1. Ruth Heslop
Creative Carrier.
For this project we had to create a creative carrier to carry or represent the different
methods of thinking we practiced over a three week period. We tested four different
ways of thinking creatively measuring them on how well they worked with our
individual learning styles, these four methods were, eves dropping where we worked in
teams to create a character profile by ‘eves dropping’ on a random member of the
public’s conversation. This acts as an important tool within the advertising industry as
it allows us to get to know our target audiences without their knowledge. I found this
task both fun due to the fact that we had to be very secretive so that they didn't know
that we were listening and easy. Luckily a middle aged man decided to come sit next
to us with a colleague and pretty much discuss his life story. From the information we
gathered we had to create a fictional character based on characteristics we picked up
from him.
Logical and lateral thinking skills taught us the difference between thinking inside and
outside the box, I found this helpful as it helped me to understand what kind of a
thinker I am. I feel that thinking laterally comes easier to me in terms of creativity
however I also feel that if I did need to think logically I can focus myself to do so. We
also looked at brainstorming, I found this the most useful method to work with, coming
from an art background I have worked using brainstorms in the past so already knew
how they work. I like how they allow your mind to wonder off task yet everything within
the brainstorm is all relevant no matter how far away from the original idea it is
everything links together nicely. Whereas I found Edward De Bono’s theory of the six
thinking hats difficult as I felt that it made me separate everything and didn't allow me
to be as creative as I wanted as I was focusing to much on things related to the
coloured hat I was working with.
When thinking up ideas for my carrier I used brainstorms to think up as many different
routes as possible relevant to the brief. At first I wanted to create a rubix cube relevant
to the six thinking hats, symbolizing that when all the pieces are fitted together
properly you have a complete carrier for your ideas. However I thought this focused on
only one of the methods to much and with it being my least favorite method I decided
to not go with this idea. I then began to think about people who have became famous
due to their creativity and intelligence, the likes of Albert Einstein, Nicola Tesla and
Buckminster Fuller who states that ‘life brings ideas. Ideas bring life’. Leonardo Da
Vinci famous for his theories on life believed that ‘a well-spent day brings happy sleep,
so a life well spent brings happy death.’ strangely enough this quotation gave me the
inspiration for my final carrier. After reading this I began to think about life and the
individual journeys people will take over there lives and how everyone seems different
but deep down were all pretty much the same. I then began to think of the creative
journey we take to reach our final ideas, every idea starts as a blank canvas and grows
and grows as our creativity grows. I wanted to find a way of showing a creative journey
visually, this is where I came up with the idea of creating a map. This represents on a
symbolic level the human mind, on one side we have a person searching for creativity
and on the other we have creativity itself. To reach creativity our person has to over
come obstacles which stand it their way, in this case the obstacles come in the forms
of the thinking methods we previously studied. Having overcome these obstacles the
mind is free to be creative as freely as it needs be. I decided that the person would
write down what all of the obstacles consisted of in a journal that he would keep as a
memory of his journeys so that they could reference back to it if they were ever to face
these obstacles again. I liked this project as it allowed us to explore different ways of
