well put,

rosan,

about creativity to be a universal human characteristics among which i have
always included design -- a thread we explored earlier.  i do agree that
humans are inherently creative.  they could not survive otherwise.  one
doesn't need to compare only the conventional categories of professions.
learning a language is an enormously creative act.  there exist no rules
outside speaking.  everyone makes them up on their own.  the grammatical
rules that we later learn to talk about in school do not account for most of
our speaking.  without creativity we would bump into each other, couldn't
keep basic social relations in balance, and wouldn't learn how to use our
environment instrumentally, not speak of inventing new ways of conducting
our lives = technology.

what professional designers have to have is not cast in black and white
propositions.  it is certainly as you say social-cultural.  like poets who
speak a language like everyone else but are recognized for doing something
more outstanding with language than ordinary speakers do, so are designers
recognized for doing something a little bit more outstanding with technology
and its use than other stakeholders in that technology do.

we should not fall into the trap of taking some of these outstanding ways of
thinking and doing and declare them to be
(a) the exclusive domain of professional designers (something that design
educators are often follow for understandable but misguided reasons),
(b) endow it with administrative authority (which the industrial revolution
did by creating the job descriptions of industrial designers for
organizational reasons), or
(c) cast them into superior qualities of being.

klaus



klaus krippendorff
gregory bateson term professor for cybernetics, language, and culture
the annenberg school for communication
university of pennsylvania
3620 walnut street
philadelphia, pa 19104.6220
phone: 215.898.7051 (O); 215.545.9356 (H)
fax: 215.898.2024 (O); 215.545.9357 (H)
usa


-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhDs in Design
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of rwchow
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 7:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: why not creativity?


David’s post dated 15 February 2003, worries me enough to stick my neck out
on
a subject that I know little. Here are some thoughts that I hope are taken
as
sincere rather than negative.

Firstly, as described in David’s post, the personality traits that are found
associated with creativity include, ‘dominant’, "hostile’ and ‘impulsive’.
These traits seem to be so incompatible with our current thinking on
co-design, participatory design, user-centered design where designers are
expected to be collaborative.

Secondly, among the many contemporary definitions of design, creativity is
not
really the only or even a central concept. These working theories on design
can direct research without us going through the 45 year thick of creativity
research.

Thirdly, 45 years of research sounds very impressive, but the results of the
45-year efforts, as described in David’s post, are a lot less impressive
than
the conviction of the researchers. Is this a promising research route design
researchers should take?

Fourthly, the image of the term ‘creativity’ invokes in us worries me too.
Prototypically or stereotypically, a creative person is imagined as
idiosyncratic, lone, difficult, and anti-social. Is this an image we want to
associate design with? I think the image of a creative designer perpetuates
the outdated idea of the ‘designer hero’?

And finally, from the very little reading that I have done on creativity,
creativity is endorsed in all people, with various degrees of power. In
brief,
it is universal. And this power to create is strengthened or diminished by
the
interactions one has with the socio-cultural environments. Creativity in its
natural form is similar among people, but its manifestations, its social
form,
are very diverse. So a designer and a prostitute can be equally creative,
but
their creative outputs are more different. The differences are
socio-cultural
rather than natural. And it is differences rather than similarities that
help
us to claim that she is a designer and he is a prostitute. Thus research on
creativity to inform us of designing, in my view, is quite misguided if it
focuses ONLY on the natural form of creativity. If there is any
understanding
of creativity form a design perspective, it is a socio-cultural
understanding.

Best Regards
Rosan

Rosan Chow
Sessional Instructor

University of Alberta
Department of Art and Design
3-98 Fine Arts Building
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada