You just have to think Creatively!

Creativity is something difficult to describe, but something inherent in being a good, successful designer. A skillset that is one of the fundamentals for any hopeful designer, yet it is one of the hardest to tap into. The ability to be creative is something everyone has the ability to be, it’s just that some find it easier to access.

Linked to confidence, the creative process is something we are all capable of utilising yet find it so difficult to. Some slip into bad habits, patterns of being incredibly reserved in their designs. Staying within borders and norms of those before them or the social norms. Most if not all of the greatest inventions have been those who push boundaries, and do things differently, not afraid to stand out from the norm. James Dyson and his bagless vacuum cleaner is a main example of this ability.

However it is possible for people to change their habits, and think more creatively. Just as in A Clockwork Orange, where a convict undergoes a barrage of different extreme therapy techniques to overcome his law breaking habits, it is possible for us to retrain the brain into thinking about things differently. Obviously, the Beethoven and eye drops are entirely up to the individual.

Possible ways of training the mind to think more creatively is by completing tasks while engaging the creative side. This was done in class by taking a 15 minute walk alone, and concentrating on the world in a micro scale. This task was something I had never done before, as I always listen to music or chat while out walking, and it is rare that I go for a walk for any reason other than as a mode of transport. However while out I did notice the loudness of the background noise around campus, and the vast number of paintings in Main Building, something I had always just taken for granted and never really looked at.

In short, if being creative is something that does not come naturally to you as a designer it is just like sketching or any other skill, you can work at it.