Creative Imagination

Imagination is a unique part of being human. But although imagination, in a philosophical perspective, can be difficult to describe posing taxonomic challenges, for example, to imagine isn't the same as desiring or anticipating that which is imagined, designers are acutely aware of imagination as a power for visualising and shaping the future of things not yet in existence, of things to come, in what has been called 'creative imagination', as in combining ideas in unexpected and unconventional ways *. Fed by imagination, designers generate ideas as part of everyday creativity, ideas which are propositional and purposeful in that designers want to see their ideas realised. In order to achieve this, the ideation process typically starts with visual imagery, a mental picture to be developed and communicated using images but also words and physical objects, that is, ideas communicated through language-like representations, picture-like formats and objects that have spatial locations. * Currie, G., and I. Ravenscroft, 2002, Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.