Change Direction

Cut right to the chase and ask yourself whether your concept is working; or whether your design is effective.   Either you’re getting the results you want, or you’re not. If not, the time has come to change your approach. Many creative breakthroughs occur when attention is shifted from one angle of a problem to another. Even if it feels unnatural a fresh approach usually stimulates a fresh solution. So make an alteration. Try a modification. Create a variation. Or revise. Amend. Or adjust your approach. But change direction.

With his playful approach innovative Spanish Product Designer,  Hector Serrano, puts a new spin on familiar objects, materials and forms. His Superpatata looks like a balloon (or water bottle) but functions as a light and also as a pillow/bed warmer.

Revolution Method

Sometimes the best new idea is a completely different one.  So question your old way of doing things. And make a dramatic change. Devise a radical alteration. Or give your work a shakedown. But Think Different.

This powerful image of strength, self sufficiency and innovation has forever changed our perception of shoes. The photograph formed part of an art exhibition in Paris entitled L’art... En Eaux Troubles which literally translated means; Art in Troubled Waters. Unfortunately the photographer is unknown.

Reapplication Method

The best way to look at something old, in a new way, is to ask a child for advice. Tap into a child's ignorance of convention to go beyond the norm. So  remove prejudices, expectations and assumptions to jog your own thinking into a more unconventional path to discover how something can be reapplied.

Barcelona based, SystemDesignStudio, explores design through experimentation to find new ways of occupying space. Bike tire tubes stretched between a couple of used furniture legs create this functional and handy shelving system. The ElasticShelf uses the tension created by the stretched tubes to keep books and other objects fixed in place.

Synthesis Method

Combine two or more existing ideas to create a third, new idea. Generate some ideas with a spot of hitchiking by linking or combining ideas through association. Or piggyback your idea onto an already successful product by designing a small improvement. Whatever you do unite. Blend. Mix. Fuse. Or marry ideas, components or materials.

Indiana based product design company  Design Hell Yes creates elegant, simple, and fun solutions for people and spaces. Their minimalist eco lighting fixture fuses an upcycled glass jar, vibrant electrical cord and an energy-efficient CFL.

Evolutionary Method

Evolution is the method of incremental improvement. New ideas stem from other ideas. New solutions from previous ones. Creativity lies in the refinement, the step-by-step improvement which leads to sophistication. So make something a little better. Improve on.  Upgrade. Update. Refine. Enhance. And tweak it. To gradually make it  a lot better. Perhaps even entirely different from the original.

Italian Designer Ferruccio Laviani created the Evolution Dresser for furniture manufacturer, Emmemobili. A combination of an era past and contemporary ideas, the Dresser comprises the evolutionary process of this particular piece of furniture. The conventional side conserves a high detailed carving on every inch while the progressive side offers a linear design that adds a modern touch.

Associative Creative Thinking

Start with an idea. Locate its relationships. Spot some relations. Pinpoint possible links. Unearth  remote connections. Search out intricate ties. Stumble on rare attachments. Bump into historic affiliations.  And record the flow of ideas. Each idea triggering the next until ultimately reaching a potentially useful one. Allow for the natural progression of even unusual ideas, which might become a starting point for novel possibilities. Then develop only the strong, intriguing and surprising gems that stand out.

A self-initiated project. These shoes were designed and made by independent Dutch Designer, Renate Volleberg through what she terms an intuitive strategy. Inspired by the power of color,  material and shapes  she  translates her inspirations of craft traditions, historical aspects, beauty and technological craftsmanship into what she terms her free shoe designs.

Visual Creative Thinking

Intuitive and simultaneous, picture thinking, is a form of non verbal thought. In which pictures, colors, plans and diagrams are used to build entire systems in the imagination. So re-ignite the curious portion of your brain and reach for a thinking tool with a difference: a crayon. Take a crayola and draw doodles.  Improvise shapes. Include textures. Investigate materials.  And extrude functions. Exhaust all possibilities until the ideal leaps out at you.

Interested in exploring the visual impact of the  economic crisis, Dutch design studio Tjep. took an Ikea mass produced chair and started sanding it to the finest possible version. The Recession Chair goes from normal, to diminished, to skeleton like. The resulting object is barely functional and most likely won't withstand the weight of the person it's trying to support, much like a society plagued by recession.

Right Brain Creative Thinking

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift; the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Einstein

Abandon the logical. Renounce the rational. Discard the judgemental.  And do away with the analytical by stepping away from the left brain. Allow your intuition to set the stage. Let your feelings determine the parameters.  Permit your emotions to decide the function. And have your subconscious determine the outcome of your newest invention.

London based Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design's Catherine Verpoort designed a natural, environmentally friendly habitat or “textile landscape” that helps declining  ladybug populations thrive even in the harshest of urban environments. Framed in the form of a kit, her Urban Ladybird Habitat provides a haven for the critters to feed, hibernate, and otherwise regroup in an unobtrusive manner.

Solution Creative Thinking

Great design is not about adding features. Notable design creates tangible solutions. So create design alternatives by studying existing solutions. Generate analogies between your design problem, random objects and people.  Connect multiple ideas one doodle at a time.  And sleep on it. But be sure to come up with an elegant and engaging solution.

Italian accessories company AK47's modern storage solution the Flex chair takes on any shape needed to compliment your interior. Designer Barbara Bolis fuses material, form and function to create a genuine storage solution that saves space. Made from a sheet of hardened steel that morphs into the shape of an oval or a flame, Flex can turn into an unusual chair or an ottoman.

Diffuse Creative Thinking

 

Insight is the product of the right brain with it's diffused visual attention. Embark upon a spot of time travel. Undertake teleportation. Change some attributes. Do some role-storming with iconic figures or super powers. Fill a gap. Or do a mindmap. To come up with a large number of ideas.

In love with the malleable, ephemeral nature of paper Sarah Kelly's influences originate from costume history, contemporary haute couture, interiors, architecture and finding a design problem and solving it in a beautifully aesthetic way. Her Saloukee Disperse Earrings include hand pressed rivets, intricate laser cutting and delicate paper folding techniques.

Open Minded Creative Thinking

Separate creative thinking from critical thinking. Don't form an opinion.  Don't conclude. Decide. Estimate. Or rate.  Simply suspend judgment. Remember there is no such thing as a bad idea. All ideas are potentially good. Even seemingly foolish ideas can spark off better ones. So treat ideas as inspiration to spark further solutions.

For a month, Barcelona-based design agency, Cunicode, made one coffee cup a day. Tweaking it so, in most cases, it retains its functionality. The 30 cups  also make amusing artistic or conceptual statements.

Possibility Creative Thinking

At an object a day for the whole of 2012 Jason Taylor transformed everyday objects. Nail Brush forms part of his design adventure in which he was pushed to produce whether he was inspired to or not.

The strategy is to generate as many ideas,  both obvious and novel, as possible, without criticism. To spark your imagination with the raw generation of ideas, without judgment or evaluation of any kind.

Lateral Creative Thinking

Interested in discarding the obvious, leaving behind traditional modes of thought, and throwing away preconceptions. Then this thinking toolkit might just be custom made for you.

1 - Just do what you are already doing and hope that something will turn up. 2 - Embark upon some free association and jump from one idea to the next as quickly as possible while not trying to think too hard. 3 - Take a pair of concepts and in a conceptual analysis explore five possible relationships between them. 4 - Use a random word, a piece of text, an image or an object as a stimulus to provoke thinking. 5 - Transcend subject demarcation by thinking not about what the subject is, what it is not, or what it could be. 6 - Use a random historical source to challenge and inform your practice.  7 - Turn the object/image/text upside-down or put it on its side or back to front.  8 - Place the object/image/text in a context to which it does not normally belong. 9 - Think about the object/image/text from the sensory point of view of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.  10 - Or alternatively  add some humor by employing some puns.

Everyone has strings of cable and old hosepipe lying around. But it takes some lateral thinking to stiffen it and tie it up to turn it into chairs, stools and lamps. Dutch Designer Sander Bokkinga's
 range  is waterproof too, so it can be used inside and out.

Toolkit excerpt from the academic design portfolio of Tom Bandy