Enhancing the Spirit of Experimentation

- Acquire creative energy

- Maintain curiosity and interest (1)

- Share your creative space (2)

- Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible (3)

- Reverse your question often (4)

- Figure out the implications of the problem

- Implement solutions

- Try to be surprised by something every day

- Try to surprise at least one other person every day

- Write down what surprises you and how you have surprised others

- When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it

- Produce and remember as many ideas as possible (5)

- Try to produce unlikely ideas

Ways in which the Experimental Spirit might be cultivated

- Wake up with a specific goal to look forward to (6)

- Remember if you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable

- To keep enjoying something, look to increase its complexity

- Develop habits of strength

- Take charge of your time (7)

- Make time for reflection and relaxation

- Find out what you like and hate about life (8)

- Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.

- Develop what you lack

- Shift often from openness to closure (9)

- Find a way to express what moves you

From 'Creativity: flow of the psychology of discovery and invention' by Mihalyi Csikczentmihalyi.

(1) Maintain curiosity and interest - Find out want makes me curious and interests me and follow these things - do this by researching more about these interests and experimenting with the things that make me curious.

(2) Share your creative space - Last year I tended to work more at home and although this is a comfortable space for me it became 'too comfortable'. To push myself further I will make better use of the spaces I have been provided with - such as the studio space where I can work with people from the same and other design practices, and the library where I can talk to friends and other students who may be on other courses and provide completely different insights.

(3) Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible - I can do this by getting opinions from others, whether this is from course mates, friends and lecturers, contacting people from the industry, or doing surveys to find out what a larger group of peoples' opinions are. Research will also help me to go from different viewpoints as it may bring up new ideas or problems. Changing the question, or challenging certain parts of it will also help me to look at the problem from different viewpoints.

(4) Reverse your question often - To do this I must fully know and understand what my question is. I need to continuously look at the question as my project develops and consider whether the question will change as my project evolves. If my project goes in a new direction it will be important to reevaluate the question and change it if necessary. Having this question in mind will make it a lot easier to reverse the question and look at it from new directions

(5) Produce and remember as many ideas as possible - Keep a record of the ideas I come up with, even if they seem stupid or insignificant. By having a record I will have something I can go back on and look at.

(6) Wake up with a specific goal to look forward to - Write a plan each night of the aims I hope to achieve the following day. Set a few goals and aim to achieve at least half of them. These could be small goals or bigger ones. Include the priority of the goals on the plan. This will allow me to clearly see what I have set to do each day!

(7) Take charge of your time - Following on from (6) by planning what I want to achieve each day I can take charge of the time I have. Setting tasks I aim to get done can work better than a strict timetable for me personally as if something happens to change this timetable I can feel 'stuck'. Therefore having a general list of things to do and vague times to do them - which can be changed (excluding fixed times such as uni and work) will help me to take charge of my time.

(8) Find out what you like and hate about life - There are certain things I know I like, such as netball, water sports (sailing), cycling, illustration, painting, baking, chocolate!, etc. and certain things I know I don't like such as the dark, uncomfy socks, sweetcorn, unnecessary drama etc. However, there are a lot of things that I don't know if I like or not - some of these things are due to having anxiety about trying new things - this is something I am challenging, by attempting to try something new a couple of times a week.

(9) Shift often from openness to closure - In my creative practice during my undergraduate course I realised once I had an idea I focused very closely to it. I need to remember to take a step back every once in a while to evaluate whether this is still the best approach. I'll re-evaluate the brief and do more research. I will also take this time to ask others' opinions as they may have good suggestions and incites which could take me down a different route.

Yvon Chouinard - Patagonia

Distinction between Discovery, Invention and Innovation

Discovery - Something completely new.

Invention - Making something work from scratch through finding new discoveries.

Innovation - reconceptualising the links between the way you currently do things and how they can be done differently.