive-the-iman-cometh-7562170.html

Sinovate

If China is to flourish, argues The Economist, its manufacturers must move up the value chain. Rather than bolting together sophisticated products designed elsewhere, they need to do more design work themselves. Taking a leaf out of Germany’s book, they need to make products with higher margins and offer services to complement them: Innovate or slow down.

Art and/or design?

If art is a completely free uncensored platform to imaginatively explore whatever the artist wants without fear of censure, what is then design? Is it that design is an imaginative yet purposeful exploration with regards to the particular needs of a situation or person? Is then the difference between art and design that design is utilitarian in a way that art is not? To make the distinction matters because educators in art and design need to be clear about their aims, objectives, curriculum content and pedagogy.

Myths, truths, and fashion

On the Fashion System (1967) Roland Barthes says: 'Contrary to the myth of
improvisation, of caprice, of fantasy, of free creativity, we can see that fashion
is strongly coded. It is ruled by combination in which there is a finite reserve
of elements and certain rules of change. The whole set of fashion features for
each year is found in the collection of features which has its own rules and
limits, like grammar'. Now, doesn't Barthes' provocation contain a grain of truth
for most design disciplines?

Ideators cum entrepreneurs

Ideators share traits with entrepreneurs. Both see an opportunity and don’t feel constrained from pursuing it because they lack resources. Indeed, ideators, like entrepreneurs, are used to making do with few resources.

Ideas and collaboration

"The most important thing in business is to be good at delegation and employ the best executives", says Richard Branson, the media entrepreneur. That may hold true for the creative industry too. That is, the realisation of design ideas calls for team work and collaboration employing the best designers and makers.

Timeless design?

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." SAINT AUGUSTINE (354-430 AD). What then is timeless design?