Week 7 - The Creative Spirit of Design

Jason K. McDonald’s article The Creative Spirit of Design seems to me to be a call for flexibility on the part of the designing educator, and an abandonment of rigid formulas and patterns. As teachers we know that the classroom environment, and many other learning environments are fluid, fickle places. What works in the 8am section of a class might not work after lunch. What works for AP Language students might not be applicable to English Language Learners. We as educators need to be adaptable and open to what McDonald calls the “creative spirit of design”. This has several characteristics:

First, McDonald stresses that imagination is an important component of design. Teachers need to be able to imagine not only what is tried and tested, but also what hasn’t been tried and might work within a given context. He says that we need to operate at the very limits of our imagination. When I read this section I thought back to the original innovators who tested early prototypes of the telegraph. These brave souls imagined a world beyond what was currently feasible, and by stretching beyond those limits, helped create the interconnected world we have today, one that would have been beyond any turn-of-the-century citizen’s wildest dreams.

Next McDonald tells us that being creation-oriented is also essential. I’ve heard that for one to become skilled at a craft or to learn to do something, he has to simply create. I’ve read piles of books and articles on writing and art in which the fledgling artist is urged to “just produce”. Through constantly creating, the artist is continuously engaged in his art, and is in a constant state of creation. New ideas emerge out of old, half-finished ones, and new projects happen when the artist picks up and explores old themes, inspired by new ideas and images in the world. Or, as McDonald quotes: “[Brown] argued that this ‘shift from physical to abstract and back again is one of the most fundamental processes by which we explore the universe, unlock our imaginations, and open our minds to new possibilities’”. A writer should write every day. A musician should play every day. It’s important to note that not everything we create will be solid gold. Just think how many duds Lennon and McCartney wrote before they composed hit songs! The point is to keep creating, no matter what. This way we’ll always be in a creative mindset.

Third on McDonald’s list of characteristics of this “spirit” is inter-disciplinary action. To me this means that few innovations are produced in a vacuum. Did you know that most of your favorite TV shows are written by teams of writers? My own workday is full of collaborations. The list of entities involved in bringing the Army’s museum to fruition would make your head spin. There are fundraising organizations, government and military officials, historians, curators, educators, architects, contractors, subcontractors, software developers, IT specialists, exhibit fabricators, electricians, landscapers and more involved in this project. My weekly meetings frequently involve at least two of these entities, each with their own expertise and contribution to make to the project. Without this inter-disciplinary collaboration, the museum project just wouldn’t happen. When we dip into other disciplines and worlds, we emerge with some new perspective we never had before. McDonald put it better: “Verganti called this the ‘distributed’ nature of design knowledge, recognizing that design “depend[s] on millions of unpredictable interactions among, for example, users, firms, designers, products, communications media, cultural centers, schools, and artists’”. Additionally, I think his quotation of Lockwood is a great summary of the benefits of this kind of activity: “in collaboration, constraints can be removed and great ideas can emerge”.

I think there is room for all three of these characteristics in education. We need to learn to step out of our comfort zones if we are to encourage students to do the same. I think teachers who strive to improve their practice should remember the words of Davies, which McDonald thoughtfully includes:

“The order, and manner, [in which design skills are used] depends upon the character of the problem, and the aim in mind. There is no one best way, and no one way of proceeding...By deliberately acting at the edges of their imagination, such designers avoid the complacency that can lead them to settle for undesired formula or routine.”