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Hi Mike, Having had some time to think about your question, six thoughts came to mind: 1. As Fil, Derek and Chuck have pointed out, 'purpose' may be different. The purpose of design activity is to produce a 'design', i.e, a set of instructions for someone to make or do something. In some cases of creativity, e.g. composition of music, the intention is to produce a design (a score that others can play) and in this case, there is obvious similarity and music composition might easily be regarded as a design process. In other cases of creativity, such as painting, the intention is only to produce art. The constraints and processes are different in many ways. Illustration , e.g., might be in either camp. 2. You are testing a hypothesis, viz. 'the processes of design and creative disciplines such as music are the same'. As a hypothesis, the primary test is logical rather than associative. For example, a hypothesis is straightforwardly tested by contradiction. That is, if there are ANY design processes that are not identical to processes used in other creative disciplines such as music then the hypothesis is false. This marks an interesting difference between the world of research and the worlds of design/creative practice. In research, correct accurate reasoning about causality and properties of theories is essential to proof. In design/creative practices, associative thinking (weight of observation one way or another) is more common and useful to get insights as to how things might pan out. Association is useful in design but not in proof in research as it doesn't provide the basis for proof of an hypothesis - proof requires accurate reasoning and avoidance of fallacies. 3. Scale of generality and detail in description of design and creative process is a central issue in relation to evidence for testing your hypothesis. At the most general levels of definition of design process, it is obvious that anything can be defined as anything else and hence any findings will be useless. For example, general definitions of both design process and other creative processes can be defined in very general terms as 'a process by which we do stuff' this includes all and anything in any discipline and is neither theoretically nor practically useful- a bit like 'close includes horsehoes and handgrenades'. To be useful, the definitions of design processes and other creative processes that are being compared need to be as detailed as possible. Much of the design literature is awful in this respect. Most design process models are irrelevant to your comparison because they are over-simplistic - to the point where the authors and users of them do not apply, discuss or critique them in the way they are described - simply the detail of their description is insufficient. There are significant examples that are better, for example the VDI 2221 models of design process, aero-space and military design processes, construction process design processes (e.g. to reduce rework), and software design processes such as Agile and Scrum. All of these define design process in terms of the detail of how they are physically undertaken to the point where it is possible to identify whether that design process has been used or not, and to identify whether one design process is better than another for a particular task or field. It is this level of detail that is necessary to test your hypothesis 4. There are several possibilities for contradiction of the hypothesis. One path, the simplest, is to identify whether there are some design processes that are different in detail from any that are used in other creative contexts. 5. A second and perhaps more interesting refutation is to look at *differences* between design processes as a means of comparing equivalents in other creative processes. This tests the hypothesis in terms of Ashby's law of requisite variety. For the hypothesis to hold, the variety of both sets of processes being compared must be the same and there must be a one-to one conceptual mapping between items in both camps. An example: Dr Sooyung Yang has recently developed and tested a new design process for high fashion designers to be the primary design driver and manager of high fashion knitwear design using computerised seamless knitwear design and manufacturing technology (e.g. Wholegarment technology by Shima Seiki). The new design process is radically different in workflow and power relationships from the knitwear technology manufacturers design process and reverses the precedence of knitting machine technicians over knitwear designers (as well as simplifying and optimising the design workflow and the prototyping process). Radical structural and conceptual differences between design processes for the same task challenge the hypothesis if there do not exist models of process for the other creative disciplines have the same variety in detail and are structurally and conceptually identical. 6. Another possibility is the hypothesis could be resolved by redefining design and creative activities to be the same activity. Concerns that immediately springs from this is that it might be occurring for example as a hidden agenda, as researcher bias in reasoning, by accident, or as an intentional yet undiscussed aspect of the proposal. Different, but similar, processes of epistemological testing would provide a basis for identifying whether this conflation of design activity and other creative activity were justified. Looking forward to seeing how this develops. All the best, Terry -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of McAuley, Mike Sent: Wednesday, 21 September 2011 7:31 AM To: Dr Terence Love Subject: Re: differences in process between design and other creative disciplines. Hi Terry, At the moment my net is cast very wide and is all encompassing. To describe where I am at in analogical terms, I have just begun sketching and thumbnailing. I am essentially just scoping at the moment. So there is no unease for me at this point in time to be excluding any areas considered to be within the field of design. So, if the differences are in the details, I may well find them. Perhaps, at a certain level I will be able to argue that, for example, the process of writing a song is the same as visually illustrating a text. Although, already I am discovering that, because I can't 'see' musical ideas, my process is very kinaesthetic, the sounds have to exist in reality, not in my head. Mike Dr. MIKE MCAULEY SENIOR LECTURER, SUBJECT DIRECTOR, ILLUSTRATION Institute of Communication Design College of Creative Arts Massey University Museum Building Buckle Street Wellington http://creative.massey.ac.nz<http://creative.massey.ac.nz/> ________________________________ (04) 801 5799 ext 62461 (04 027 357 8799 On Sep 21, 2011, at 11:22 AM, Terence Love wrote: Hi Mike, Are you also including engineering design and software design in your 'creative disciplines'? Terry -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of McAuley, Mike Sent: Wednesday, 21 September 2011 6:45 AM To: Dr Terence Love Subject: differences in process between design and other creative disciplines. I would be interested to know if anyone is doing work which seeks to establish differences in process between design and other creative disciplines such as music. Obviously outcomes/artefacts are different, but are the processes the same? If they are indeed the same, then why do we differentiate the design process from the creative process? Questions, questions.This is my new, post PhD research direction and one which I seek to partly pursue through my own creative practice as a musician and illustrator. In my previous work I used Swann's (2002) design process model to help describe the processes of my illustration students when they interpreted written text into illustrations. Here is the link to the thesis if anyone is interested.http://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/1046 Creative practice as research method is a new venture for me, but I do think that having undergone the rigours of a traditional PhD I may now be in a position to develop verifiable knowledge. If I don't, well I'm going to have a ball writing songs and painting! [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Mike Dr. MIKE MCAULEY SENIOR LECTURER, SUBJECT DIRECTOR, ILLUSTRATION Institute of Communication Design College of Creative Arts Massey University Museum Building Buckle Street Wellington http://creative.massey.ac.nz<http://creative.massey.ac.nz/> ________________________________ (04) 801 5799 ext 62461 (04 027 357 8799