Copyright (c) 2009 Sheffield Hallam University All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d Recent Events in Theory, Creativity en-us Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:27:45 PDT 3600 http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d/3 http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d/3 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:00:00 PDT Every pamphlet, brochure, booklet, advert, package, poster, etc that has ever been produced involved a visual choice made by a human being - even if the choice were restricted to 'doing it like the last time' or 'copy this one'. Whether graphic designer, information designer, advertising executive, programmer, printer or the Managing Director's wife, someone decided this picture, this type face, this layout etc rather than some available alternative. How are visual choices made? And, in particular, how do professional graphic designers make choices between visual alternatives. It was decided to probe this question by interviewing professional designers and looking at their work. The initial plan involved some sophisticated analysis of variables but it soon became apparent that such an approach was not possible. Specific interview questions such as, "You decided to use a picture of an elephant. Why an elephant and why this particular one?" met with responses along the lines of, "It just felt right" or "It's intuitive". It became clear that although some designers can tell a story about their choices, most designers make use of their experience and the experience of others to arrive at a decision that is not the result of some carefully thought out decision tree or a calculus of competing requirements. It was felt by both of us that there ought to be a better way to describe this process of 'just knowing its right' than intuition. Eventually we came up with Purposive Pattern Recognition, abbreviated to PPR. One of us (M A-R) gathered the evidence from interviews, case studies and existing studies of Masters in Design (a title awarded by a US magazine, following a poll of its readership) The other one (J Z L) placed the notion of PPR in a conceptual framework using current thinking in neuroscience and in evolutionary memetics. Keywords: Graphic Design, Intuition, Neuroscience, Memetics. John Z. Langrish http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d/2 http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d/2 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:30:00 PDT If we define design work as those cognitive and practical things to which designers give their valuable effort, then our Natural Design framework allows the recording and replaying of design work. Natural Design provides a meta-structural framework that has developed through our observations of engineering design in safety and mission critical industries, such as aircraft design. Our previous work has produced parametrisable models of design work for software intensive systems, and we now look to make an initial assessment of our natural design framework for its fit to the more creative design practices. In this paper we briefly sketch the framework and subsequently attempt to locate 'creativity' in it. We find that, although there are good strong hooks for what the designer does, we are forced to find a role for the community of the designer in the creative process in our framework, something that was only implicit in our previous work. Keywords: Natural design; Engineering design; Creativity Jon G. Hall http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d/1 http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/drs2008/session2/track_d/1 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:00:00 PDT This paper suggests that taking the design process into the field and constantly engaging with the site to observe, intervene, brainstorm, prototype and create fosters unique forms of inspiration and innovation. How does a consideration of participation of both the designer and the user in the space change the design process? With participation comes understanding of the situation and by elaborating on possible futures with users, designers can find lucid innovations. We describe a project conducted by students from the Interaction Design course at the Royal College of Art in London which used a variety of approaches to speculate on the social and technological future of a London street. We discuss and compare the role of different techniques which enable designers to find inspiration for innovative technology in the field, or in this case the street. Keywords: Design, Prototyping, Ethno-Fiction Wendy March