Design drawing culture

When doing ideas projects, such as architectural competitions or conceptual designs, designers use sketching and sketch models in ways production drawings cannot.

3D printing as ideation tool

Although 3D printing, also know as rapid prototyping, additive manufacturing, or solid free-form fabrication, was first patented in the 1970s, it is only with new advances in 3D solid computer modelling that it is enabling designers across disciplines, including product, fashion and accessory designers, to think creatively about their output in ways that were previously unimaginable. 3D printing, then, as integrated into design thinking, has become an alternative or complimentary ideation tool. However, as the 3D printing process requires access to a 3D CAD program, the designer need a good grasp of 3D CAD.

Grounded Ideas

Art and design schools like Central Saint Martins provide students with space and time to grow and mature creative ideas, while remaining grounded in a specific craft. Craft is a divisive element to this form of education because it somehow constrains, shapes and confines the students idea formation (ideation) in order for their thinking processes to expand.

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.