Our thoughts on Creativity and Design

CREATIVITY is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations thereof. Creative thought, or divergent thought, is usually considered to have both originality and practicality.

Creativity is simply the act of making something new (or rehashing the old in most cases). It is a simple and natural phenomenon, though quite a complex one and has been studied from the perspectives of behavioural psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, history, economics, design, business, management and sex, of course - probably sex first.

Creativity has been attributed to, cognitive processes, the social environment, personality traits, chance and divine intervention (which is the main source used here at Black Pencil Design) . It has also been associated with genius, humour and mental illness (again a main source here).

Some say we are born creative, others say it can be taught with the application of simple techniques (they're the ones not born with it saying that).

Creativity is an essential part of art, literature, and innovation and invention in all the fields of business, economics, architecture, industrial design, science and engineering. Entire industries have been born from the pursuit and development of creative ideas, particularly war and getting the better of other people.

DESIGN is considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative areas. It is both a both a noun and a verb, but so what. Design normally needs the deep consideration of aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object and usually requires considerable research. However, there's not much time for that in the real world so normally we just get on with it.