11 Interesting

I like how the article talked about the web design process from and objective point of view which allows those overly emotional artists not to have any excuses for their designs. On a personal note: The article helped me to get past some of my personal judgments when designing new layouts. In todays world if you are going to be a web designer you must hop out of your creative box that the art schools taught you and start putting your left brain at work. If you still want to be the flamboyant creative artist then go paint.

posted at 06:34 am on March 5, 2008 by Daniel Patterson

12 Forget the art!

From my perspective the client always rules. It’s their business and their image. Creative, as Andy alludes to, means communicating the client’s message to the targeted customer as effectively and simply as possible. It’s that simple.

Any designer that complains they can’t “express themselves” is missing the point. You are supposed to be “expressing” your client. In the end, we all measure the effectiveness of what we do by the sales we generate, the customers we convert, etc.

posted at 07:54 am on March 5, 2008 by Jack McDaniel

13 Untitled

i don’t mean to sound overly critical, but this article of huge walls of text would be more effective if it was summarized to a few key points. it suits a wine+cheese conversation piece than being posted as a ALA article. i was hoping for something more substantial. much of it is some what contrived philosophizing on what “creativity” is. which is a subjective matter.

to me:

• creativity is about problem solving (design skills, technical competence are merely apparatus)

• if the client wants a purple text on red background no matter what, you do it. in the real world, it’s about revenue.

sorry, this article doesn’t do it for me, neither does the other one in the issue.

posted at 09:03 am on March 5, 2008 by jim bob

14 Design as Business

I cannot disagree with this article. As a designer, you are in the design business, BUSINESS. Clients are spending their time and money that you cannot just go and waste. However, I disagree with some of the comments above, that clients rule your work. Is it really ‘rule’? There could be constraints from your client but that could also be your challenge as a designer, no?
Also “creativity is about problem solving” is a way of saying creativity is a small piece of the puzzle. If it was that easy, we wouldn’t have read this article.

In thinking of Design as business, we must think about people/Users/customers/consumers who is behind our clients. So I don’t think client is 100% right as most of you know. You must be their end user as well, in which case you have to tell them what they need.

posted at 03:12 pm on March 5, 2008 by Cara Pinle

15 Now I Feel Creative

Excellent article! I think there are many perceptions of “creativity” and this piece really clarifies the purpose of creativity in business. I greatly appreciate the point that creativity (at least in business) is not just about self expression, it’s about solving problems and making connections in new and different ways. It’s validating to designers who work not just to create something pretty, but to solve problems based on facts.

posted at 06:30 pm on March 5, 2008 by Rachel Maxim

16 Untitled

Thought I’d point out one grammatical error:

“While many commonly popular definitions of creativity…”

posted at 07:23 pm on March 5, 2008 by Daniel Delaney

17 reading in between the lines

Nicely written article…and I urge all commentators to read the article atleast twice. I find most of the negative comments lack any substance really and at a second glance all arguements raised have been covered.

Here is a practical and well grounded presentation that identifies the role of creativity in design Good work. Breaking it down, I think it presents us more questions than answers, which is good because I think it will make us search for the answers…answers that would invariably make us better at what we do.

posted at 08:20 pm on March 5, 2008 by Michael Dakwa

18 Creative is not a noun

Good article – “creativity” in the context of design should refer to problem solving and synthesizing abilities, not self expression. The very use of the term “creative” as a noun to refer to someone in the design profession is just a stomach-turning marketing term used to sell products and services to said someone by making him or her feel “special” and “different.” Don’t be a sucker.

posted at 05:15 am on March 6, 2008 by Nora Brown

19 Thanks

You bring up a very frustrating but real point on how many executives view their creative team to be mere artists or photoshop gurus. In reality, design fundamentals are what drive good websites and web applications. These techniques are learned and help us build every aspect of our project, including layout, navigation, typography, color scheme, branding, and more. I have found that my clients are astonished when I explain to them all the technical reasons that went into the design process. They appreciate the project and value my work much more when they understand that each decision was made from a solid foundation and not from self expression as you pointed out. There is a sense of confidence in my decisions when I can explain to a client exactly why I did or did not do something. Nobody, I repeat nobody, likes to hear that you did something just because you felt like it. Thanks for the article!

posted at 12:02 pm on March 6, 2008 by Alex Wolfe

20 It not only applies to designers

Creativity as defined very accuratly in this article not only applies to designers. But also to developers.

The definition:

• ongoing curiosity,
• the desire and habit of looking more deeply into things than others care to,
• the habit of comparing stimulus with result, and

• a habit for qualitative discrimination.

can be easily held up to measure the ability of a developer to solve problems, to measure his creativity.

Being a developer and a designer I always am curious about everything related to my work I like to create clean correct stuff that just plain works and that on the inside are as clean and simple (looking) as possible. That applies to the design (the stuff one sees) and to the code (the stuff you usually do not see).

I enjoyed the article. Thank you!

posted at 12:55 pm on March 6, 2008 by Rob Hofker