Design, Intuition & Creativity

by | Tuesday, April 03, 2018

Chain-Rotational ambigram design for the word “design.”
One can read the word both clockwise from the top or anti-clockwise, from the bottom.

Our latest article in the series we write for the journal TechTrends (under the broad rubric of Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century) is an interview with Dr. Richard Buchanan. Dr. Buchanan is Professor of Design & Innovation in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western University, as well as being Chair Professor of Design Theory, Practice, and Entrepreneurship, in the College of Design & Innovation, Tongji University.

The interview covered a wide range of topics: from philosophy to history; from the role of intuition in perceiving the world in new ways to the relationship between design and creativity. Speaking of the latter he says:

I call design thinking creative inquiry. It is a form of creative action… It means asking and answering good questions about every situation we run into. [Designers have the] ability to ask questions of the environment, to interrogate the environment, and to find the answers shows this great perceptive capability.

Buchanan also speaks to the need for developing a systems view of design, saying:

Every product is a system, whether it’s tangible, intangible, information, actional. But the ability to grasp the wholeness takes us beyond the bits and pieces, takes us beyond the tricks of skill that are such an obsessive concern in design education today.

You can read the complete article below.

Henriksen, D., Mishra, P.,  & The Deep-Play Research Group (2018).  Creativity as Invention, Discovery, Innovation and Intuition: an Interview with Dr. Richard Buchanan Tech Trends. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0279-4

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