Creative Exercise 1: Discover Your Design Point-Of-View in 10 Minutes
Discovering your design point-of-view in 10 minutes? Is that even possible? In this multiple part series, I will show you how to exercise your inner creative mind and unlock that untapped potential. In our weekly creative team meetings, we start with a creative exercise. The rules of the exercise are quite simple, 1) the weekly meeting moderator is responsible for bringing the activity, 2) we have 10 minutes to complete it and 3) We then briefly present our results and thought behind the decisions to the rest of the team.
One of our first exercises turned out rather well. I found scrap mounting board and used magazines from throughout the office along with scissors, x-acto knives, and glue sticks. I then wrote the instructions on the dry-erase board as follows:
1) Think about your CORE design value or philosophy. Write it down.
2) Use the assets on the table in front of you to create a small collage representing what you wrote down.
3) You have 10 minutes. GO!
I then wrapped it up with the question:
How can you best represent this point-of-view in the future when addressing your client work and objectives?
These were the results of the activity and the comments from each designer:
James: “Simple, but Meaningful”
High visual impact, bold imagery
Joe C: “Form Equals Function”
Texture, high contrast, intentional, design with purpose.
Tuck: “Knowledge”
Using what you know and how to apply it for smart design.
David: “Beyond”
Reach beyond the norm, deconstruct recognized forms and shapes and reinterpret into something new, fluidity, movement & pattern.
Steph: “Clean”
Clean lines, use of patterns, textures, clean fonts, in a subtle manner.
Feel free to try this exercise when you need to ignite some creative sparks and let me know how it goes!
Posted by David Martin on Sep. 22, 2009
