Inspiring Creativity

Creativity is crucial to exceptional product design. After all creativity is necessary to solve problems, it is a fresh way of looking at things and a good product designer has got to be creative, there is no other way about it.

Being creative means in my opinion; that one has to think outside the box and this was quite literally the case in our lecture this week as we were shown a video which starts of as a birdseye view of a couple enjoying a lakeside picnic in chicago and then begins to zoom out at powers of ten every ten seconds until our own galaxy is only the size of pin head, once it has reached this point it heads back inwards, inside the hand of one of the people and ends inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell. I guess this video struck a chord with me, it made me think of how little we are in comparison to the earth and our galaxy and that inspires me creatively as it just shows how much there is out there that has not been invented or how much scope for creativity there is.

After the lecture we had a workshop in which we carried out two excercies; the first excercise being "becoming a microscope" this excercise essentially meant that our class had to get a sheet of paper and cut out an inch by an inch hole in the centre. We then had to walk around campus viewing the campus only through the hole in the sheet. This was an unexpected success for me as it surprised me. I didnt think there would be much of a difference looking at things I see every day through a square in a sheet of paper but there was. When you look at an object with a limited view, that object becomes the sole focus of your attention, everything else is blocked out and this is creatively inspiring as it gives a fresh look on objects you wouldnt otherwise batt an eyelid at and this engages the mind and gets you thinking.

The second excercise we had to carry out began with us rolling up a sheet of paper, we then had to walk around campus on our own quietly and write down what we saw, this excercise wasnt as interesting as the other excercise as it was the same as viewing the same things we see everyday but noting everything. It was helpful in the sense that it got your mind active and working creatively as you were forced to observe what was happening and this seemed to be the same principle as the first excercise.

All in all i found this workshop to be helpful, it got my mind engaged and got me thinking outside the box and activated that creative spark we all have.