Teaching ideation skills?

Is it possible to teach ideation skills? This might at first seem like a strange one to ask designers because most of them have strong ideas what they want their work to look like. But it's a valuable topic to consider, and it can be a challenge to "teach" designers how to think in terms of conceptual tools and how working this way can lead to interesting and unexpected results. For the ideation workshop, it starts with creating a safe and supportive environment where the participants are able to explore and develop ideas without prejudice or fear of ridicule. The outcome of the workshop is entirely up to the participants; they are in the driving seat when ideating.

Ideation and Language

The view of design as essentially a visual expression of form and function may overlook or underestimate the importance of linguistic ability to develop and communicate ideas. The facility of language, then, in symbiosis with practical studio skills, seems critical for ideation.

Ideation tools and smart power

From day one on the job, Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state, spoke of the need to apply the concept of so-called smart power, using "the full range of tools at our disposal - diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural - picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation", as she put it. Applying the notion of smart power to design ideation, then, may translate into using "the full range of ideation tools at our disposal - words, sketching, modelling, and computing - picking the right ideation tool, or combination of ideation tools, for each design situation".

Multidisciplinary ideation workshop

What is common to design is the process of ideation, that is generating, developing and communicating ideas. But while each design student typically focuses on a single discipline (for example, graphic, product or textile), in practice design is problem-based rather than discipline-oriented. Practicing designers thus work on teams combining skills from many disciplines to achieve their results. Design ideation, then, is a multidisciplinary process, and the ideation workshop exemplifies this.

New content needs new forms

Jonas Mekas (1922-), an independent film-maker, is with the Joseph Conrad notion of the shadow line: a moment of great cultural change that occurs every so often, sweeping all that is old and exhausted out of the way. "It is overdue," Jonas Mekas says,"but I think the shadow line is falling and things are starting to be born anew. New content needs new forms, new technologies. That is what is happening right now with the internet and digital technology. We have had 40 years of regurgitating the same old stuff and there is a necessity for change. Necessity is what matters." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/dec/01/jonas-mekas-avant-garde-film-interview

Ideation Silicon Valley style

'If you have basic programming ability – which we'll all have if we complete the Udacity's beginners' online course in computer science, – and a bit of creativity, "you could come up with an idea that might just change the world"', says Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, and one of the collaborators with the online course. But then that's Silicon Valley for you. Udacity is an offshoot of Stanford University, and their online courses are offered for free, aiming at revolutionising access to higher education. http://www.udacity.com/

Ideation sketching

Sketching on paper is not just a technical skill. It is a form of visual thinking with a pen. Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks are prime examples of ideation sketching, and part of the design process. Today, the pen is used in both analogue and digital modes to help designers build form. Indeed the Renaissance artists' freehand perspective sketch has its contemporary equivalence in CAD modelling and 2D graphic software tools.