Graphic Design/Creative Thinking

What is Graphic Design?

The objective of this class is to make you better graphic designers by helping you master the art of visualization. To reach this goal we must first understand how graphic design is defined and how it differs or resembles other art forms. Graphic design is an applied art, rather than a fine art; meaning that it’s purpose is not solely to provide intellectual stimulation, as in a fine art like painting, but rather to apply the techniques of art to everyday objects, often with communication and/or commercial goals. In its simplest form, graphic design is the arrangement of image and text to communicate a message.

What is Creative Thinking?

There may be as many definitions of creative thinking as there are philosophers considering the subject. However, there is general agreement that creative thinking--the process by which our mind collates information and comes up with novel solutions-- combines two aspects of the brain: analytical thought and imaginative thought. Analytical thought is concerned with conclusions while imaginative thought produces ideas.
Creative thinking uses the entire mind. Imaginative thought is used to generate ideas of all kinds using techniques like brainstorming, while analytical thinking then sorts, evaluates and selects ideas best suited to the problem at hand. The process of creative thinking means allowing our minds to slip back and forth between these two methods of problem solving.
Before we look at the process of creative thinking, it may be worthwhile to ask ourselves: What is creativity anyway? Naturally, there is more than one answer. Creativity can be defined as ability, an attitude, and a process.

An Ability
Many of us understand creativity, especially when we see it in others, as a unique ability that some people are born with and others are not. In this definition creativity is akin to prowess at sports or a natural ability to play chess.
However, research suggests that this is not the case, rather all individuals are born with the ability to be creative, through education and training we sometimes lose touch with this ability. Often all it takes to find your creativity is to stick with it. Persistence is essential.
With that good news firmly in hand, the view that creativity is an ability inherent in every human implies that creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new.
This may well be so but, more often than not, creativity is not the ability to create something out of nothing, but rather the process of generating ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas.

An Attitude
Creativity is also an attitude: the ability to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it. We are socialized into accepting only a small number of permitted or normal things, like chocolate-covered strawberries, for example. The creative person realizes that there are other possibilities, like peanut butter and banana sandwiches, or chocolate-covered prunes.

A Process
Through a process of gradual changes and refinements, creative people continually improve their solutions. Contrary to popular beliefs regarding creativity, almost no works of brilliance are produced spontaneously in a rabid melee of activity. Most inventors must be dragged away kicking and screaming from their works as they will always keep on tweaking and refining it in order to make it a little better. The creative person knows that there is always room for improvement.

The Creative Process
There are many approaches to the creative process. One of the best comes from Tolleson Design’s book Soak Wash Rinse Spin. They break the creative process for any project down into four key phases:
Research
Analyze
Explore
Finalize

Research

This is the phase in which the designer has to submerge oneself in information of all kinds, information of “just about anything it takes to get our hands around the client’s business.” Typically a graphic design project will have a specific goal or subject since the discipline is rooted in communication or commercial requirements. Researching the problem to be solved is an essential first step in creating a foundation upon which to build ideas. Research can take many forms and is a kind of brainstorming. There are no limits to the research phase of finding a good idea. Follow your nose. Research can and will take many forms depending on the project requirements at hand.
For example, you may wish to schedule interviews with product developers or clients, do desk research into visual brands or a visual history surrounding projects of the type you have been assigned, or consult magazines and books related to the subject area.
During this phase you will be generating many ideas in reaction to the materials you are gathering. Document them. These ideas will form a platform for the analyzing and editing phases to come.

Analyze

In the “soak” phase of researching your visual input, you have obtained “more information than can possibly fit into the end product.” The next step is to begin thinking about all of the collected material. Thinking starts with generating ideas.

The sorting out process is nothing more than going from the initial phase of visual research, taking the many ideas and thoughts towards a single concept. This final concept is the one that will be evaluated, designed and refined before it is taken to the production phase

Explore

In this phase the designer starts exploring visual concepts to create a design.
The process of creating a design is more than the production of a single idea. Rather, a strong design piece begins with many ideas, which the designer must analyze and then extract the most successful idea to develop further. Through small thumbnails, a designer can rapidly visualize all ideas that come to mind when considering the client project. Thumbnails allow a designer to formulate several ideas without cumbersome details and wasting time. In this way, all attention is focused on the essential parts of a layout. As the thumbnails are refined and the best ideas become more obvious, details can be worked in and the thumbnails increased in size. Now that the idea is in place, details such as images, type, text and color can be examined for the final concept.

Finalize

In the final phase the selected concept is now realized and communicated in whatever medium is chosen.Now you will have to take into consideration all the practical issues in the realization of the final design. These issues include but may not be limited to:

• Where and how will the work be presented?
  
• Is it being presented via digital media?
• Is it to be printed?
  
• Will it be presented in a box?
  
• Will it be displayed on a truck?
  

Our objective as designers in this phase is, in the words of Tolleson, to create a “final piece [that] works in as effective and efficient manner as possible for the client.”