Creativity & Aesthetics
My definition of creativity is being able to embrace uncertainty and see it as a challenge. It is about being able to work with a shortage of information. Industrial designers are expected to look at problems from multiple perspectives to find creative new solutions that drive innovation.
Aesthetics are important to present these new concepts in an understandable, professional and appropriate way. The aesthetics are a strategy to address the target audience and express your visual identity as a designer.
Activities
In these courses I explicitly focussed on aesthetics: ‘From Idea To Design’, Project 1 ‘Open Up’, ‘Introduction to Business Design’, ‘Design for multiple stakeholders’, ‘Engineering Design’, ‘Aesthetics of interaction’, Project 2 ‘The Interactive Museum’, Project 3 ‘DOUBT’ and in my Final Bachelor Project ‘LILO’. I felt the need to learn more about perspectives on creativity, herefore I chose the elective ‘Perspective on Aesthetics’ in my third year.
Examples
I’ve always been interested in aesthetics. Before I started my studies, I was familiar with aesthetical software, but over the course of my studies, I’ve become an expert at it. I’ve practised my skills by continuously experimenting with the digital aesthetics of all my deliverables. Aesthetically, I am stronger with software, than I am with tangible prototypes. This is because I am less experienced with developing prototypes than I am with making reports, posters and visualisations.
During the course ‘From Idea to Design’ I had my first experience wilt the design thinking process. Most courses were project-based with an open problem statement. We would approach it with the design thinking framework: empathizing, define, ideate, prototype, test and reflect. I am experienced with multiple methods for each phase. Eg. interviews, extreme scenarios, storytelling, embodied prototyping, journey mapping, explorative prototyping, how might we, brainstorming, wizard of oz prototyping, presenting and more.
I prefer visualisations over text. I communicate visually rather than textually. During my studies, I‘ve always aimed for my deliverables and presentations to be of high quality.
I enjoy experimenting with aesthetics. The elective ‘Perspectives on Aesthetics’ has been a place to experiment more with aesthetics and to get inspired by others. What is complex about aesthetics, is that the quality of the result depends on who is judging. An expert at aesthetics might be able to look at aesthetics from a more subjective point of view, but we are never unbiased. Aesthetics are a combination of a set of ‘rules’ which are the base of the appearance, that is balance out with an intuition for proportion, shape, color, feel and interaction.
The LILO project is an interesting representation of how the aesthetics developed in every iteration. During the project, my methods had a strong focus on empathizing with the users and developing high-quality prototypes. I chose this approach since the details in the prototype matter to the experience of the users. I presented my aesthetic skills in the instruction booklet and print on the fabric.
Conclusion
Industrial design has prepared me with an encyclopedia full of creative methods for design processes. I’ve had the freedom to explore which methods resonate with me. The LILO project is a close representation of my way of working with creative processes and my style for visual aesthetics. Creativity and aesthetics are core parts of my designer identity and will stay probably stay relevant in any future project I engage in.