Preparing Design Students for their Future Industry Profession How to Encourage Student Innovation and Creativity in Design Education Programs Anne Normoyle

Sydney Institute of TAFE, Sydney, Australia

Anne Normoyle is a Senior Design Lecturer at the Fashion Design Studio at the Sydney Institute of TAFE. She holds qualifications in Design, Marketing and Fine Arts. She is a Graduate of the Fashion Design Studio and has also undertaken study at Parsons School of Design in New York. She has recently completed a Master of Business Administration. Anne has extensive experience in Curriculum Development for Fashion Design having planned and written numerous nationally endorsed fashion related education programs. She also works as a Design Consultant in the areas of Fashion and Interior Design. Anne has a particular interest in the design process as well as cultural diversity and its implications for design and product development and this is the focus of her present investigations. Email: [email protected]

The recent business trend that saw fashion companies relying primarily on communicating brand values as a way to build companies and profits has seen mixed success. Demographic changes in what will become almost the mainstream community is likely to see this mixed success decline even further. The Creative Class as they are termed by Richard Florida (2002) or Cultural Creatives as named by Ray & Anderson (2000) will become a dominant consumer group and their characteristics suggest that the recent branding focus will not be enough to win over these individuals. Attention will need to return to the product and with it will come the need for creativity and individuality. It is important therefore that Design Education programmes prepare students for this environment and this will require a focus on fostering personal creativity. Psychologists such as Maragert Boden (2004) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996) through their documented investigations into creativity provide valuable foundations for analysis of how to promote creativity in Design Education programmes. This paper draws on the research findings of these two individuals as well as the author’s own experience as a Design Lecturer and suggests strategies that will assist design students in developing their creative capabilities. Keywords: communicating brand values, demographic changes, strategies, fostering personal creativity 1

Introduction: Creative Customers Demanding Innovative Products

Toward the close of the 20th Century, the focus of most large fashion companies was on growth through expansion into new markets or through extending the products of existing brands. Whatever the chosen strategy, a strong emphasis was placed on branding and this became more important than the product itself. The product became simply a means for the customer to purchase the values of the brand and the companies that knew this focused on communicating the brand and extending how that brand could be purchased by often very diverse product extensions. The success of this strategy has been mixed with some companies successfully growing their business and profits whilst others have diluted the value of the brand through overexposure or through not adequately addressing product differentiation. But a number of demographic changes are occurring that will negatively impact on this strategy and will result in the importance of innovative design re-emerging. Richard Florida in his book The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) identifies creativity as the new driving economic force and profiles the members of this class who will be the power shakers of the economy. These people are creative individuals who seek diversity and individual expression. They are non-traditional in their views and are motivated by lifestyle rather than survival. They possess a strong interest in design and feel no pressure to conform to social dictates. The characteristics of Florida’s Creative Class resemble in some respects the Cultural Creatives as described by Paul Ray and Ruth Anderson in their 2000 book of the same name. This group is anti materialistic, suspicious of large global corporations,

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motivated by issues of sustainability, spirituality and equality. Ray and Anderson forecast that by 2010, more than fifty percent of the population of western countries would be Cultural Creatives. Between them these groups become the most important consumer groups for companies to consider as a result of their purchasing power and sheer size. But reliance on brand communication will not work with the ‘Creative Class’ or the ‘Cultural Creatives.’ The ‘Creative Class’ know about design, they have sophisticated and individual tastes and are unwilling to follow established norms. The Cultural Creatives may possess these qualities also but certainly are opposed to mass consumption and manipulation by corporations. Reliance on branding will be perceived as manipulation; instead consumers will be looking for innovation in design with attention to both aesthetics and function. These consumer characteristics, coupled with intense global competition that requires superior innovation in all aspects of the business, highlights the importance of innovation and with respect to the product, and also highlights the re-emerging importance of design and the designer. The role of the design education institutes then becomes to equip the designer with the means to meet the needs of a more competitive and discerning market. This involves a number of responsibilities that include providing the design student with an appreciation for changed cultural values and, more importantly, providing the student with capabilities beyond traditional and formularised trend forecasting and product development strategies. Successful educational programs will support the learner in fully capitalizing on or harnessing their creative potential. It will allow them to discover their own strategies and their own approach to the development of ideas, encouraging independence of thought. Achieving this in a design education program cannot be assumed. Careful consideration must be given to culture, curriculum structure, student teacher relationships, rewards and implementation strategies that will enhance student experimentation and growth. The intention of this paper is to identify some of the factors that enhance creativity in an educational environment and those strategies that promote independence so that the student will take these skills into the working environment.

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What is Creativity?

Margaret A. Boden, in her book The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (1990), describes creativity as the ability to come up with ideas or artifacts that are new, surprising and valuable. She describes three types of creativity, which correspond to the three sorts of surprises. They include: 1

Creating unfamiliar combinations of familiar ideas.

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Exploratory creativity, which involves new ideas being generated within existing styles of thought that in itself change that thought framework.

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Transformational creativity, which is even more extreme in that it changes conceptual spaces or styles of thought allowing for complete new ideas and thinking to follow on.

Csikszentmihaly in Creativity: Flow and The Psychology of Discovery and Invention (1996), describes creativity as “…any act, idea or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one.” The term domain is used to describe specialist fields of interest such as art, science, music, and, of course fashion. He goes on to define a creative person as “someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain, or establish a new domain.” (p. 28)

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Creativity: The Domain, the Field and the Individual

Both authors suggest that creativity involves altering existing patterns, styles, thoughts or ideas in a specific domain such as fashion, art or music. They go on to suggest that for such a change to be legitimately called creative the change must be useful or relevant as perceived by what Csikszentmihaly (1996) calls the field, i.e., those individuals with specialist knowledge of the domain. In the case of fashion, creative design may involve design modification that is evolutionary in nature and include the ability to manipulate proportion, colour and or silhouette to create a new twist to an existing

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style or it may require more exploratory ideas that create the big shifts in fashion style. Consider the influence of designers such as Issey Miyake on our ideas about cut and Giorgio Armani’s influence on our perceptions of what tailoring is. These ideas required acceptance from fashion media, buyers, other designers and eventually the final consumer for the ideas to be meaningful. If these designs were not time relevant they would not have been accepted and as a consequence not perceived to be creative. The important point these authors make and the basis for my proceeding argument is that creativity involves interaction between the individual, the domain and the field. With respect to the domain, Csikszentmihaly (1996) suggests that the rules of a domain must be understood before the individual can be creative because creativity requires altering the rules with deliberate intention. He suggests that possessing a rich and sophisticated database of knowledge and ideas as a result of extensive exposure to the domain allows the individual to draw from broad and diverse sources and re-work them with new insight. Can an individual, who possesses no sound design foundations or knowledge about the working materials or construction requirements for a specific discipline, be creative in that discipline? Well some might argue that it is possible but I would argue that it is not sustainable. Many creative people put their success down to being in the right place at the right time and this is generally referring to how the ‘field’, as it is called by Csikszentmihaly (1996), has assisted them in their success. They highlight the importance of creative work getting exposure to the relevant people, as without this, the output of the potentially creative person will not have the opportunity to impact on the domain. Csikszentmihaly (1996) suggests that as part of the individual’s knowledge of the domain, the individual should know the criteria of the field. That is, how do these people evaluate creativity or what elements of a new idea are important to them. Therefore, a fashion designer must not only possess comprehensive design capabilities supported by thorough knowledge of materials, cut, construction, performance and market considerations of fashion, but must also know what fashion critics consider to be good fashion. The final element in this creative system is the person. As previously mentioned, an individual must not only possess knowledge of both the domain and field; he must also possess motivation and interest to pursue creative work within the domain. Neither Boden (2004) nor Csikszentmihalyi (1996) attribute creative success to natural talent alone. Instead, they suggest that natural talent only instigates initial interest in a domain and that more often than not it is simply hard work, genuine interest and curiosity, intellectual capability and openness to experience that produces creative success. The research undertaken by Csikszentmihaly (1996) identifies no distinct creative personality but does identify that the majority of creative people possess a high level of complexity, i.e., “…the ability to move from one extreme to another as the occasion requires” (1996, p.57). He documents ten pairs of antithetical traits, which are as follows:

1

Creative individuals have a great deal of physical energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest.

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Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naïve at the same time.

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They can swing between playfulness and disciplined, and responsible and irresponsible.

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Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy at one end, and a rooted sense of reality at the other.

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Creative people can be both extroverted and introverted.

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Creative individuals are remarkably humble and proud at the same time.

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Creative individuals do not feel compelled to conform to rigid gender role stereotypes.

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Creative people are considered to be rebellious and independent but knowledge of their domain and its rules requires certain traditionalism.

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Most creative people are very passionate about their work but they can also be very objective.

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The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering and pain yet also a great deal of enjoyment.

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To highlight the influence of interaction between the individual, the domain and the field Csikszentmihalyi (1996) highlights that the extraordinary creativity of the Renaissance period in Florence was not simply a result of individuals being particularly creative but a result of a number of factors such as the rediscovery of earlier Roman technological capabilities, political motivations that supported the development of art as a means of control and wealthy patronage that demanded and in turn promoted the pursuit of new ideas. This suggests that environmental factors play an important role in fostering creativity and this has important implications for design institutes genuinely interested in promoting innovation within their programs. Although it is easy to argue that enrolling naturally gifted students is likely to enhance creativity, the institute has both opportunity and responsibility to control the educational environment so as to nurture that creative talent and promote innovation by fostering an innovation supportive culture, ensuring comprehensive domain specific content coverage, implementing teaching strategies that promote creativity and maximizing interaction with the field.

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Implementing Design Education Programs

What are the implications of this analysis for implementation of design education programs? A primary and very important consideration is that of organizational culture or specifically educational institute culture. The recent business trend in structuring companies and company practices so as to promote innovation should be interpreted in the institute environment. Bureaucracies should be trimmed but flexibility and the opportunity for autonomous working practices should be integrated. I recognize the difficulty in this, particularly for those institutes that are Government funded and require both a focus on standardization and efficiency but it is worth considering how flexible practices can be integrated into the institute. The Fashion Design Studio is a small section of a very large Government funded educational provider in numerous skill areas. Although the organization itself (TAFE) desires to promote innovation its size, bureaucratic nature and working practices certainly do not support innovation. Its educational focus is on standardization as a result of competency-based education and also focuses largely on efficient use of resources. Despite this, the Fashion Design Studio has managed to maintain a strong focus on innovation and is recognized as producing the most innovative fashion design graduates in the country. This is achieved through a strong creative culture that exists within the section that is in extreme contrast to the greater organization of TAFE. This culture is idea driven rather than rule driven. The level of standardized practices and policies is low in relation to TAFE’s expectations; the curriculum has been written to promote flexibility and although a competency based framework desires standardization, autonomous teaching practices encourage the opposite of standardization. This conflict of cultures often causes logistics and management problems but the section’s commitment to excellence and innovation is a more powerful motivator. Altering a culture and specifically creating an innovation supportive culture is not an easy task and it cannot be assumed that change strategies will have an automatic impact on the organizational culture but awareness of the influencing factors is certainly likely to promote a more creativity supportive environment. A more democratic and flattened structure that allows for decision making at the classroom level is likely to create a more responsive environment as it has with many commercial businesses. Curriculum should be written to allow for flexibility in delivery and individual learner interpretation. Recruitment policies need to ensure that teachers are creativity focused and possess the skills and personality to promote creativity among students. Rewards and feedback for both staff and students should not only focus on final outcomes but foster experimentation and process. Management needs to consider strategies that provide both teachers and students with a sense of security that will allow them to take risks. All these are designed to create a more liberal environment that is tolerant of the diversity and complexity of the creative individual. Richard Florida in The Rise of the Creative Class (2000) reveals that creative people choose to surround themselves by other creative people in tolerant environments that exhibit diversity. Environments that house high numbers of creative individuals promote creativity

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due to exchange of ideas and this provides the creative individual with a level of satisfaction that is often impervious to monetary rewards. This desire to surround oneself with other creative individuals and its influence on creativity extends beyond Renaissance Florence. Paris at the end of the nineteenth century was such a hub of creativity. Today New York is an important environmental centre for artists. Although the managers of educational institutes may not be able to control the level of creativity within the greater environment it is important that they appreciate how exposure to other creative individuals enhances creativity. Csikszentmihalyi’s suggestion that the rediscovery of ancient Roman capabilities having influence on the level of creativity in the Renaissance period provides insight into the importance of having access to prior and alternative ideas and processes in promoting innovation. My experience is that class groups that have a sharing and supportive culture produce better designs than those groups that are self protective and secretive about their work. It has also been noted that exposing less capable design students to the working practices of students with more advanced skills results in the weaker student enhancing their own creative ability. Institutes should consider strategies that promote discourse between students within and across diverse design disciplines, and across different levels of study. Csikszentmihalyi’s research (1996) identified that creative people love what they do and that such love of work was necessary for the motivation needed to be really creative. He reveals that creative people are motivated by enjoyment and not money. He identifies nine elements of enjoyment and as an extension of the creative flow process that have important implications for educators. They are: 1

There are clear goals every step of the way.

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There is immediate feedback to one’s actions.

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There is a balance between challenges and skills.

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Action and awareness are merged.

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Distractions are excluded from consciousness.

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There is no worry of failure.

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Self-consciousness disappears.

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The sense of time becomes distorted.

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The activity becomes autotelic or an end in itself.

This identifies some obvious implications for educational programs such as providing sufficient direction and guidance in the development of skills, providing timely feedback on performance and ensuring that the level of skills or knowledge imparted is appropriate to the learners’ capabilities. It also identifies some more subtle implications. It is important that the institute provides an environment that fosters motivation to be creative, an environment that supports the enjoyment that creative expression brings. The idea is to create an environment that the student perceives as conducive to individual expression, experimentation and curiosity. Such an environment will motivate students to excel in their pursuit of creativity. Csikszentmihalyi states, “…successful environments …provide freedom of action and stimulation of ideas, coupled with a respectful and nurturant attitude toward potential geniuses, who have notoriously fragile egos and need lots of tender loving care” (1996, p.141). To achieve this, managements must be sincerely committed to creativity. Rules and regulations should be kept to a minimum and the programs should allow for flexibility, as without this there would be no room for creativity to flourish. Educational managers should promote interaction between the student and the field as it exists outside the institute. This includes exposure to the work of existing design professionals from around the world through magazines and the Internet as well as local industry professionals and the media. This allows them to gain a more comprehensive knowledge of the domain whilst increasing their awareness of what the field considers to be relevant creative criteria. Where possible these individuals should be encouraged to actively support creative design either through sponsorship or active involvement with the students.

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Csikszentmihaly’s suggestion that a comprehensive knowledge of the domain is necessary for an individual to be creative in a domain (1996) highlights the importance of delivering structured educational programs to ensure that design foundations are adequately covered and that adequate time is given to the acquisition of these skills. Although argument surrounds whether design tuition should be delivered within a specific discipline or whether design should be taught without consideration to the discipline, Csikszentmihalyi’s work (1996) would suggest that there is merit in teaching design within specific domains as creativity can only exist within a discipline or domain. Thorough knowledge of the domain (or discipline) requires that the designer has knowledge about the logistics of realizing the design concept. For instance, in the domain of fashion thorough knowledge of design fundamentals, concept development techniques, pattern cutting, construction, industry standards and marketing considerations is essential. Of course, the coverage of these areas will vary with the greatest attention given to design. The best way to structure the delivery of these various skill sets is a matter of debate. At the Fashion Design Studio we commence tuition with design fundamentals whilst at the same time cover the basics of textile manipulation, pattern cutting and construction. The second year continues this mix but at a more sophisticated level across the board. We also introduce some marketing concerns and commercial responsibility issues in the latter phase of stage two. The final year continues to increase the level of sophistication of the original skill areas whilst focusing on an area of specialization, and on advanced marketing. This approach to curriculum has been designed to promote innovation and its success is evidenced by students who come to us after completing the clothing construction courses. These graduates find it more difficult to push the boundaries with cut than those who have undergone no previous training. Learning design at the same time as learning pattern cutting encourages the learner to recognize the connection and instigates creative applications of traditional pattern cutting rules. Delaying a focus on commercial and market constraints also assists in promoting creativity. We have learned that the students must reach some level of competency in design before they can creatively integrate commercial responsibility. The approach we are taking here is to thoroughly teach the rules, and once they are understood, encourage the student to break the rules. This is consistent with Csikszentmihalyi’s view of creative work. Quoting an old Italian saying, he writes, “One cannot be creative without learning what others know, but then one cannot be creative without becoming dissatisfied with that knowledge and rejecting it (or some of it) for a better way” (1996). Teaching the rules so they are meaningful to the learner requires logical and sequential delivery that is linear in nature but this must be balanced with the opportunity for investigation that is not necessarily linear or immediately logical. Therefore curriculum structures should allow for the co-existence of these two opposing approaches to work. That is, order or logic should be balanced with chaos or disorder. This is achieved by ensuring co-requisite delivery of the more rule dependent content with content that is more investigative or exploratory in nature. Curriculum structures, although important considerations, must be supplemented by creativity promoting teaching and delivery strategies if the educational programs are to be effective. Therefore, when delivering content on the rules of the domain such as design theory it is important that the student has the opportunity to explore the potential of the theoretical elements being discussed. For example, when analysing line, students should be made aware of the existing and potential influencing factors of line but should also be given the opportunity to explore their own emotional responses to line and experiment with their own design ideas in response to line. A similar approach should be used in the transfer of knowledge across skill sets. When a student is learning how to pattern cut and construct tailored garments they should be working in design classes on how to push the boundaries of tailored detailing. They should be encouraged to experiment with ways to alter a tailored collar or what fabrication is used for the tailored garment. Experimentation is necessary in any learning but particularly important for development of creativity. As discussed earlier, it is more likely to occur in an environment that is supportive of creativity and encourages students to focus on the creative development or design process work and not just on

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the end product. This will encourage creative experimentation where as a focus on the final product can result in the student playing safe and not exploring ways to be really creative. It is my observation that often when students are given a brief they want to rush to the end of the project and as a consequence are not motivated to explore concepts to their full. This can result in students not learning how they can develop sophisticated concepts from generic briefs. It can also result in work that lacks inspiration or does not demonstrate student growth. To promote the effectiveness of this strategy and content focus the teacher may choose not to tell the student what the expected outcome is, instead guiding them along an undirected path. Shifting the focus on processes and not the final outcome cannot, of course, be the only assessment strategy. However, this strategy can be integrated this into a program in design development subjects with a view to encourage students to explore their creative potential. To assist the learner in this process, it is important that project briefs given to students are both flexible and complex enough to allow for creative interpretation. Project briefs that are holistic in nature tend to promote creativity more than those that are highly focused and isolationist in their focus. Project briefs promote creativity when they encourage research and allow individual interpretation. Even if the project briefs are relatively straight forward, instructions should encourage the students to explore their own individual relationship with the brief. They should use the theme to encourage a personal interpretation and investigation. The briefs should allow for conceptual interpretations and not require a literal analysis of a shallow idea. Eventually students should be encouraged to develop their own briefs so that they independently see the opportunity that exists within set constraints.

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Strategies for Developing a more Creative Personality

It is of course important to consider strategies for promoting divergent thinking. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) suggests that the three dimensions of divergent thinking — fluency, flexibility and originality — which commercial programs attempt to promote through brainstorming, can be encouraged without formalized and team oriented problem solving techniques. Fluency results from brainstorming of ideas. Flexibility results when the student learns how to establish new idea paths and deliberately looks for diversity. Encouraging students to come up with absurd or deliberately unlikely solutions can foster originality. Strategies that promote success of this approach to problem solving include encouraging students to keep journals, short time limits (such as 30 seconds) to sketch designs to specific briefs, generating design possibilities in small teams or following group critiques with the requirement that students develop further the work of their class mates. These strategies encourage the student to put down ideas without fear and often these ideas provide good foundation for further design development. These work specific strategies encourage more creative output or better design development. However, it is also important to consider how we as educators can assist the student in developing a more creative personality. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) considers the first step in this to be instigating curiosity and interest. Interest stimulates creativity through an openness of mind that encourages the student to look beyond the predictable or the immediate. To encourage curiosity the student should be taught how to observe, find surprising things in their environment or seek out surprising situations. One strategy for encouraging observation is to give time in class to allow students to present inspirational observations from their everyday existence. Students should be encouraged to see the abstract qualities in things around them or to analyse the underlying qualities of the object under observation. Students should then be encouraged to participate in the curious by deliberately doing something surprising, as this is likely to result in new responses and evoke genuine interest. For Fashion students this may involve dressing in a style that is contrary to their own style but could also involve putting themselves in physical environments that will result in new experiences or observations. Exposure is directly linked to the ability to be creative; therefore encouraging students to naturally seek out exposure to diverse things will enhance their creative abilities. I have seen a tendency for students,

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in an attempt to manage their study and part time work commitments, to deny themselves exposure to anything that they do not perceive as being essential to their present situation. The suggestion that they take some time out to see a film or go to gallery is seen as being lazy rather than being perceived as an opportunity to enhance their potential creativity. Students should be made aware of the importance of exposure in developing the personal database necessary for creative expression. Retention of these observations and experiences is not always automatic. Therefore, the students should be encouraged to record their observations or be allowed to explore opportunities within the observations. Just as students keep a design process journal, they should also be encouraged to keep an observations journal that may be reviewed to generate ideas for new design concepts or to bring in unique and unpredictable ideas into existing design concepts. The recording of observations allows the opportunity to draw on various and unrelated ideas and identify abstract connections that may lead to the development of unique and complex ideas. Recording of everyday experiences and observations will eventually lead to a more curious personality that is capable of seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary, leading to a more creative individual. As discussed earlier, creative people love what they do and it is this love of what they do, rather than the monetary reward that motivates them to produce their creative work. It is not possible to suggest absolute strategies to foster or enhance that love of craft. However, there are some factors design educators should consider. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) states that if you do something well it becomes enjoyable, and alternatively, if you continue to fail at something it becomes frustrating and negatively impacts on enjoyment. He goes on to say that to keep enjoying something you need to increase its complexity. The above has a number of implications for the educator. Firstly, it is important to identify individual student’s strengths and weaknesses, provide him with adequate support in their weak areas and guiding him in how to further exploit his areas of strengths. This highlights the importance of timely feedback and the need to ensure that the student capability is well matched by the skill level. Careful consideration needs to be given to the time allocated to training delivery and increase in the complexity of the content. This has implications for flexibility in delivery durations and implementation of the programs. Students not only vary in their capability, but their creative development usually occurs in bursts. This suggests that there needs to be flexibility for students to cover the content. However, this is not often feasible due to budgets and delivery timetables. A more manageable approach is to factor in the ability of the students to increase the complexity with which they cover the content. That is, through increased research or more complex briefs, students have the ability to create challenges that are relevant to their individual needs.

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Conclusion

It is individual needs and the flexibility to accommodate individuality that underpins this approach to enhancing innovation or creativity in our educational programs. Creativity is about the unusual or the surprising as discussed by Boden (2004). If we as educators are serious about fostering ideas that are unusual or surprising we have to create an environment that allows for creativity to emerge. This requires abandoning a rule driven environment and replacing this with more flexible structures and practices that allow the room for the unexpected. The idea is to replicate the creative process somewhat in the development of education programs. Achieving this is not necessarily easy as programmes need to ensure comprehensive coverage of the curriculum, while at the same time ensuring that students graduate possessing the relevant professional skills.

References Boden, M. A. The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. London: Routledge, 2004. Csikszentmihalyi, M. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. USA: Harper Perennial, 1991. Florida, R. The Rise of the Creative Class. Australia: Pluto Press, 2003. Ray, P. & Anderson, S.R. The Cultural Creatives. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000.

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