Hi Gunnar and Fils,
Apologies for the brevity - midst of packing.
Not claiming 'creativity' = 'creation of designs'
Suggested some time ago that the theory development works better if see
design activity as the creation of designs; with a design being a
specification of something to be made or done. Last year discovered some
engineering institutions also follow this path (ASME if I remember right)
I see creativity as the ability to create things. I understand others see it
differently.
Not being insulting. Simply saying what seems useful for theory making
about design in terms of getting past the contradictions and messes of
design theory. Apologies if I'm too terse and not sufficient explanation.
Its useful to start from the position that we may have set off on the wrong
path in conceptualising many aspects of what it is to be human - concepts
like emotions, feelings, intuition, design and creativity. A problem is that
many of these conceptualisations are now so pervasive that we find it hard
to see things differently. For example, the concept of emotion is so deeply
imprinted that very few people can perceive what happens to them
independently of the conceptualisation and most people think that the
conceptualisation is the reality. As I've said before this is much the same
as the level of pervasive conceptualisation that leads us to falsely believe
that objects and light are coloured.
Must get back to the packing and I look forward to your thoughts.
Best wishes,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gunnar Swanson
Sent: Monday, 30 December 2013 10:14 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design
Subject: Re: creativity/creation of designs
On Dec 30, 2013, at 8:47 AM, Filippo Salustri <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 29 December 2013 21:43, Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
>> Nobody, of course, would think that the phrase "creation of designs"
>> means "creativity."
>
>
> Not that I'm taking sides or anything, but I *have* heard this turn of
> phrase, many times, in just that sense, from practitioners as well as
> from academics.
> I've also heard it used in contexts more suggestive of project
> management concerns.
> ...just sayin'.
Fil,
Will you give an example? It doesn't have to be an actual quote. I just
don't know what sort of use you're talking about. Are we talking about dumb
classifications like "these guys are creatives and these guys are suits"?
Terry was claiming a definition, not shorthand slang. And Terry's claim
didn't make grammatical sense. Saying "creativity = creation of design" is
linguistically so clumsy that it seems useless.
I have no problem with someone debunking romantic notions of creativity.
It's Terry's hinting at claims (often accompanied by gratuitous insults at a
large and ill-defined group of people) then refusing to explain what he
meant that I object to.
By the way, this isn't about punishing Terry for being mean to me or my
tribe. He has, historically, had interesting and useful things to say so I
want to try to figure out what he is saying. He seems to be trying to avoid
the possibility that I might understand.
Terry tells us about people who will be "hardly involved in the creation of
designs" but won't explain what he means or give concrete examples. He seems
to use standard (albeit ambiguous) terminology in very specific ways but
won't let us in on what those ways are. He has claimed that there are
particular uses of words "for theorizing" but seems to think that we should
agree with his theories without knowing what these special theory words
mean.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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