Pollyanna ideas

Pollyanna is the children's book character whose name has become a popular term for someone with an optimistic outlook. But should ideators adopt the Pollyanna philosophy of life, which centers on what she calls "The Glad Game," or finding something to be glad about in every situation? But while ideation implies positive thinking, and therefore optimism of what can be, the Pollyanna view, or over-optimism might cloud rather than open creative minds resulting in ideas that are more fanciful than realistic.Or, extreme optimism might overestimate ideators ability to control ideation outcomes distracting ideators from positive to wishful thinking. Ideation, then, if turned into a kind of Pollyanna game, might result in unrealistic optimism, or ideas expectation, only to be unravelled when ideas are communicated to audiences who apply critical as well as positive thinking.

Psychology of ideation

Psychology, or the study of the mind and behaviour, can be applied to a variety of issues that impact well-being and everyday life. This suggests that psychology can be applied to design thinking and making, And because design is both an individual and a social activity, so the disciplines of Cognitive Psychology, or the study of thought processes, including perception and problem-solving, and Social Psychology, or the study of social interaction, including group behaviour and social perception, may be helpful in understanding and explaining how designers think, act, and feel when engaged in design activities, from first thoughts to final outcomes.

Ideation and augmented reality

In the real world, which is physically experienced rather than mediated through digital processes, design ideas are typically generated and communicated through talking, writing, freehand drawing and sketch modelling. In contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a computer-simulated one giving rise to an immersive experience with few or no constraints of the real world, such as societal norms, history or culture. Another immersive experience is augmented reality where artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world to the extent that virtual reality is modified to blend with real life. With augmented reality, unlike virtual reality where ideas may appear as conceived by unrestrained imagination, users continue to be in touch with the real world while interacting with virtual objects around them. Augmented reality, then, in combining real and virtual elements, may suggest a hybrid ideation process where ideas appear more realistic than fanciful.

Designerly insights

Although idea is here considered an element of thought, thoughts create feelings, and so ideation is not just an intellectual process that relates to mental capacities but to all the bodily senses. Thus, in creative contexts, design ideation gives rise to particular mental and sensory interactions manifesting itself in designerly insights expressed through spoken and written words, freehand sketches, physical modelling, or software mediated 2D and 3D outputs.

Ideas hub

Creativity engages everyone, embraces everything, and happens everywhere - without borders. Thus ideas are not just generated in offices, on college campuses, or within the walls of studios. On the contrary, it is the ideas that are brought in that make the office, the campus, and the studio a hub for creativity and innovation.

Reading for ideas

Designers are visual thinkers who typically generate, develop and communicate ideas with the help of analogue and digital tools, from freehand sketches and words to sketch modelling and computing. But ideas also come out of reading books (fiction, non-fiction, and poetry). And so reading texts, and illustrations that may go with texts, becomes a form of exploration, of ideas, places and people that opens up new opportunities for designers. Reading, then, not only help designers generate new ideas but also develop and communicate ideas as narratives.

Visualising the dream

Sometimes design ideas appear in dreams or daydreams, produced by the subconscious mind. But whatever their source, ideas need to be visualised and acted upon, or they risk remaining fantasies never to be realised. To exemplify, this month saw the opening of a new museum in Paris designed by architect Frank Gehry, and commissioned by Bernard Arnault, head of Louis Vuitton. Shaped like a massive glass cloud, the building, nicknamed the iceberg, is a metal and wood structure with 3,600 glass panels. Says Gehry: 'This project is a dream , so the first idea was to create a dream. I wanted to create a dream for Bernard, who has dreamed all of this. The idea of creating a glass building that is transparent, ephemeral, and like a cloud is difficult to achieve in architecture'. The museum took eight years to realise, from initial sketches and 60 physical scale models, to complex structural engineering design and construction.