Design Ideation - get your ideas out!

Talking or drawing aloud

2009-12-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

People who talk out loud to think through their maths problems are able to solve them faster and have more chance of getting the right answer, research in educational psychology has found. The research, published in he Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, found that discussing problems was a smart way to learn. Also, that drawing or making a pictorial representation relating to the problem contributed to its solution. In short, talking aloud or drawing the problems is closely related to the success in problems solution. The findings fly in the face of old-fashioned theory of studying in silence; classrooms should be full of noise of students tackling their problems out loud. So learning and teaching maths, then, could learn from design ideation and the studio experience!

Safety in ideas

2009-11-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

It's the business of designers to challenge convention from time to time. But when we do this, we risk alienating those with a vested interest in maintaining tradition. And often too, we just can't tell if a new idea is a stroke of genius or a stupid notion until we have begun to try it out. So we have to take that risk. It takes courage to explore different ideas, approaches and solutions. But designers owe it to themselves to ideate and experiment. And as long as we keep reaching for new ideas and possibilities we are sure to find one that works.

Ideation the Hadid way

2009-11-15T08:56:00.000-08:00

Zaha Hadid's Maxxi museum of contemporary art in Rome is completed. The script-driven architecture began as a jagged scribble on a page of lined notepaper turning into an artwork in acrylic paint. And that, in turn, spawned hundreds of pages of computer-generated images creating a building for the presentation of the visual arts. Hadid describes the architecture as "porous, immersive, a field space, the notion of drift". The idea of architecture whose masses and spaces drift, says Hadid, has been alien to architecture but is well understood in art. The fact that Hadid makes connections between architecture and art suggests ideas from new sources – and different kinds of architectural form.

Committed to ideas

2009-10-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

Do ideas demand definitions, structures, and commitments? But once our ideas are defined, structured and committed, we might feel caged, trapped, or limited. Yet if we want to realise our ideas we have to take them seriously: In ideas start responsibility!

Ideation as essay

2009-10-11T01:24:00.000-07:00

Design is a hybrid medium reflected in how designers employ ideas from both fiction and reality. This suggests that the designer, in articulating ideas in written form, becomes an essayist whose narrative veers in and out of experiential knowledge framed within a fiction. The literary form of design ideation, then, is the essay rather than the hard science paper.

Community of ideas

2009-10-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Within the general framework of ideation, where intuition, information and matter converge, we find, with the emergence of new knowledge and cross-pollination of ideas from design and science, a community of ideas where there is not only variety of ideas, and rivalry between them, but also awareness and respect of how each idea fits into that community.

Idea prototyping

2009-09-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

Prototyping, or modelling design ideas is evolving. Developing from the tradition of the crafts, prototyping in the digital age with the aid of modelling software can now be seen as both generative and dynamic, offering new ways of exploring and communicating feasibility of ideas, and whether in form or appearance (aesthetic model), or function (proof of concept) . The distinctions between analogue and digital idea prototyping, or the physical and virtual are dissolving to the point where they have now become outmoded terms in design ideation.

Ideation in the digital age

2009-09-05T03:31:00.001-07:00

The digital age urges us to move fast forward. But technology does not neccessarily cut us off from traditional ideation tools such as pencil and paper that make for a gentler and more comfortable step into the future.

Ideation and listening skills

2009-08-06T02:02:00.000-07:00

A sometimes overlooked or underestimated part of the ideation process is the designer's listening skills. By listening to and understanding the client's reasoning behind the design brief and how it was arrived at designers are in a better position to make sense of the client's needs and desires and respond in a language that is both imaginative and meaningful using an appropriate range of ideation tools. In short, designers can engage their imagination by taking the time to listen.

Ideas in waiting

2009-07-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

Some ideas are ideas in waiting. They are in the grey zone between fiction and reality. We turn them into reality when we have the technological means to realise them. But the social, economic, and ethical conditions must be right too.

Design ideation as craft

2009-06-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

Although ideas may occur serendipitously, at any time, and in many different places, developing and communicating ideas can be seen as craft which involves skilful use of ideation tools such as words, sketching, physical and digital modelling.

Computer-aided ideation (CAI)

2009-05-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

Design computing now goes well beyond documentation and production needs. It includes innovation, simulation and digital fabrication that expands rather than reduces designers' creative options. In short, digital technology promotes experimentation and discovery, what I call Computer-aided ideation, CAI (Jonson 2005).

Designers who focus on innovation through analogue tools alone highlight knowledge and skills of computing technologies. For example: 'Computers arrived too late for me. I don't believe I can use them to their potential. The computer pushes for a rigour that is hard to include in research development; it can't accommodate the doubts that are necessary, and this can be difficult for creativity. I see the computer as another instrument complimentary to sketches, models, reading and so on - not an exclusive way of working'. Alvaro Siza, RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2009.

Ideation logic

2009-04-18T04:12:00.000-07:00

There can be logic in ideation, even if it arrives by a most illogical route.

Is there method in design ideation?

2009-04-07T06:19:00.001-07:00

Whereas the "Aha!", or "Eureka!" moment may be thought of as a subconscious activity, design ideation, as an integrated whole of generating, developing and communicating ideas, might suggest strategic thinking and not just processes out of our conscious control. Design ideation as strategy, then, might be regarded as a form of experimental science, a series of actions or procedure that can be tested and refined and categorised, classified, defined or codified and so built into methodology.

So for example, TRIZ is a model for generating ideas that relies on the study of the patterns of problems and solutions. Based on logic and data, not on the spontaneous and intuitive creativity of individuals or groups, the effectiveness of TRIZ, is, however, disputed, particularly for non-engineering fields.

Design ideation, then, cannot be regarded as a single, sharply defined methodology; there are many different tools, processes, and philosophies of ideation. See also blog January 16.

Preconceived ideas?

2009-01-16T06:48:00.000-08:00

By asking ourselves with some degree of humility whether that which we perceive to be so is simply what we have preprogrammed our minds to see, we may find that the problems we perceive are in fact nothing more than preconceived ideas. The danger, of course, is that real issues may be ignored.

So how do we deal with real issues? Albert Einstein famoulsy observed that problems can’t be solved by the same level of thinking that created them in the first place. Thinking about a situation in the wrong way can literally condemn us to relive the same experiences over and over again. Little will change until we change our thinking. Ideation, then, suggests change in our thinking about a situation. And from change in our thinking new ideas emerge that challenge the past.

The discipline of ideas

2008-12-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

However smart, original or clever your ideas are in your head, without the conscious effort to externalise ideas they remain like bright, shiny sport cars with nothing to drive on. The power is there but the car is going nowhere. Indeed, ideas with no wheels!

Book review: Peter Cook Drawing

2008-11-25T02:31:00.000-08:00

For my review of Peter Cook: 'Drawing - the motive force of architecture' (Wiley 2008), see www.drawing.org.uk

Ideas shape the world

2008-11-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

The practice, learning and knowledge of design have been significantly transformed by new media and communication technologies. Yet behind new technologies lie ideas which not only direct innovation and experimentation but also form designer identities and personalities.

Ideamotion

2008-10-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

When we generate and communicate ideas we also generate and communicate emotions. And whether the various emotional states are labelled "cool", "hot" or "so-so", there's necessarily emotion in ideation because an idea reflects subjectivity. This emotional flux of ideation I call Ideamotion.

Sketcherly ways of designing

2008-09-23T02:07:00.000-07:00

Sketching out ideas, or conceptual sketching, embodies both active and reflective activities of a rational, intuitive or sensing nature that reveal insights into the processes of design. This suggests that conceptual sketching is much more than mark making on paper, from verbal and non-verbal modes to two- and three- dimensional gestural ways of expressing ideas in physical or virtual space. Sketching by other means, then, broadens the notion of sketching well beyond the traditional pencil sketch. This I call sketcherly ways of designing.

Idein

2008-09-02T03:52:00.000-07:00

Plato, Shakespeare and Goethe, to name but a few, assigned significant value to dreams. And Strindberg (1849-1912), the writer, playwright and painter, famously said: 'I dream - therefore I am'. But dreams suspend wilful reality. We cannot tell the full meaning of dreams until their reflections materialise before the objective sense. And so with ideas - they have to be externalised. Indeed, I ideate - therefore I am!

Realising Ideas

2008-08-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Although design ideas are rooted in thinking and feeling, and as such can remain abstract, to make them concrete ideation becomes a wilful act similar to the interaction artists have with their material. That is, in the interaction between brain-eye-hand and material ideas are realised.

Experiencing ideation

2008-07-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

Ideation might suggest an overly emphasis on "thinking" rather than "doing". But it is important to recognise that purposeful and productive forms of ideation are grounded in knowledge and experience, both general and specific. Subject knowledge and life experience, then, make for fertile ground in which first thoughts and ideas germinate.

Ideation impulse

2008-06-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

The impulse to ideate in design is the sudden and strong urge to act on external and internal stimuli that result in something new that is both purposeful and productive.

Acting out ideas

2008-05-24T04:47:00.000-07:00

In his book An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski (1863-1938), the seminal drama teacher, makes the analogy between acting and travelling. Similarly, a parallel can be drawn between designing and travelling, or design as a journey ("the design process").

If you've made a journey, then, you will recall the many successive changes that take place both in what you feel and what you see. And so in the studio experience. That is, by moving forward your design project, from idea to object or artefact, you find yourself constantly in new and different situations, moods, imaginative surroundings, and the externals of production. Moreover, in the process of "acting out" your ideas along physical lines, you come into contact with new people and get to know their needs and desires. Along the way, then, you create meaning through design by understanding and empathising with the culture you serve.

Stanislavski. 1980. An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen