The problem with creativity & design
So i’m in my final design class called ‘Resume & Portfolio’ right now for school. We just got this new assignment where we have to define creativity in our own words. Cool right? I know! Personally I feel like we should have gotten this assignment early on in the program just because it helps you understand creativity better which is one of the basic, essential ingredients to being a good designer. Here is my definition of creativity:
Creativity is the act of being fresh, or being original, or being innovative. The idea of creativity is that that you are essentially making what is not known, known. That is the challenge of it.
The problem
After writing this and thinking about it I realized something. If you’re a designer and your job is to convey information, or to convince people of something, or to tell people what’s going on; why would you want to be creative?
You see, the problem is that what is creative is what has not already been experienced. So by definition it wouldn’t be understood. So the idea of being creative and the idea of being a person involved with visual communication is a lot of times contradictory to one another.
Final thoughts
There are ways to be creative and yet still keep familiar aspects in your work. This allows the viewer to understand what you are trying to communicate and at the same time have a look of being fresh, original, or innovative.
There are times where you want to be completely creative because the people who are viewing your work know the purpose of the design before it is even created. Things such as resumes for example. You can go totally off the wall creative with a resume because the people you give it to are of course going to know it’s a resume since you are a designer trying to get work and the more creativity the better in this situation.
Also realize, there are other times where you don’t want to be very creative. Sometimes your job should simply be making something easily understood, familiar, and functional for the user/viewer. Creativity is not always necessary.
Creativity probably does not even exist in most designs depending on who you are. It’s an abused word. Most designs have styles that have been experienced before. The bottom line I guess is that it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. What is creative to one person may not be creative to another. It all depends on what the viewer has previously experienced.
What’s your definition of creativity?