The Creative Process — A letter from a young designer
When I sat down to write this article, my first thought was to discuss how young designers should form their creative processes — the basic skeleton of a creative cycle, and so on. In this era of productivity, I considered creating a guide on the tools to use and techniques to optimize. But then I questioned whether the effort would be worth it for me and you, the reader. After all, everyone has a list of tools, and there are only so many techniques to master.
But as I thought about it further, I realised that the question I always ask designers while interviewing them is “How do you approach a given problem statement?”; and the question I got asked the most as a freelancer and a design studio owner was “What are the next steps; how we go about it?”. The general answers include — a five-step design process (discover, define, ideate, prototype, test), the double diamond approach, or any other process you’d read about online, and yes, those are the overall steps that most designers follow, Over the years, we have all experienced countless small changes that have shaped our creative process. There is no single solution that works for everyone, but there is a way to gain clarity for yourself.
The topic of the creative process isn’t a new thing, however, I wanted to take the time to reflect on the elements of a creative process that young designers should realise in order to really understand their own process and how it is evolving through every endeavour they take on.
Changing my mind on the Yin-Yang
I’ve always known the Yin-Yang symbol, but I never thought of it in the context of balance until I heard Alan Watts interpretation of it. According to Watts, the Yin is often associated with rest, receptivity and quietude (order), while Yang is associated with action, creativity and movement (chaos), it is not a contest, but a balance struck between the two. In the simplest terms, awakening lives in realising the balance between the two (Satori or Bodhi).
The next time you pick up a new project, go beyond your regular process and try a new technique or give your project an edge over what would normally suffice. For example, say you always have a messy file and normally, that doesn’t affect project delivery. This time, try to build a file structure and see if it improves your delivery outcome.
You want to try and bring in tiny bits of chaos to your already orderly process or vice versa to create that sense of balance in your workflow. It’s the quickest way to both order and growth.
By doing this, you’re also conditioning yourself to tackle projects that go beyond your comfort zone and developing the confidence to control the nature and magnitude of chaos that comes with it.
The reductionists in us
Reductionism is a theory in psychology centred on reducing complex phenomena into their most basic parts. Some of us grew up with a reductionist mentality. I believe I can narrow down everything to its bare bones, understand it and ultimately (subconsciously), control it. The first time I prepared a freelance proposal, I remember being extremely confused — what do I have to include? How much time will this take? and so on. Making that first proposal, forced me to revisit everything that I had done on my personal projects to establish a pattern that I’d unknowingly been following. Looking back gave me an approximate answer to my questions like how much time a certain activity usually takes me, what extra steps I took for a similar problem scope, etc.
You may not always find everything that you’re looking for, and what you do come up with will obviously change over time. However, the exercise of documenting the basics of what you did, goes a long way. Additionally, retrospect each project (personally and with your team members) to analyse what went well vs what could be done better.
Your team’s creative process
Believe in the self-producing nature of processes
To appreciate a discussion on processes, we need to embrace their autopoietic (self-reproductive) nature. According to systems theory and Martuana & Varela, an autopoietic system is one that has no inputs or outputs and each autonomous part of the system contributes towards the continuous improvement of the system.
In the context of a design team, shaping the collective design process means we must realise that each designer is an autonomous part of the larger system and contribute to the flux in the system (the team’s design process). As a designer, we must be self-aware enough to understand the changes in our own thought processes and ways of working. As design managers, we must promote discussions about the varied approaches of the team members in order to learn from and adapt to each other’s ideas. Over time, this discourse matures the team’s collective process too.
Playing to your team’s chaotic strengths
Io, Europa, Calisto and Ganymede are Jupiter’s Galilean moons. Ideally, these moons would exhibit a constant orbital motion. Mathematically, due to the consistency, their individual gravitational forces would over time impact each other leading to a collision. However, these Galilean moons, have inherent chaos in their orbital motion i.e. each orbital motion has some level of change which in turn prevents the collision.
Similarly, the constant change or the slight element of chaos that each team member brings to the table leads to a sense of balance and infinitesimal advancement in the team’s process. Further, as individuals, collaborating with other designers with complementary strengths and different opinions could bring the required chaos to your own process that helps you get to that line between order and chaos.
This is not new — all that is new is you finding it for yourself
The creative process is a phenomenon researched and discussed in length over the years. There is essentially little left to discover. However, for designers, to be aware of their process at the most atomic level gives us the potential to make conscious efforts towards improving our personal & professional thought processes. Dissecting your design process and gaining control over how you execute projects and manage teams, give you the edge and allow you to be more than just a designer.
Canvs Editorial regularly brings you insightful reads on design and anything related. Check out the work we do at Canvs Club.
The Canvs Editorial team comprises of Guest Contributor — Anezka Virani, the Editor’s Desk — Aalhad Joshi and Debprotim Roy, and Content Operations — Abin Rajan
