Personal ideography

Sometimes imagination works overtime, filling the mind with all sorts of vivid images and concepts. The trick is to know when to pay attention to these and when to dismiss them out of hand. To avoid overly hasty decision of what ideas to keep and what ideas to throw away, a good practice is to jot them all down and go over them at leisure at a later stage. Indeed keeping track systematically of ones' ideas, and recording them digitally for easy retrieval or sharing (social media), would over time build up a considerable personal ideography serving as a source for inspiration, collaboration or reference.

Hardwired gender based ideation?

Psychological testing has consistently indicated a significant difference between the sexes in the ability to perform various mental tasks, with men outperforming women in some tests and women outperforming men in others. Now there seems to be a physical explanation: A pioneering study, involving a special brain-scanning technique called diffusion tensor imaging, has shown for the first time that the brains of men and women are wired up differently which could explain some of the stereotypical differences in male and female behaviour. The researchers believe the physical differences between the two sexes in the way the brain is hardwired could play an important role in understanding why men are in general better at spatial tasks and motor skills, such as map reading, while women are better at verbal tasks and social cognition tests involving memory, empathy and intuition. But could there be significant difference between the sexes in the ability to ideate? Or, performing intuitive tasks, often considered at the heart of creative pursuits? And how would any such difference be tested and measured given that design ideas are propositional rather than fully formed or resolved solutions to problems posed? Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hardwired-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-could-explain-why-men-are-better-at-map-reading-8978248.html

Web 3.0 ideation?

Web 1.0 sites are content driven and the user has no way to increase their involvement or interact with the interface (Key words: Closed, Individual Publishing, One-Way Communication, Passive Involvement, Read-Only Content & Personal Websites). Web 2.0 sites move beyond mere posting of content by allowing the user to become part of the process through collaboration (Key words: Collaborative, Group Participation, Two-Way Communication, Active Involvement, User-Generated Content & Blogging). Web 3.0 (the “semantic Web”) is the next logical step in the evolution of the Internet whereby computers will be generating raw data on their own. For Web 1.0 and 2.0, the Internet is trapped within the physical walls of the computer, but as more devices become connected to the Web, such as smartphones and other everyday consumer electronics, household appliances, and general infrastructure, the Internet will be set free and become omnipresent. Devices will be able to exchange data between each other and even generate new information, e.g. anticipating what individual users may want or need based on their previous selections or purchases. This may suggest the Internet will be able to help generate, develop and communicate ideas faster and more efficiently and tailored to the actual individual users interests, and not just for the keyword typed into search engines.

In a place near you

The lesson which ideation constantly enforces is that you are always nearer to the true sources of your creativity than you think. The call of the distant and the difficult can be deceptive. The great opportunity for ideation is here and now.

Computational ideators

A large part of ideation, or any creative activity is to feel you're playing. Because design is driven by passion, and you have to feel you just have to do it. In this pursuit, ideators have a wide range of tools at their disposal, including computers mirroring real design situations in time and space. This may suggest the emergence of computational ideators. But entering cyberspace doesn't mean that sketching, model making or prototyping using paper, card, foam or clay have become redundant. Rather, digital and analogue ideation tools compliment each other, and sometimes the digital and the analogue workflow converge, for example, when clay models are scanned and further developed in 3D CAD. So the digital-analogue divide is a false one; the computer has become as necessary for the ideation process as the drawing board or the toolkit for hands-on modelling. But, with design being an inherently interdisciplinary activity, computational ideators may have an advantage when communicating ideas to a wider audience, be they end users, engineers or marketing professionals.

Grammatical gender influence

Unlike English, nouns in many languages have grammatical gender, for example German and French. Speakers of these languages must take care to mark gender with definite articles and pronouns. They also must alter adjectives and even verbs for gender agreement. But can grammatical gender influence speakers’ thinking when they’re speaking another language entirely? Take for example the word "chair", which has opposite genders in German (masculine; der Stuhl), and French (feminine; la chaise). Would object gender, then, influence designers when they generate, develop and communicate ideas? Many designers like to believe design processes are "neutral" in focusing on problem solving. But if gendered conventions of language can influence our thoughts, even in small, subtle ways — making a chair seem sturdier (masculine) or prettier (feminine) might suggest design is not free of gender stereotypes. Moreover, imagine how grammatical gender might affect not only design ideation but thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of consumers in global markets.

Ideation readying

Sometimes we have a vague idea of what to do, but we don't feel quite ready or brave enough to take the idea to the next stage. We need a push, an intervention, a serendipitous stroke. It's a person or event that triggers our will to ideate that gives us a good excuse to go do what we know we should do. Do you have any first thoughts about how to put yourself on the ideation runway ready for takeoff?

Power of ideas

In the realm of design, there is a presumption that ideas survive if they work, if they find an appropriate application in the material world. But ideas are in competition for our attention; some succeed, some fail, others pass and fade. Perhaps we expect too much of ideas, particularly as there appears no perfect pragmatic solution to a problem expressed in the idea. Yet at the ideation stage, we do not know precisely what an idea can do, or produce, or what forces it serves. It is then we may find that the power of ideas can only be fully appreciated by experimentation, testing and experience.

Ideation ABC

Design ideation, in appealing to pluralism of form, suggests multiplicity of thinking and doing, within, between or without disciplines, also expressed in terms of Assemblage, Bricolage, or Collage, a kind of creative ABC which questions the commodification of word and image in a neoliberal economic gloabalisation. But when ABC is applied to product innovation, and hence marketisation, ideation is modified, its focus shifting from a critical to technical or developmental perspective.

Predictive ideation?

Most innovations are incremental rather than radical, that is, innovation resulting from improvement to existing designs rather than abrupt change. This may suggest, where innovation is primarily a rational problem-solving process with an emphasis on business viability of the product, that designers be guided by algorithms to optimise innovation. Designers, accordingly, would compile a history of ideas taking as its basic unit of analysis the unit-idea, or the individual concept, then instruct algorithms to search for indirect and non-obvious correlations in the data to help identify and develop innovative ideas. For example, a US website developer has developed an algorithm to analyse and rate pop music providing predictive insights into "number one" record hits. The algorithmic approach to innovation, however, is not new - for example, the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ), or multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) in a range of industries, and the application of algorithms is now part of everyday life, from internet searches to financial trading to climate modelling. Although computation cannot fully replace activities that require human judgement, personal preference or true decisions, algorithms make more kinds of knowledge codifiable and therefore may help advance innovation processes and reduce dependence on solely empirical or experimental means of generating design data. In this sense, algorithms can function as an ideation tool.

To sketch something out

To sketch something out is etymologically based on the literal meaning of sketch; to draw quickly and with only a few details. But to sketch out something does not require an actual pen & paper sketch. To create a rough idea, plan or image of something, or to make connections between ideas, a variety of means (ideation tools) can be used to good effect, including words, computing, and sketch modelling.

Crowdfunding ideas

Designers naturally want to realise their ideas. But getting funded for a new product or service can be a problem as big firms or institutions, unlike start-ups, seek to minimise risk. An alternative to traditional funding from investors or lenders is crowdfunding, or the concept of collecting funds through small contributions from many parties using social media. Kickstarter, since 2009, is the largest crowdfund platform currently in operation although so far only open to US and UK creators. Recently successfully funded projects include a 3D printing pen, a graphic novel, a laser bike light, and a wristwatch.

Design Ideation and language

Wittgenstein holds that ordinary language is fine as it is, that is, suited to its everyday use of facilitating communication between people. For example, when people talk about knowing things, in most contexts it is perfectly obvious what they mean. But when faced with an an abstract concept such as "knowledge" people might get confused because the essence of knowledge is difficult to identify. But this is because philosophers have abstracted a word from the contexts in which it has a function and find that, outside these contexts, the word loses its meaning. If philosophers were careful about how they use language - words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate, nor by the mental representations one might associate with them, but by how they are used - and Wittgenstein treats philosophy as an activity, he argues that philosophical confusion would cease to exist. Moreover, Wittgenstein's point is not that it is impossible to define "knowledge", but that we don't have a definition, and we don't need one, because even without the definition, we use the word successfully. In design activity, this may suggest that by using language carefully designers would avoid any confusion with words such as "design thinking" or "wicked problems". Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953/2001). Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell Publishing.

Ideation and action

Ideation is about thinking both intuitively and logically. It's about ideas and the quest for meaning of the "here & now" as well as venturing beyond it. Ideation is about mental and emotional energy that needs to find an outlet propelling us into action. In this, communication is key.

Time & effort

A cynic might argue that many design ideas amount to little more than reinventing the wheel. Someone has already solved the problem you are trying to tackle. All you have to do is to do a data search to find out. Yet there may be no substitute for a lesson learned first-hand, through trial and error. But you have to have the time and the energy to put yourself through whatever it takes to gain all this experience. There's much at stake for an ideator to take an idea to fruition.

Newness

“I'm a pure designer – what interests me is newness. I'm always curious how to express what I love and what I'm searching for in a different way, with a different vocabulary. Fashion is not reinventing itself every season; it's almost the same – but only almost. The variation is about how you put one thing together in a different way and you create a surprise – a new shape or a new kind of beauty. That's what I'm searching for every time.” Pierre Hardy, Fashion designer.

Ideation, innovation, and improvement

Often so called innovations are not true innovations in the sense of novel ideas or methods but rather improvement to or incremental change to existing technology or reinterpretation of existing forms or different ways of using material. But weather innovation or improvement, ideation plays its role informed, inspired or guided by precedent, memory and reflection. Moreover, when change takes place, simile and metaphor used in the ideation process may help making the unfamiliar familiar.

From Crit to Pitch

The crit (the critique session within the art & design school environment) can be considered a highly vocational exercise. In the creative industry it can be translated to mean the pitch. In this context students are exposed to scrutiny from their peers or tutors as they formally evaluate their artwork or designs. In response to feedback they must develop their own voice, rationalise and communicate ideas clearly and defend their position – this happens all the time in professional practice. The ability to communicate ideas is one of the most important attributes that employers look for when recruiting a recent graduate.

Driver for design

"You must have an idea to drive a design. - Le Corbusier always had an idea; and so did Louis Kahn. - I agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein [who] said that ideas are like ladders: they get us to a platform, and when we arrive there, we kick the ladder away." Steven Holl, architect, interviewed in The Architectural Review, March 2013.

Making culture

The role of making in design is emphasised by Bruce Nussbaum, Professor at Parsons the New School for Design: "The making culture is key. You learn by making, you learn by doing, and I want to really pull us back toward that making culture, toward the materiality of tangibility, which I think has always been key to design."

Material inspiration

Louis Kahn, the architect, used to tell his students: if you are ever stuck for inspiration, ask your materials for advice. "You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Brick says: 'I like an arch.'"

3D Doodling

The advent of 3D printing introduced the convenience of quickly making designs a reality. Now the world's first 3D printing pen is being launched which allows for drawing three-dimensional structures in the air or on surfaces to create flat objects for stacking and connecting. The pen, named 3Doodler, uses ABS plastic, the same material found in many 3D printers. The quick-setting plastic solidifies in an instant, making it ready for handling.

Copying things: Good or Bad?

James Dyson, the British industrial designer, is struggling to stop other companies trying to sell their ripped-off copies of Dyson’s innovations. In a recent Court of Appeal case (2011), Dyson lost its claim against Vax, over the copying of its vacuum cleaners, despite having won the same case in France. "This was a senior patent judge suggesting copying things is a good thing. It’s a bad idea and if you think it increases competition you’re entirely wrong. If you uphold the law the plagiarists have to come up with new ideas", argues Dyson.

No ideas hidden

When Carl Andre, the American artist, found his way to sculpture exploring the "sensuous" nature of steel, he denied there was anything more to it. "I said, 'There are no ideas hidden under those plates! They're steel plates and nothing else!'" When he was told a pile of stones did not make a work of art, he pointed to Stonehenge. "I was always fighting the rise of conceptual art," Andre says. "There was Joseph Kosuth's statement, 'Art as idea as idea.' And I said an idea in the head is not a work of art. A work of art is out in the world, is a tangible reality." Andre adds: "My work doesn't come from ideas – my work comes from desires." From interview in The Guardian 23.01.2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jan/23/carl-andre-turner-contemporary?INTCMP=SRCH

Remember, or forget?

What ideas do you need to remember? What ideas do you need to forget? That's the trouble with ideas lists. Although lists may help us to keep ideas organised, sometimes they just tie ideas to the past. And once we set out to realise the idea, something else happens. This new development makes the idea obsolete. But by then it might be too late. So in the fast moving world of ideas, forgetfulness may work in your favour. Memory, then, is not always the best friend of ideas.