An Incomplete List of C-Words for the Creative Course

c-word sections

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an Introduction to An Incomplete List of C-Words for the Creative course

In 2002, Richard Florida, an American urban studies theorist and author, released his bestselling book, The Rise of the Creative Class. Florida’s book chronicled the emergence of a broad socio-economic group which Florida labeled the “creative class.”^[1] Florida’s book identified a segment of the workforce whose economic function is to create new ideas, technologies, creative content, and more. Florida’s book explored the impacts and implications of the creative class in relation to the economy, regional planning, and more. In the book’s original preface, Florida estimated that the “Creative Class” encompassed 30 percent of the US workforce and broadly defined this class as those “who use creativity as a key factor in their work.”^[2] ¶ About four years after publishing The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida published a follow-up volume titled The Flight of the Creative Class, in which Florida took things one step further by arguing that competition for creative talent would be not only national but global. Florida’s books are highlighted here at the get-go largely because Florida’s notion of the creative class helps frame the typical “who” I’ve encountered in my own creative courses over the years. Thus, the c-words listed below reflect and are geared towards the “creative class” taking an undergraduate creative course. In fact, it was in my creative course syllabi and lectures that I first developed a variation of the annotated c-word notes summarized below. Beyond reflecting the college classes I teach, the word course in the title of this c-word list might also suggest a direction—a route or path to a particular goal, destination, or place. ¶ As is noted above, Florida’s creative class, when viewed as a socio-economic group or broad demographic, helps readers “bucket” this wide group of contemporary creatives. This bucket, of course, includes designers, architects, writers, artists, and musicians. But more interestingly, Florida also included those who use creativity in their work [emphasis added]—professions, and professionals, working in or across business, education, healthcare, law, and more.^[3] Fast forward to the present day, and some might argue that Florida’s broadly defined creative class is even wider than it was in 2002. A recent article by Sheon Han serves as a fitting albeit somewhat anecdotal example. In a 2024 issue of Wired magazine, Han, who (at the time of this essay) is a Software Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, wrote, “Many of today’s programmers—excuse me, software engineers—consider themselves ‘creatives.’”^[4] Han, who is originally from Seoul, South Korea, first came to the US to study philosophy, literature, and computer science.^[5] ¶ As a college educator teaching undergraduate courses, I frequently encounter a wide swath of students who possess a variety of skills and interests. Like Han, some of these students—regardless of their academic major or goals—view creativity as integral to their identity, profession, or both. For them, creativity is not merely a “soft skill” listed on a resume, but rather a way of doing, thinking, or being. Some of these creativity-inclined students sense that studying, practicing, or just attempting to better understand creativity will help elevate their professional, personal, and civic pursuits alike—this is, in many cases, why they enroll in my course. Like Han and others, they view creativity as integrative and integral. Thus, as we explore the c-words below, specific applications are not necessarily the focus. Instead, this list merely highlights and explores language, terms, references, and ideas that [I hope] may spark further interest and exploration. ¶ Calls for broader disciplinary connections around, to, and through creativity are certainly not new.^[6] As such, this c-list largely attempts to “resurface” such ideas in a semi-logical order and in memorable groupings. Along these lines, it should be stated right away that this c-word list maker is indebted to a long line of c-word list makers that came before him. For example, in 2015, Sir Ken Robinson published Creative Schools, and within chapter six, “What’s Worth Knowing?” Robinson listed eight c-word competencies. They were: curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure, and citizenship.^[7] Another c-word-themed exploration appeared in a 2023 paper by Branden Thornhill-Miller et al., who published, “Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education.” Thornhill-Miller et al.’s paper not only conveys and explores such ideas but also, to some degree, offers an assessment of them that goes beyond mere valorization.^[8]Beyond this, the authors appropriately note that our shared language around such ideas is, in many cases, somewhat unclear. ¶ As many educators and educational administrators can attest, terms such as skills, competencies, abilities, attitudes, practices, literacies, and behaviors are sometimes used and [unfortunately] abused interchangeably. Furthermore, we [educators] often speak of “soft skills” versus “hard skills,” or practical skills versus theoretical ones, without a clear understanding of the differences. ¶ In yet another c-word-oriented effort from 2023, the Royal Society of Arts convened a group of over 50 businesses and educators to explore life-centric values and perspectives. Their effort yielded what they labeled the “Capabilities for Life” framework, which built upon Sir Ken Robinson’s aforementioned 8 c’s while adding two more (“change” and “courage”).^[9] ¶ In this thick forest of c-words and pedagogical pairings, I hope students are not already “lost at c.” Thus, let’s slow down and imagine a spectrum with practice-oriented language, such as “skills,” on one side, and more analytical attributes, such as “competencies” or “theories,” on the other. Such a spectrum affords us a horizontal view of knowledge, thereby enabling a more nuanced discussion that avoids tired discourses of “higher” versus “lower” order knowledge. ¶ While dozens of c-words made this list-maker’s short list, and while some c-words could be added later, I’ve selected an initial set of terms that I sense are timely. I do understand that timeliness is a subjective measure, but in selecting these big-tent terms, students and fellow educators can likewise use them as frames as they consider the multivariate challenges and opportunities before them. States of knowing, making, and doing continually and dynamically shift in response to new technologies and more. With this in mind, I invite students to view this list critically, or perhaps even with skepticism. Doing so will further define and cultivate one’s own practice, pathways, and perspectives. Even if one supports the ideas presented, I would also encourage students to ponder what Thornhill-Miller et al. describe as “the challenges of teaching and institutionalizing”^[10] them. Thus, the goal here is to explore.

be a list maker

As you explore the c-words that follow, I encourage you to make your own word lists and, likewise, ponder how these references might open up new pathways, possibilities, or perhaps even help close perceptual gaps that can prohibit creative collaboration. But what is a perceptual gap? In their 2002 book Creating Breakthrough Products, Jonathan Cagen and Craig M. Vogel briefly explored differences in disciplinary perspectives—labeling them “perceptual gaps.”^[11] In my creative practice and teaching, I have witnessed these project-stalling disciplinary gaps first-hand. The good news, as we will see is that we can proactively prepare for them. Despite a sometimes common misnomer that creatives “live in their own heads,” high-performing creatives, architects, designers, directors, and others tend to be quite adept at closing perceptual gaps and disciplinary divides. But like any skill, the ability to productively gather people around ideas takes practice, and some are better suited to the task than others. ¶ With each problem and project, creatives can become more adept at navigating the complexity of the creative process itself: at once seeing the opportunities, challenges, perspectives, and innumerable factors before them. This is where things get “fuzzy”—in business and creativity alike—because this knowledge or skill becomes tacit, making it harder to qualify and quantify. But those who practice and master the creative process may be well-equipped to solve some of the peskiest problems and close such otherwise persistent perceptual gaps. ¶ In 2005, just a few years after Florida published The Rise of the Creative Class, Daniel H. Pink, another creativity-minded American author released his best-selling book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Somewhat akin to Florida’s book, Pink’s posited the growing value of creative and critical thinking in a post-information age economy. For many—this list-maker included—the book struck a creative chord. In fact, Oprah Winfrey, as part of her 2008 commencement address at Stanford University, gave Pink’s book away to all graduates.^[12] While one might view Pink’s right-brain provocations as wishful thinking or dated in the age of AI, one could also consider the opposite: creativity could be one of the most vital tools in one’s tool chest. This is because the human brain can do so many things computers cannot—imagine, reason, invent, negotiate, assess, discern, and more. ¶ In 2010, about five years after Pink published his book, a global survey (led by IBM) of 1,500 CEOs across all sectors revealed that, in their view, the most important leadership quality for business success was creativity.^[13] In another survey of CEOs conducted seven years later, 77% of respondents reported struggling to find the creativity and innovation skills they needed.^[14] Moving toward the present day, again, one might wonder how rapid advances in technology and automation will further affect and shape the landscape of practice. Unfortunately, I do not have a crystal ball—but we can certainly look around for answers. ¶ In 2024, I was invited to attend a lunchtime seminar with Veda C. Storey, the Tull Professor of Computer Information Systems at Georgia State University. In a fascinating talk, Storey presented a brief, mostly chronological overview of her efforts to connect research across two areas: 1) information systems and 2) design science research. In just over an hour, Storey deftly described the arc of her research, providing attendees with key milestones and scholarly perspectives. Towards the end of her talk, Storey mentioned a recent paper^[15] co-authored with Alan R. Hevner and Victoria Y. Yoon. The paper immediately caught my c-minded attention. The abstract of the paper suggested that, “The field of decision sciences is undergoing significant disruption and reinvention because of rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and the design of complex human-artificial intelligence systems (HAIS).”^[16] In her talk, Storey noted a section^[17] of the paper that outlines Design Science Research challenges for Human-AI systems design, which was subsequently followed by a set of key design challenges identified by the authors.^[18]To my delight, the challenges were presented as a taxonomy of eight c-words: composition, complexity, creativity, confidence, controls, conscience, certification, and contribution. When Storey shared this c-word list, I nearly fell out of my chair. Many of the c-words in the authors’ taxonomy also appeared in my own creative course c-word short list. This I immediately found fascinating. ¶ Alas, before we jump into the actual c-words, I will lastly note that, throughout these notes, I admittedly forgo any in-depth critical analysis or commentary around emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Instead, I intentionally focus on the matter at hand—human intelligence (HI). Furthermore, as we ponder these c-words and creativity itself, I encourage students to explore and discern the endlessly fascinating, big-tent notions of creativity presented while attempting to mix and match them and more using principles of “combinatory play.^“[19] Together, we will expand, celebrate, interrogate, and challenge various notions of creativity. Like a journey across an endlessly vast creative terrain,^[20] I thus present An Incomplete List of C-words for the Creative Course.

C-Words

Care: One could easily argue that individuals who identify as creative generally want the things they make, contribute to, or engage with to be well-considered or well-made. If this assumption is at least somewhat true, we can furthermore assume that, generally, when it comes to such matters, creatives generally care. ¶ In creative work, maintaining a high level of care is not always easy nor is it straightforward. That’s because, in creative work, as in life, there are always competing forces, concerns, and demands. These forces, concerns, and demands are oftentimes beyond our immediate control. Such care-crushing concerns include, but are not limited to, time, budgets, energy, resources, disagreements, and more. Instead of avoiding the aforementioned concerns over time, high-performing creatives understand how to navigate and manage them. These high-performing creatives also understand the collaborative nature of creative work. Again, creative contributors generally care, but in creative collaboration, they sometimes care about different things. This tension is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as it is managed. ¶ Creative stewardship differs slightly from other forms of leadership and management. Creative stewards center people, perspectives, and resources around a shared vision—they thus exhibit a sensibility and sensitivity well suited to cultivating ideas, fostering consensus, and elevating performance. ¶ Creative stewardship is alignment-oriented in that it welcomes critiques, questioning, and varied perspectives. As a broad humanistic trait, care and acts of caring may foster motivation. Put another way, notions of care may serve as the impetus for sustained engagement in projects, tasks, problem-solving, investigation, learning, and more. Writers care for readers, nurses care for patients, artists may care for the work, the audience, “the field,” and more. ¶ Like creativity itself, care is indeed a “big tent” humanistic term. Care is connected to our sense of empathy and understanding, notions of time and observation, study and interest, and so on. Care appears on this list because it naturally maps to a wide range of creative identities, industries, interests, and careers. Those who work in healthcare, education,^[21][22] childcare, elder care, culinary arts, engineering, design,^[23] actively and tacitely engage with care as a sensibility, mode, and aptitude. ¶ In education, there seems to be a symbiotic relationship between education and notions of care. For instance, some scholarship lists caring (alongside six other c-words) as desirable outcomes for positive youth development.^[24][25] ¶ As creatives, there very well may be times that you feel like the only care-oriented voice at the table—the only one willing to advocate for something you care about. Being the lone voice for creativity and care can be especially difficult when your care-oriented concerns are not easily quantified or when additional expenses are attached. For artists and designers, this presents a timeless dilemma—how does one advocate for the useful and the beautiful? How does one quantify delight? Thus, as a creative, you need to be clear, cogent, articulate, and compelling. Some strategies are briefly explored in the c-words below. But for now, if you take my course, get ready to keep your footnotes. The “Codex” and “Context” sections in particular attempt to help define this broad, “creative” use of footnotes. ¶ At the very least, as we begin our c-word journey, I hope you begin to formulate and reflect upon the many connections between creativity and care. Caring, care, and being careful lead quite naturally to our second “big tent” c-word—one that, in many ways, embodies notions of care. When something is made with intention, attention, or extra care—or when something is carefully performed, well-composed, or elegantly solved, an observer very well might observe or remark that such an effort is “well-crafted.”
Craft: Unfortunately, in the mainstream, we all too often associate the term “craft” with hobbies and hobbyists. Despite this narrow use of the term, craft is significant for those who undertake a wide variety of creative work. It is no surprise, then, that ancient Greek philosophers viewed “craft” as a central philosophical pillar—one that served as a springboard for vigorous discourse into many facets of society and life. As Plato, Aristotle, and others sought to describe and explore craft, these ancient Greek philosophers used the word techne (or “tekhne,” [τέχνη] in Greek)—which today might translate to mean, among other things, “applied knowledge.”^[26] Fascinatingly, techne serves as the root of the modern English word “technology,”—but its meaning was originally much broader. While the long history of craft and its varied uses cannot be adequately summarized here, craft seems to have evolved from a way to describe goal-directed knowledge to the present day, where craft is used to describe or identify properties such as care, patience, intent, quality, and more. ¶ As is noted at the outset of this section, in the 21st century, in the mainstream, many narrowly associate craft with hobbies or “side projects”—things made with glue sticks, colored paper, and popsicle sticks—handicrafts, if you will. Along these lines, a Google image search for “craft” will yield countless images of yarn and items made of papier-mache. I am not against these forms of craft—but with their inclusion on this list, I am suggesting that we explore their wider meanings and potential. ¶ For those in this creative course, like the ancient philosophers before us, I urge you to explore craft as a mindset. Adding craft as a “mindset” will help shape and inform your practive practice. That said, and as I note in my Illustrative Introduction to a Curious Compendium of Incomplete Lists for Productive Practice, in her 2024 Tanner lectures, Rachel Barney quite appropriately describes craft as “a very big tent.”^[27][28] Thus, if you have not done so already, like many beofre you, I encourage you to embark on a journey to explore craft. ¶ As an extension of the c-word section on care, the term “craft” might be well served wby pondering that which is well-crafted. Things that are “well-crafted” often exhibit discernible evidence of attention, detail, patience, or care. Curiously, evidence of care may be “felt,” sensed, or understood, and, like one’s sense of care, perceptions of craft may vary based on one’s own taste, culture, beliefs, and aesthetics. But generally, humans can sense when extra time, empathy, effort, or consideration goes into the formulation, production, and making of a thing. ¶ But how can craft be “sensed”? Let’s use a small, seemingly inconsequential artifact as an example, such as a button or snap on a jacket. When we use a button, we, as its [the button] users, are the recipients of the designer’s consideration (or lack thereof) of its form and function. This helps shape how the button feels when we use it, and by considering how it “feels,” we in part begin to discern and evaluate its craft. How easily does the button snap? How easily does it unsnap? What does the physical snap look like and sound like when snapped and unsnapped, etc? Who then cannot claim to appreciate a perfectly proportioned button that snaps magically into place? And so, in a snap, craft can sense. If we extend this button-example we can observe and consider craft in many things. We can sense craft just as much in a musician’s ability to conclude a performance with a final note that feels “just right.” The craft in this latter example is likely the product of the musician’s many hours of practice, which then develops into muscle memory—a kind of intuition that informs split-second decisions about timing, volume, and pitch. This practice-to-craft-to-muscle-memory cycle applies equally to the detailed work of a surgeon and to the plumber who seals a pipe with perfect precision. ¶ Sometimes we sense something is well-crafted when we hear it, or experience it, when we touch it, or use it. Akin to what is described above, in a section of Richard Sennett’s 2008 book The Craftsman, the author stresses, “the positive, open role routine and practicing play in the work of crafting physical things.”^[29] But Sennett also moves beyond physical object as he explores practice and craft, noting that that “so too do people need to practice their relations with one another….”^[30] Interestingly and in this writer’s view understandably, Sennett intentionally avoids the word “creativity”—suggesting that “the word carries too much Romantic baggage—the mystery of inspiration, the claims of genius.”^[31] Setting such creativity-oriented concerns aside, Sennett’s book reinforces craft as a crucial “big-tent” connection between making and thinking. ¶ Lastly, we might ask ourselves, “If craft and care can be ‘sensed,’ can a lack of craft be equally sensed?” Here, the answer may be nuanced. An expert professional baker will have a very different expectation of bread than the average consumer. Despite this varied sense of craft in any given discipline, and even when the maker or provenance of a thing is unknown, tangible traces of the invisible creative hand are “baked into” a final product, artifact, or thing. Craft is thus a distinctive, subjective and humanistic property that is evident in some of our oldest human-made artifacts.^[32] Artifacts and craft thus reflect, substantiate, and “embody” our longstanding innate penchant for tangible evidence of human care. ¶ There are some tensions that arise as one engages with notions of craft. These issues center around time, cost, material, and energy use, and another might even concern pride. For instance, in one’s seemingly noble pursuit of excellent craft, how does one develop pride in one’s work without conflating such a practice with pride in oneself? How does one then appreciate the work of others without sliding down the slippery slope of appropriation or envy?^[33] Beyond this, how does one craft a cogent artifact or vision while also considering others’ perspectives? ¶ In popular culture and occasionally in marketing, the latter question is oftentimes [overly] positively celebrated when a product, brand, or creator is viewed as “uncompromising.” As students explore craft, I encourage them to consider these craft-related issues and more. ¶ So welcome to the very big tent we call craft. As Ezra Shales states in the introduction to his 2017 book The Shape of Craft, “The most I can hope is that I whet your desire to touch craft and cultivate increased respect for the myriad anonymous craftspeople at work in the world.”^[34] As students posit craft, the term quite fluidly leads to adjacent concerns involving the careful ordering, synthesis, assembly, or arrangement of things. This general concern for ordering and arranging things leads us to our next two c-words: composition and curation. Let’s start with the former.
Composition: Composition describes the formal arrangement or ordering of media, materials, spaces, content, objects, ideas, and more. Big-tent principles of composition span many disciplines, not limited to music, math, writing, film, art, computer science, design, and more. Thus, composition can apply to paintings, poems, architecture, sonatas, and sculptures alike. Of course, composition generally describes the act of composing [and sometimes recomposing] multivariate material(s). ¶ How something is shaped, ordered, arranged, or composed determines its structure, form, and sometimes, as a product of a particular structure and form, its significance, value, or meaning. In elementary school, I remember being handed a small black notebook with the word “Composition” on the cover. Within such composition books, students are generally instructed to explore the process, craft, and technique of writing. Over the past 50 years, the study of composition has been generally referred to as composition studies. Even in this relatively short time period, our thoughts around composition—how it is taught and what it encompasses have evolved significantly. For instance, in 1973, Peter Elbow published Writing Without Teachers in which he suggested that we write not only to compose or record our thoughts, but also to cultivate our thinking. For some this idea may seem obvious, but for others this notion of writing, and likewise composing to cultivate might serve as a helpful frame. In his book, Elbow states that, “Putting a thought into symbols means setting it down and letting the mind take a rest from it.”^[35] This, as we will see in the d-word section on “Drawing” is quite similar to how folks in the visual arts posit some forms of sketching. Elbow later states, “A principle value of language […] is that it permits you to distance yourself from your own perceptions, feelings and thoughts.”^[36] If we thus extend this logic just a bit further, we thereby posit human composition as a reflective “thinking” process. Furthermore, this reflective line of reasoning lends itself to many other forms of making and doing. ¶ As we further consider composition, in the 21st century, even what we might consider less “tangible” material arrangements could fall into compositional categories. Data, visuals, or code are also considered languages or materials and, thus, when arranged, they form compositions. As is fairly typical in creative classes such as this, students create compositions in part so that we can analyze, discuss, describe, evaluate, and better understand their formal qualities. ¶ When creatives talk of the formal, we’re not describing a middle-school dance. In conversations around composition the formal refers to a resultant quality. The formal is thus a way to discuss and discern certain elements and principles that inform composition, or, said more plainly, the arrangement of things. ¶ In his 2003 book, Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement, Leonard Koren suggests that arranging things “has two aspects: (1) the selection of the objects—things—and (2) the manner in which the objects are arranged.”^[37] Interestingly, Koren adds a footnote after “arranged,” noting that his book is primarily concerned with arranging and that “object selection should be the subject of another book.”^[38] Likewise, this short memo on composition is followed by a section on curation, which briefly explores notions of culling and selection. ¶ “Forms,” when viewed as a big tent term, can be understood as a way to ponder organizing principles that shape texts, objects, or even ideas. For instance, in her 2015 book Forms, Caroline Levine notes that, “Over many centuries, form has gestured to a series of conflicting, sometimes even paradoxical meanings,”^[39] but the author later shares that, “‘form’ always indicates an arrangement of elements—an ordering, patterning, or shaping.”^[40] Fascinatingly, although Levine hails from the world of literature, she uses affordances,^[41] a term from the fields of psychology and design, to think about form. ¶ As we will see, c-word forces, including curation, composition, content, and concept, are in various ways highly intertwined and interdependent. Together, such concerns generally contribute to the substance of a work. Composed material can be physical, digital, or even ephemeral—and was noted earlier, these days material can include images, shapes, language, sounds, text, code, matter, data, ideas, and more. ¶ Depending on the medium, material can be manipulated and arranged with various elements and principles in mind. These elements and principles might include, but are not limited to, contrast, hierarchy, scale, duration, texture, volume, pattern, and more. ¶ In the interest of brevity, I might suggest that we ponder five decent “starter” structures as we explore creative composition. They are: 1) sequential composition, 2) non-sequential composition, 3) framed composition, 4) dynamic composition, and 5) looped composition. Sequential composition, for instance, encompasses most time-based works. Most films, music, and writing produced today are linear—meaning that they have a generally definitive start, middle, and end. Framed composition can be used to describe works that are contained or constrained within a frame, plane,^[42] or space. This framing may also be conceptual, which means that the “ideas” can be composed or constrained within a “conceptual frame” or defined within an “idea space.” Along those lines, framing is a great way to constrain both form and ideas. Non-sequential and dynamic composition describes work that is generally unframed; such works may be interactive, instructional, generative, random, participatory, and more. This latter category can even encompass dynamic works that change over time. These dynamic works might also be defined or informed by live or systematic data inputs. Looped composition, on the other hand, is one defined by continuous repetition. Of course, some works fall into multiple compositional categories. ¶ No matter which type of composition you are dealing with, creating a composition usually requires making choices and selections. Creative choices can be informed by evidence, feedback, experience, taste, input, intuition, and more. ¶ Luckily, in creative fields, we use another c-word to describe this process of narrowing down choices, or even a series of choices or compositions. This process of selection and ordering, which is often tightly integrated with notions of composition, is frequently called curation.
Curation: Whether we are aware of it or not, most of us curate. In fact, many of us perform acts of curation on a daily basis. Selecting tracks for a musical playlist, for example, is an act of curation. Choosing your clothing and wardrobe is also a form of curation. Assembling a food menu is a form of curation, as is selecting artists or works for an exhibition. For the latter selection process, museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions often employ full-time curators. ¶ To briefly ponder curation, one contemporary curator may be worth mentioning here. Since 2016, Hans Ulrich Obrist has been codirector of the Serpentine Galleries in London. Beyond a curator’s core role in selecting and arranging works for galleries and museums, in his 2014 book Ways of Curating, Obrist suggests or implies that curating also involves making connections. This distinctly human ability to envision and make complex humanistic connections is in part why curation has been elevated as a c-word topic of concern and exploration in this course. By framing curation as a connection-oriented process, Obrist helps us ponder the curator’s ability to “make junctions, to allow different elements to touch.”^[43] A bit more abstractly, Obrist describes curation as a kind of “map making that opens new routes through a city, a people or a world.”^[44] Much like a map, which oftentiems orients, this big tent view of curation suggests that matters of arrangement also connect to matters of wayfinding and even understanding. ¶ Curation as a discipline and practice involves a rich mix of organizational, aesthetic, and historical knowledge. Curators such as Obrist are valued for their unique perspectives, which in turn are informed by a general sense of discernment or discretion. ¶ Lastly, in Ways of Curating, Obrist notably describes an influential 1986 meeting with the Italian conceptual artist Alighero Boetti. In that meeting, Boetti suggested to Obrist that “curating could be about making impossible things possible.”^[45] This imagination-infused, future-oriented notion of curation required Obrist to continue doing something he already seemed inclined to do early on in his career—talk to artists. In his book, Obrist chronicles these studio visits and conversations with artists. The reader thus comes to understand and appreciate how such conversations help shape and define Obrist’s curatorial process and, in turn, his understanding and interpretation of the artists’ works. Obrist thus shares a quality, or “trait,” that is common across many creative disciplines: an attempt to get to the source. This creative “trait”—one that seeks out sources, information, footnotes, material, and materials sometimes drives the creative’s innate motivation to learn. This innate motivation is explored in our very next c-word section: curiosity.
Curiosity: At the beginning of each semester, one of my colleagues asks his business school students to raise their hands if they see themselves as creative. Unfortunately, he reports that many, if not most, students do not raise their hands. Thus, as we dive into notions of curiosity, now may be the perfect time to challenge one of the most significant misconceptions about creativity: that only certain people are creative. ¶ Out of curiosity, I also started conducting this informal poll around creativity in my “creative’ courses as well. I then ask those who do not raise their hands if they would be willing to share why they view themselves as “not very creative.” Some state that they cannot draw or paint, or play a musical instrument. Some simply say, “I’m just not very artistic.” ¶ The reality is that all humans, to various degrees, are creative. Creativity is, in fact, one of the core attributes that make a human being human. Thus, when one says “I am not very creative,” I tend to think it is akin to saying “I am not very human.” So please stop that all that non-creative nonsense—and stop it now! ¶ One goal for students in this course might be to explore various ways to harness and develop their creativity. Generally, if one wants to become more creative, a good place to start, or better yet, a good word to ponder, is curiosity. The reason for this focus on curiosity lies in its power to spark, drive, and sustain creativity. In fact, in this list-maker’s opinion, curiosity is like raw fuel for creativity. But beyond such hyperbolic statements, how do we know any of this is true? ¶ As children, we are naturally curious. In fact, curiosity shapes how children develop, explore, and understand the world as they learn and develop skills such as language. As a big tent c-word, curiosity has been a longstanding area of scholarly interest in psychology, business, the arts, and beyond. ¶ While research around curiosity initially focused on links between curiosity and motivation,^[46]renewed 21st-century interest and research has begun to explore more expansive possibilities. In their 2016 paper “Deconstructing intellectual curiosity,” Christopher Powell et al. describe this renewed interest as the ‘third wave’ of curiosity research.^[47] Facinatingly, Powell et al. note that curiosity can include one’s desire or interest in sensory experience [perceptual curiosity], knowledge [epistemic curiosity], intellectual engagement, and more.^[48] Within this “third wave” of research, concurrent links between creativity and curiosity are being further explored by scholars such as Lydia Paine Hagtvedt et al., whose 2019 paper is wonderfully titled “Curiosity made the cat more creative: Specific curiosity as a driver of creativity.”^[49] ¶ Notably, at the outset of their paper, Hagtvedt et al. present two flavors of curiosity: “diversive curiosity [emphasis added], which reflects broad interest in exploring and learning, and specific curiosity [emphasis added], which entails a desire to solve a particular puzzle.”^[50] ¶ The kind of research undertaken by Hagtvedt et al. is timely, not the least because designers and creatives of all types are increasingly being challenged to engage in problem-solving on a vast range of scales and within a variety of domains. On the complex end of this problem-solving scale we encounter problems that are oftentimes described as “wicked.”[51] Wicked problems are ripe for creative solutions from curious, creative, and entrepreneurial minds who, as we discussed in the section on curation, can make new and vital connections. ¶ This list maker suggests that one of the most compelling aspects of Hagtvedt et al.’s paper is thus the authors’ notion of idea linking—a novel mechanism described as “that specific curiosity drives the within-individual cognitive exploration that supports creative idea generation.”^[52] Unlike 20th-century creativity-oriented terms such as “brainstorming”—the notion of idea linking seems to offer creatives a more cogent and scholarly process. Furthermore, Hagtvedt et al. argue that specific curiosity supports our ability to explore multiple or partially overlapping ideas— characterized by an individual’s ability to “develop ideas by linking them together in a sequential manner, using aspects of initial ideas as input into subsequent ideas.”^[53] ¶ With notions of curation, curiosity, and idea linking in mind, we might now ask what separates the highest-performing creatives from us mere mortals? While there are certainly many answers to this question, one crucial, if not obvious, answer is consistency.
Consistency: Despite the hurly-burly of contemporary life, what does it mean to deliberately dedicate oneself to a particular practice? Beyond this, we might ask how one might reflect on that practice, and the associated actions embedded within or associated with it. By undertaking this reflective posture, one may begin to see (or not see) difference, discernment, distinction, or improvement.^[54] ¶ While the word “commitment”^[55] was also a contender for c-word six, and while these two words are somewhat entangled, it was with special intention that I opted for consistency. My initial interest in consistency was first sparked by imagining the contents of an unwritten memo. In 1985, Italo Calvino, an Italian novelist, was invited to present a series of lectures at Harvard. Unfortunately, Calvino passed away just before his lectures were scheduled to be presented. In preparation for his lectures, Calvino composed a series of essays titled Six Memos for the Next Millennium.^[56] Within his memos, Calvino sought to explore six literary virtues. The six virtues were: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency. While Calvino drafted and edited the first five memos, the sixth, on consistency, was never written—leaving us to ponder or imagine the memo’s contents and significance. ¶ One might suggest with some degree of confidence that Calvino himself was in many ways consistent. As a prolific, committed, and consistent writer, Calvino published novels, stories, letters, essays, and literary criticism. ¶ If one imagined Calvino delving into notions of consistency, one might imagine him exploring the vast linguistic, poetic, aesthetic,^[57] and conceptual spaces around and between big-tent notions of the term. One might likewise picture a literary or dialogic discourse around focus versus discursivity, or, possibly even a combination of the two—a focused discursivism if you will. But then again, who really knows? ¶ For students in this creative course, some key consistency-oriented points to ponder might be centered around time, focus, systems, progression, and habits.^[58] ¶ Calvino himself exemplified a consistent spirit that likely informed his own sense of identity as a writer. In fact, in a letter that Calvino wrote to Luigi Santucci in 1959, Calvino shared the following: “We are people, there is no doubt, who exist solely insofar as we write, otherwise we don’t exist at all. Even if we did not have a single reader any more, we would have to write….”^[59] ¶ With this passage in mind, it might be fair to assume that Calvino wrote every day he possibly could. But we also all know that consistency and being consistent is sometimes easier said than done. Being consistent in one’s practice often means carving out precious time, health, and space. Our consistency, our well-being, and our commitments are thus mutually intertwined. Enacting consistency and its close cousin, focus, can have a compounding effect. Together, these properties can potentially foster creative flow^[60]—which, in turn, can sometimes increase productivity, efficiency, and perhaps even creativity itself. Flow is, in some ways, the antithesis of distraction; or worse still, what creatives sometimes call “analysis paralysis.” ¶ Some creative and skilled work requires us to make split-second, intuitive, or muscle-memory-like decisions, while other types require hours of focus, evaluation, and deliberation. These multivariate creative decisions—how we might make them, evaluate them, and pursue them—might lead us into fields of inquiry that extend to and beyond epistemology, cognitive science, and more. But in a creative and designerly context, if we pull on this thread of decision-oriented and evaluative properties, we encounter a vast range of opportunities for making and knowing ripe for exploration. I can tell by your countenance that you are intrigued.
Countenance: If you have already stumbled across the word countenance, it’s highly likely that it was used to describe a communicative facial expression—typically one that suggests approval, disapproval, mood, or some other non-verbal cue or reaction. ¶ Countenance is a wonderful big-tent word with somewhat fluid meaning. Since countenance is used to describe expressions of approval, or disapproval, or evaluatory reactions in general, the term can thus be used to describe the multivariate approaches to evaluation itself. ¶ Thus, for this c-word list, I use the term countenance to broadly describe evaluation as a creative skillset or mindset. In this way, we might begin to connect antecedent notions of evaluation with countenance—the resultant result, if you will, of approval, disapproval, reaction, or further deliberation. ¶ But how do notions of countenance connect to this creative course? First, let’s imagine a live jazz ensemble performance before us. Now let’s consider big tent notions of “countenance” in real time. One might observe the countenance of the jazz musicians as directed towards each other, but also, oddly enough, the work itself. Notions of countenance thus shape the work and the evaluation of the work in a circular fashion. ¶ I am not the first to posit the peculiar possibility of employing the word countenance as an evaluatory descriptor or method. For instance, in 2024, Michael Quinn Patton, the former President of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), published a video review of Robert Stake’s 2023 memoir Measuring Education. In his video review, which Patton cleverly titled The Countenance of Bob Stake, Patton puts forward an appeal for viewers to reconsider one of Stake’s key scholarly contributions—what Stake had once termed countenance evaluation.¶ In the video, Patton reviews Stake’s scholarship and contributions to the field of educational evaluation. In particular, he describes Stake’s use of the term “countenance evaluation, which Patton labels an “evaluative soup.”^[61] Stake is professor emeritus of education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He earned a PhD in Psychometrics from Princeton University in 1958^[62] and is the author of Qualitative Research: Studying How Things Work (2010), The Art of Case Study Research (2010), and more. ¶ According to the Encyclopedia of Evaluation, Stake did not purposefully set out to create a countenance evaluation model, and “to this day, he would assert that it is not a model.”^[63] But perhaps to Stake’s dismay, the entries author also contends that “a brief review of the evaluation literature since its publication illustrates its characterization as such.”^[64] ¶ Stakes’ scholarly paper^[65] on countenance evaluation, referred to in the aforementioned entry, was first published in 1967. With such notions of countenance as an “evaluatory soup” in mind, it is put forward here to help frame or envision the highly varied and dynamic modes and methods of discernment, decision-making, and evaluation used by designers and creatives. ¶ In his paper, Stake stated that, with countenance evaluation, his aim was to “introduce a conceptualization of evaluation oriented to the complex and dynamic nature of education.”^[66] Likewise, when appropriate, mapping complex evaluation to complex problems may yield fruitful results, especially when more traditional or singular methods of evaluation have failed. This view then elevates countenance as a model that may be desirable for contemporary creatives, designers, and creative educators to further explore. ¶ Curiously, while composing this c-word section, I also stumbled upon “countenance” in a passage written by the legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright noted that, “Whether people are fully conscious of this or not, they actually derive countenance and sustenance from the ‘atmosphere’ of the things they live in or with.”^[67] The takeaway here is that countenance can be applied to describe something as “fuzzy” or complex, as “atmosphere?” ¶ In his boldly titled 1986 book on creativity, A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, American author, speaker, and inventor Roger von Oech included a chapter titled, “The Judge,” in which he states, “We’re all familiar with the judge; indeed, it’s probably our most well-developed role. We use it to evaluate everything from what clothes to wear and what books to read….”^[68] Later, von Oech states, “The judge performs the evaluation function of the creative process.”^[69] With von Oech’s notion of “the judge” in mind, an exploration of creative countenance might provide us with more concrete language to describe this creative-evaluatory process. As such, depending on the work, these modes of assessment might lead to more cogent critiques and evaluatory platforms for projects, compositions, and ideas. But what exactly is an idea? Ideas encompass our human ability to think and imagine. Ideas may drive one of our greatest superpowers: our ability to think conceptually.
Concepts: For this list-maker, my first memorable encounter with the word “concept” occurred in one of my undergraduate graphic design courses. The course was taught by Professor Elizabeth Resnick (now Professor Emerita and also an AIGA Medalist). Resnick crisply defined a concept as “a well-developed thought or idea.”^[70] ¶ For this c-list entry on concepts, we might build upon Resnick’s definition to read, “a well-developed thought or idea made visible.” By “visible,” I do not necessarily mean “visual.” Instead, I am attempting to indicate various ways to bring ideas into the world and make them tangible. ¶ While there are many tried and true ways one can develop ideas and make them tangible, a well-explored, highly efficient methodology is to draw^[71] or better yet sketch. A sketch, as defined here, need not be a drawing; a sketch could also be made of code, text, sound, or other digital or physical materials. In the world of art and design, there’s a term we use to describe very quick, small sketches meant to work out concepts and compositions. We call them thumbnail sketches. Thumbnail sketches help creatives work through ideas and reflect on them quickly and efficiently. ¶ Sketches can also be dimensional (like a model) or interactive and/or functional (like a prototype). For those who work with sound or in performance, a sketch can be a quick recording, an impromptu rehearsal, or an improvisational session. ¶ There are no less than three reasons why this list maker suggests that sketching is not only useful to fellow creatives but essential: 1) Sketching allows one to fluidly and efficiently work through concepts, compositions, solutions, and motifs. 2) Sketching makes one’s thinking visible [or tangible], and thus creates a “breadcrumb” record of one’s progress, process, and thinking; 3) Sketching allows ideas to be more concretely communicated and shared such that they can be discussed, critiqued, evaluated, or compared. ¶ Much like our earlier exploration of writing, sketching is also an active form of thinking. Again, like writing, sketching encourages creatives to bring ideas out of their craniums and into the world, where they can be “read” or even tested and evaluated. ¶ There are many benefits associated with making ideas visible. Beyond sketching, some have described this active conceptual process as “visible thinking.” Project Zero at Harvard defines Visible Thinking as “a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework, which aims to integrate the development of students’ thinking with content learning across subject matters.”^[72] ¶ Regardless of your focus or discipline, from plumbers to pianists to pulmonologists, there is tremendous value in one’s ability to sketch, think conceptually, and make one’s thinking visible. It is equally important to consider the challenges of bringing concepts and ideas to life. Theodore Levitt’s 1963 Harvard Business Review article, titled “Creativity Alone is Not Enough,”^[73] in part seems to do just this. Levitt cautioned that those who focus purely on concepts or creativity alone may “tend to confuse the getting of ideas with their implementation—that is, confuse creativity in the abstract with practical innovation.”^[74] ¶ In this creative course, we might acknowledge Levitt’s perspective but also afford ourselves a degree of possibility and optimism. Truthfully, the world has changed quite drastically since 1963. Unlike 1963, today anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can now broadcast ideas to millions of viewers with little overhead or cost. Furthermore, we might speculate that notions of a creator economy may continue to gain momentum. Beyond this, as we explored in the curiosity section, our unique human capacity for generating ideas will never go out of style. In fact, in the 21st century, one might say that creativity and conceptual thinking are steadfastly becoming a kind of currency.
Currency: With every new advancement in technology, automation, and efficiency, new questions, challenges, and opportunities arise that reframe the value of human work, time, skill, contribution, value, and more. In this c-word list, we use the term currency in part to describe this process of examining these ever-emerging questions. This non-monetary use of currency also serves to frame creative capacity and creative capital. Notions of creative currency and creative capital can apply to individuals, organizations, cities, regions, and more. In a section of Richard Florida’s aforementioned book—titled “From Social Capital to Creative Capital,”^[75]—Florida chronicled shifting notions of social capital as explored by scholars such as Robert Putnam. For Putnam, social capital refers to the networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Unsurprisingly, creative works, initiatives, and institutions are generally social and thus tend to bring a wide variety of people together. From music festivals to film productions, from startups to salons, people seem to gather around aesthetics and ideas. We might ponder a portion of these creative gatherings as potluck dinners—organized around themes, problems, projects, mediums, interests, and more. What you bring to the “table” is your creative currency. ¶ In popular culture, being current might infer that one is somehow “in the know,” or that one is adept at the latest technology, or even up on the latest “trends.” This is not necessarily what is being described here. Currency, in this case, largely represents contribution. Over time, creative currency may lead to other c-words such as credibility (sometimes called “cred”). ¶ In creative work and perhaps life in general, it might be tempting to compare oneself to others. While this is a natural human tendency, it is also a slippery slope and should be actively tended to with attention and care. With that in mind, one’s creative contributions can be documented in what is often referred to as a “body of work” or, even better, a portfolio. The word portfolio is used in finance, investing, real estate, and other fields, but in the creative world, a portfolio is similarly used to describe the qualities and quantities of one’s contributions. Akin to investing, these are your creative assets or holdings. In a creative and, increasingly, a scholarly context, a portfolio can quantify and qualify a collection of creative work—sometimes presented as case studies that can include associated information, contextual research, and, when appropriate, process, evidence, and outcomes.^[76] Somewhat by tradition in academia, such collections of contributions are called a Curriculum Vitae (or “CV”). A CV is a detailed, multi-page document outlining a full history of academic and professional accomplishments. But for those whose work is creative, a resume or CV may fall short because it lacks visuality and context. The portfolio not only contextualizes the work but also attempts to present it. ¶ Regardless of one’s interest, focus, or practice, one can consciously develop a body of work, and (portfolio or not) one can cultivate creative currency by engaging in studio habits of mind.^[77] Creative habits not only foster a sense of focus and reflection upon one’s own work but also an appreciation for the contributions of others. Outside of professional pursuits, engagement in the arts and sciences can also fuel interest, support, and appreciation. Half jokingly, I tell students that some of them may become world-class art collectors.^[78] ¶ In the messiness of our potluck meal of creative production, success is sometimes out of one’s control. Beyond these notions of happiness and success are highly personal, subjective, and relative. But for those looking for exposure and opportunities for collaboration, it does not hurt to make your work visible, or, said another way, to “show your work.”^[79] ¶ As noted above, portfolios not only “list” one’s experience and achievements but they also attempt to “show” them. As has been the case for many years in fields such as architecture, fashion, and design, portfolios create a valuable record of past work. For those in academia, creative works can [and should] be viewed as “legitimate and valuable form[s] of research.”^[80] With these creative currency-oriented perspectives in mind, adding work to your portfolio is like making a deposit into a creative or design research^[81] savings account. ¶ Like a passbook, ledger, or passport, notions of creative currency allow us to “enter the bank” of creative culture while earning “interest” over time. And fortunately, you don’t need to go it alone. Most students in my courses seem to grasp these collaborative aspects of creative work quite intuitively. In fact, when they want to partner on something, they even use shorthand: “Hey, let’s collab!”
Collaboration: Please join me in shattering a second common creativity-related myth, that highly creative people always work alone. While it is undoubtedly true that many types of creative work require considerable time spent on individual-focused work, there is equal value in time spent with others. From the salons of the 17th century to present-day creative “collabs” like bees spreading pollen, creatives dynamically produce and distribute ideas. ¶ From two-person projects to teams of ten thousand, collaboration is a big-tent creative multiplier that consistently fuels progress, innovation, and invention. Collaboration can encompass circles of interest, shared knowledge, shared work, and more. Sometimes, as teams grow larger, highly collaborative team members might “break off” or “branch out” and start new teams or pursue new ideas. This is common if not expected. ¶ One advantage of identifying as “creative” is that it signifies a willingness to collaborate. One can collaborate within a discipline or across or between fields. For those who venture into or collaborate across disciplines, these creative cross-pollinators are sometimes described as interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or multihypenate, and some of these creatives even exhibit multiple intelligences.^[82] Each of these descriptors has a slightly different meaning, and thus, there is no formula. In fact, unlike the multidisciplinary or multihyphenate, creatives can alternatively or simultaneously develop “deep expertise.” Naturally, we describe those with “deep expertise” as having depth. ¶ But depth and breadth are not at all binary options. Instead, we might imagine present-day creatives as shape-shifting characters. In fact, since the 1980s, designers and other creative characters have oftentimes been described using the letter T^[83] (with the vertical stem representing depth of expertise and the horizontal stem representing breadth). The real magic happens when the capital T’s are placed side by side [TTT] because the top bars visually connect and can thus represent (you guessed it) creative collaboration. From Hollywood to tech, creatives and designers in particular seem to be natural T-shaped collaborators.^[84] ¶ Creative collaborators are oftentimes gathered, assembled, or facilitated by fellow creatives—these gatherers may be directors, architects, principals, producers, project managers, curators, and more. These are the creative conveners. Convenors oftentimes serve as the logistical or connective “glue” or facilitators between creative experts, actors, and practitioners. Convenors may manage a creative project themselves, but sometimes experts in management, production, and business join the creative team. ¶ Let’s now imagine traveling along a metaphorical timeline that represents human collaboration over the past few thousand years. As we traverse time, we encounter vast creative, philosophical, scientific, technological, and intellectual ideas that morph and intersect over time. Over time, ideas emerge, diverge, and converge, and they seem to do so with increasing momentum. For the purposes of this c-list, let’s assume that this dynamic trajectory will only continue—and that new (or by today’s standards) even radical forms of collaboration will continue to emerge. One way to explore, posit, or describe this trajectory towards increased collaboration is to consider big tent notions of convergence.
Convergence: The big tent term convergence can describe the merging of ideas, technologies, products, organizations, and more. Convergence is explored and elevated here as a possible 21st-century principle that may be worthy of further consideration and study. Convergence is principally included on this list for its problem-solving potential. Convergence provides a framework or strategy that dissolves disciplinary silos and actively brings together expertise at multiple levels and in ways beyond sporadic collaboration(s). Building upon notions of collaboration, convergence seeks to bring together experts from various disciplines who possess specific tools and mindsets. Convergence thus creates a dialogic framework for exploring problems, productions, and projects alike. As such, creative convergence creates a frame or space in which people, ideas, research, knowledge, and perspectives collide, intersect, or intermix. ¶ As posited here, there are varied flavors of convergence that attempt to blend various disciplines, roles, knowledge, expertise, and skill. ¶ One recent formulation of convergence can be found in Julio Mario Ottino and Bruce Mau’s 2022 book The Nexus,^[85] which describes and explores the convergence of art, technology, and science. Another example described a few years earlier (2010) might be David Edwards’ book Artscience,^[86] which again posited new forms of innovation at the intersection of the art and science. ¶ Disciplinary integration, convergence, and integrative^[87] thinking have, for this list-maker, been a longstanding area of focused interest. Like streams, rivers, oceans, and other bodies of water, human knowledge flows along sometimes irregular and unpredictable trajectories. One might thus imagine convergence as the various points at which these ideas intersect. ¶ In another example (2011), a group of faculty from MIT authored a report detailing another flavor of convergence. The report was titled The Third Revolution: The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering. In a letter that preceded the report, the faculty stated, “The past decade has seen the evolution of new interdisciplinary research areas…”^[88] while further stating that, “These new fields share a comparable, underlying research model, convergence, [emphasis added] and there is a need to see them as a unity in order to ensure their continued progress. The successful application of this model will require not simply collaboration between disciplines, but true disciplinary integration.”^[89] ¶ One might speculate that 21st-century notions of convergence will present new opportunities in education and industry alike. Such factors may lead to or even demand new formulations of physical space, new models of staffing, new forms of compensation, experimental curricula, and more. But moreover, convergence-oriented work may also require changes in mindsets and perhaps even new understandings of authorship. ¶ Creatives, architects, scientists, engineers, and designers, in particular, have long been interested in integrated and convergence-oriented structures. This is largely because film, architecture, and design projects alike often require a vast combination of perspectives, expertise, and disciplines. They also oftentimes entertain or pursue many possible answers or solutions to a given problem. ¶ As highlighted in the Introduction section of this c-word list, design researchers Jonathan Cagan and Craig M. Vogel once explored, articulated, and demonstrated the all-too-common gaps across disciplinary perspectives. In a section of their 2002 book Creating Breakthrough Products, the authors note that “Although the need for integration seems obvious, it is not an easy thing to do.”^[90] ¶ The authors memorably illustrate differences in disciplinary perspectives with a memorable qualitative experiment. Cahen and Vogel present three different kitchen colanders (or “strainers”) before a cross-disciplinary team of designers, marketers, engineers, and suppliers. They then prompt the participants to posit the following question: “If you owned a company, which colander would you prefer to sell and why?”^[91] It’s not at all surprising to hear that the variation in colander selections among the participants was “significant.”^[92] Cagen and Vogel’s experiment clearly “demonstrates the inherent gap in perception between these different players [from different disciplines].”^[93] ¶ But Cagen and Vogel also mention a sole engineer—one who somehow bridged the perceptual gap. In reference to this figure, the authors share this revealing note: “In following that engineer’s performance in the company, we found him one of the best at negotiating solutions….”^[94] This latter detail is crucial. Building consensus-based or co-designed solutions requires figures who can effectively align varied perspectives and concerns. These designerly leaders^[95] may be key when seeking convergence-oriented approaches. As such, creatives can productively avoid getting stuck in the perceptual gap. Such figures are key within organizations that desire a designful^[96] or design-forward culture. ¶ Rightfully so, some might fear that convergence-oriented solutions may simply lead to “watered down ideas” or “groupthink.” While this is always possible, such occurrences are often the byproduct of leaders who mishandle or mismanage the creative process. ¶ Beyond bridging perceptual gaps, convergence-oriented creatives may be particularly well suited for the development of comprehensive solutions. ¶ Comprehensive solutions are dissimilar to one-off projects or fixes and are particularly focused on addressing problems of high complexity. This, of course, is based on the premise that some complex problems require equally complex or “comprehensive” solutions. In seeking comprehensive solutions to a vast range of projects and problems, designerly minds combine “convergent” and “divergent” thinking.^[97] This designerly thinking also attempts to consider short and long-term concerns simultaneously. This is in part why students in this creative class are encouraged to develop, explore, and exercise a “comprehensive view.”
Comprehensive: This list-maker traces his interest in all things “comprehensive” to his design history Professor Al Gowan. As Gowan often noted in his comprehensive-view-oriented lectures, he briefly studied with the well-known 20th-century futurist Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller.^[98] Years later, it was no surprise then to discover that Fuller titled the first chapter of his well-known 1969 book, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, “Comprehensive Propensities.” ¶ Within the chapter, Fuller makes an argument for a complement or alternative to “narrow, shortsighted specializations.”^[99] ¶ Not to dismiss Fuller’s skepticism of specialization outright, this list maker might suggest that a more nuanced argument might simultaneously recognize the tremendous value of specializations and expertise. Nuances aside, in this creative course, we will likewise attempt to grapple with this notion of “the comprehensive view.” ¶ In his book, Fuller states, “Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking.”^[100] Furthermore, Fuller suggests that “specializations are not comprehended integratively.”^[101] ¶ In earlier sections of this list we somewhat explored the benefits and drawback of a “singular vision.” If we follow the logic of the “Hollywood model,” one might assume that a singular director provides some semblance of creative vision or guidance, and the producer(s) then make sure the “thing” gets made. ¶ But now more than ever, designers and other creatives are also interested in exploring participatory, co-designed, and collaborative models of making. In part, this is being fueled by technologies that make these comprehensive collaborations more feasible. Data, media, visuals, text, and ideas can now be shared rapidly and cheaply. Creatives can likewise meet, communicate, and share information in real or near-real time, and often at no or low cost. ¶ From architecture to science, with this comprehensive view in mind we are also afforded the opportunity to explore and enact “intergrated solutions.” For instance, many contemporary architecture firms now employ “Integrated design methodologies” and “building information modeling,” which allows for a convergence of information sharing across the broader team (client, engineer, builder, finance, design, project management, and more). This integrated approach has reshaped the tools, processes, and timelines associated with building, design, and construction. Thus, the present-day architectural “model” (digital, not physical) can and does dynamically update to reflect changes in costs, form, materials, energy use, and more.^[102] Outside of architecture, as more comprehensive, information-rich creative technologies continue to emerge, it seems even more crucial to bring stakeholders face-to-face at the creative decision-making “table”—and [ideally] to do so early in the process. A great way to facilitate this process is to organize an intensive creative workshop, which architects call a charrette.
Charrettes: Let’s start with what a charrette is not. A design charrette is not a quick brainstorming session or “design thinking” workshop where a group of participants slathers sticky-note ideas on a wall, eats a catered lunch, and calls it a productively “creative” day. ¶ Before I worked in the marketing department of an architecture firm, I had actually never heard of the term “charrette” (also called a “design charrette”). But like a live-action design-research theatre event, a charrette might be better experienced than described. One might describe a charrette as a highly dynamic, sometimes intense, ideally well-planned and well-informed workshop of sorts that aims to interrogate and explore ideas. Charrette can provide direction, solicit input, and sometimes help achieve alignment towards specific objectives, designs, or plans. ¶ The term charrette originates from the French word “cart.” Legend has it that, starting in the 1800s, the term referred to the final push by students studying art and architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts, typically made before a major deadline or review. ¶ A creative-design charrette can take place over the course of a few hours, a few days, or even over longer periods of time. When conducting a charrette, as much as possible, it is helpful to have all the decision-makers at the table: experts, stakeholders, users, clients, or community members, depending on the objective at hand. This way, any solutions discussed or developed can capture, or at least consider, a range of concerns, abilities, cultures, and perspectives. During charrettes, architects and planners often create or display sketches, prototypes, data, drawings, maps, and diagrams. Ideally, this is done in a space where such information can be viewed, compared, and contrasted “at a glance.” Oftentimes, reference material or readings are provided in advance of a charrette. Unlike “voting on ideas,” charrettes are immersive, dialogic, and sometimes even emergent. Ideally, charrette participants are surrounded by the problem: its contexts, precedents, and possible solutions. As more concrete ideas emerge and solutions are formulated or proposed, proposals can then be compared, contrasted, combined, and critiqued.
Critique: Who in this class, please raise your hand, enjoys being criticized? Inevitably, when I present this question to students in my creative courses, I rarely see a hand raised. Understandably, for many, having one’s ideas debated or criticized can be an uncomfortable experience. Despite this discomfort, critique is an activity and skill that has long served as the touchstone for how creatives interrogate ideas, form, materials, solutions, and more. One key for beginners to reduce the discomfort of criticism is to remember that you are not your work. Said another way, if the work is being criticized, it’s the work, not you, that’s being criticized. ¶ I have long wondered if creative educators should replace the term critique (or “crit” for shorthand) altogether? My rationale for this lies in what I (and surely others) have termed my creative-course “no like” rule. In my classes, during critiques, I politely ask students to attempt to refrain from using phrases such as “I like” or “I don’t like.” Instead, I ask them, as best they can, to articulate feedback using constructive, non-subjective language. I accomplish this by asking them to try framing feedback using phrases such as, “This works well because of W, and this does not because X, Y, and Z.” ¶ In popular culture, there’s a false assumption that artistic and designerly works are purely driven by subjectivity, or largely concerned with style. ¶ Sometimes, as a contrast to this subjectivity, I’ve wondered if “critiques” might more productively be labeled “constructives.” With this critical-versus-constructive argument aside, for those new to my classes, I suggest you also try using “you may” statements. You may want to consider this, or you may want to check out this person’s work, that precedent, this book, or this research paper. You may want to try V, or W, X, or Y, or Z. ¶ In their 2025 book, Studio Properties, Derek Jones et al. provide a multi-page section on “Critique and the Crit.”^[103] The authors note that “Critique refers to both the act of giving formative and summative feedback and the word crit refers to specific activity types used to explicitly engage in critique.”^[104] Formative feedback is typically provided during or throughout the creative process. In some schools of art, architecture, and design, this is sometimes called a “desk crit” or “studio crit.” Summative feedback is typically higher-stakes and usually delivered towards the end of the project or performance, or once it is close to completion. ¶ Being a constructive critic is far more challenging than the critic who resorts to subjective or disconnected statements. Generally, it is this capacity for constructive thinking that fuels many creative leaders. These constructive critics at once strive to be clear, articulate, honest, reasoned, and informed. These constructive critics oftentimes come prepared and do any necessary legwork or research in advance. ¶ With these evaluative communicative concerns in mind, for the presenter of creative work, it is also essential to consider power dynamics. During a critique, or even a presentation to clients, creatives need to consider who in the “room” and who actually “holds the keys.” Those who “hold the keys” are often those with the money, the power, or the decision-making authority within a hierarchical organization. ¶ Scott Berkun and Bryan Zug do an excellent job illustrating this essential point. In their 2024 book, Why Design is So Hard. Berkun and Zug state, “On the first day of design school, and in the first page of every design book, there should be a clarifying lesson about human nature. Decision making in the real world [emphasis added] is a social process, not a solitary one.”^[105] Then, Berkun and Zug deftly walk readers through the pragmatic realities of relationship building, persuasion, influence, and more, sharply illustrating their point by noting that sometimes those with low design talent but power and influence “can do terrible things,” whereas someone with great design talent but low power likely has no impact at all.^[106] ¶ To make Berkun and Zug’s point clearer, we might imagine building upon the aforementioned notion of T-shaped people, and instead use the letter H. The H-shaped person, like a gymnast, can leap and rotate 90 degrees. The resultant typographic form (depending on the typeface) is more of an “I”. The “I” could thus represent Berkun and Zug’s notions of influence and “impact,” but might also unlock the potential for other “I’s”: intelligence or even innovation. ¶ How one navigates or reacts to negative feedback is also a practiced skill. This practiced skill combines composure, timing, contemplation, rhetoric, countenance, and more.^[107] Instead of reacting to negative feedback by starting with the phrase, “I disagree,” a mentor of mine once suggested that one alternative is to first consider responding with the phrase, “I’ve never considered that before.” Even if you disagree or plan on making a constructive rebuttal, you are thus maintaining productive collegiality and flow. This list maker, like many before him, has admittedly learned this skill the hard way. ¶ While critiques can be stressful, and of course, while creatives are passionate about their work, one should be careful not to let that passion undermine creative relationships. If there is one takeaway from this section, it may be this: avoid subjective statements, feedback or arguments. Instead, try to surround your feedback and suggestions—and creative discourse in general—with ideas, precedents, evidence, scholarship, data, examples, samples, stories, studies, narrative, prototypes, demos, reference points, process, or contexts—anything other than I do or do not “like it.” As such, context is one of the fundamental properties that informs and differentiates some creative works from the purely scientific ones. So, next, let’s do some contextual research.
Context: In 1996, Bill Gates penned an essay titled Content is King. As legend has it, in his essay, Gates suggested that content was where “the real money” would be made on the internet.^[108] While frequently attributed to Gates, the phrase “content is king” was used much earlier. In 1974, J.W. Click and Russel N. Baird appear to have used the phrase in the context of magazine editing and production.^[109] ¶ In the 21st century, we might make an equally bold assertion—which is that when it comes to designerly, creative, and project-based work, context not content may be “king.” Without digressing into scholarly or philosophical debates over positivism versus relativism or the long and rich history that has shaped these discourses,^[110] it may be said that, in many spheres, “the role and significance of context-dependence“^[111] still faces many uphill battles. ¶ Thus, let’s start with some basic context-oriented assumptions. Human beings are emotional, and thus our decisions are not always based on logic. Viewed broadly, human decision-making is often driven by a “fuzzy mix” of logic, emotion, and other complex factors. For example, the choice of a vehicle may be driven not only by factors such as safety and performance but also by the car’s color. ¶ Alas, I am not alone in elevating and bringing awareness to elusive notions of “context” for contemporary creatives. In his 2025 book, Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness, Wayne K. Li states, “Contextual awareness is one of the design behaviors that can be elusive for young designers.”^[112] Being “contextually aware”^[113] should not be an elusive afterthought. In creative work, examining context can be seen as a form of research. In fact, while studying at the Dynamic Media Institute, this list-maker was first introduced to notions of “contextual research.” ¶ Contextual research provides creatives with a vehicle for collecting, exploring, and examining historical, cultural, scientific, and even metaphorical references as one develops a project or composition or as one examines a problem. ¶ As a big tent c-word, context can serve as a frame to explore aesthetics, ethics, systems, evidence, costs, materials, and more.^[114] In what might sound like a description of reading glasses, context can serve as a metaphorical lens or frame. These lenses and frames can help shape, define, or situate a work. Contextual research can be applied towards the conception of products, communication, places, initiatives, experiences, and more. ¶ Exploring context often involves asking broad “w” questions—the who, what, where, when, how, and why—which can help shape form, meaning, access, solutions, tone, and more. ¶ How one communicates context can also shape the meaning and understanding of a work. Designers, artists, musicians, and architects often strive for a work to “stand on its own two feet.” By this, I mean that they hope viewers will “get it.” In this way, the creative may opt not to explain or share inspirations, precedents, or contexts. One rationale for this is lack of context ois when the creative hopes that viewers, listeners, or users will bring their own interpretation and contextual understanding(s) to the work. In contrast to this “pure” view, we know that in a museum setting, even the title or date of a work placed next to it can drastically shift its meaning. Thus, the “museum label” oftentimes provides crucial contextual clues. ¶ In 2024, the New York-based industrial designer Todd Bracher published Design in Context. In a section titled “The Context for Innovation,” Bracher states that the “traditional approach to design, focusing on the object or the ‘what,’ often misses the mark in fostering true innovation.”^[115] Instead of focusing on the “what,” Bracher suggests focusing on the “why” or “the context within which design takes shape.”^[116] Building on Bracher’s suggestions, we might see context as a way for creatives to triangulate a range of topics, or to interrogate our instincts. Context can also help us parse problems through historical or particular perspectives. ¶ Building upon the afrmentioned notion of contextual research^[117]—such practices can create pathways for considering human,^[118]environmental, and more-than-human concerns. In some ways, all these concerns could be viewed as context at the micro- to macro-scale. ¶ Lastly, nearly any architect will attest that understanding contextual factors such as the “site” of a building or structure is crucial. Likewise, many designers now directly engage communities as they develop or co-develop solutions. These voices can meaningfully inform and shape the final design. ¶ In summary, contextual research affords creators the opportunity to examine and apply a whole host of issues, precedents, technologies, and concerns. Such information can be collected or documented in case studies, reports, white papers, films, or video essays. Distilling the context of a work can also help creators break down or explore complications and complexities. Complexities are oftentimes interdependent, dynamic, adaptive, or even “emergent.” Fortunately, artists and other creatives are trained to be comfortable in these emergent spaces. This is in part why I’m suggesting that students in this course also explore and posit complexity.
Complexity: In 2006, John Maeda published a timely and quite delightful 100-page book titled The Laws of Simplicity.^[119] After reading Maeda’s book, I was so captivated by it that I asked the President of the architecture firm I worked for at the time if she would consider purchasing copies for the firm (to my surprise, she said yes). Then I asked if we could invite Maeda in as a lunchtime guest speaker (which we did). The firm I worked for at the time had its headquarters in Boston’s seaport, and aroudn this time Meada was just “over the [Charles] river” serving as a Professor in MIT’s Media Lab. ¶ Maeda’s book on simplicity was organized around ten “laws” and three “keys,” which, in the mid-2000s, as the worlds of design and tech seemed to be colliding in fascinating ways, seemed to embody this time. For instance, in 2001, Apple launched the iPod, which was designed by the minimalist Dieter Rams-inspired British industrial designer Jony Ive. Years later, in 2012, Ive was even knighted for his pioneering work in design.^[120] Compared to other music players available at the time, the iPod seemed like a time-warping leap into the future of aesthetics, technology, and usability. Under the watchful eye of Apple’s founder Steve Jobs, Ive and his team devised an elegant touch-wheel interface for the digital music player, and it shipped with far more storage capacity for music than its competitors. This tight integration or “marriage” of form, technology, and function (aka “simplicity”) was also apparent in Maeda’s research at MIT. Maeda’s lab, founded in 1996, was titled the Aesthetics and Computing Group. ¶ Then, in 2007, Apple launched the iPhone, another monumental leap which, like the iPod, radically leveraged a tightly integrated combination of aesthetics, technology, and usability. Aside from its physical design, the iPhone, like a digital multipurpose tool, effectively cannibalized dozens of standalone gadgets, from in-car GPS units to compasses, calculators to MP3 players, and over time, anything that could be reimagined as an “app.” As of this writing, Apple has sold over three billion iPhones.^[121] ¶ Given this wildly successful record of success around simplicity in the 21st century, why would this list-maker call for students to also posit complexity? Have you ever met anyone who desperately craves more complexity in their lives? ¶ Many humans now live in an age of abundance—but we also live in a time of unprecedented complexity. As a “big tent” term, there are innumerable ways one could approach or define complexity. We could easily branch into systems thinking, political theory, aesthetics, physics, and more. So, when it comes to complexity and creativity, where might one start and why? ¶ One answer may be found in Dennis Frenchman et al.’s 2025 book Designing the X. Frenchman et al. claim that, “traditional analytic approaches to problem-solving fall short when faced with unmeasurable and multifaceted challenges.”^[122] The authors then launch into a section aptly titled “Flow With Complexity,”^[123] which posits and explores ways for designers and other creatives to better understand complexity or even embrace its flow. ¶ Frenchman et al. are most certainly not the first to posit the intersection of complexity and design. In 2010, Katerina Alexiou et al. published Embracing Complexity in Design,^[124] a 232-page interdisciplinary anthology featuring wide-ranging scholarly perspectives from art, architecture, management, and more. One section that’s titled, “Embracing design in complexity,” authored by the architect and educator Jeffrey Johnson, effectively flips the complexity-design script by exploring and advocating for design methods and mindsets in complex systems science. In his section, Johnson notes that “few scientists today know anything about design as a process for understanding, creating, and managing complex systems.”^[125] But Johnson suggests that this dynamic could change within a decade. ¶ The following year (in 2011), Donald Norman, a pioneer in the field of user experience design (UX) and interaction design (IxD), published Living with Complexity.^[126] While Norman’s book was chock-full of practical design considerations and memorable examples, for this list-maker, a short note on the last page was the most poignant. To tame the complexity of technology, Norman suggested a partnership “between the designers and those of us who use it.”^[127] ¶ The sentiment of this last statement once again reflects our previously explored notions of designing with versus designing for. This discourse has even led some critiques of the design thinking process itself. For example, in 2024, Anne-Laure Fayard and Sarah Fathallah authored an article titled “Design Thinking Misses the Mark ” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.^[128] In their paper, Fayard and Fathallah note that, “The social sector is inherently complex [emphasis added] because it consists of a multitude of actors across different contexts, timelines, and political realities. Any approach that purports to easily solve for such complexity is more likely than not to be reductive and therefore ineffective.”^[129] ¶ Fayard and Fathallah’s perspective lends credence to our interest in complexity. In my somewhat limited exploration of complexity, I also discovered an English translation of Edgar Morin’s 2008 book On Complexity. The first chapter of Morin’s book is titled “Blind Intelligence,” in which Morin notes that, “We have acquired extraordinary knowledge about the physical, biological, psychological, and sociological world.”^[130] But Morin further suggests that, “The deep cause of error is not error of fact (false perception), or error of logic (incoherence), but rather the way we organize [emphasis added] our knowledge into a system of ideas….”^[131] ¶ As we ponder Morin’s texts, one again we might further build upon our previously noted, “H-shaped person.” Firstly, our shift from a T to and H, metaphorically “lowers the bar” for creative collaboration. Then, we also “split” traditional notions of “expertise” (the stem of the T) right down the middle which results in two verticals. Then the top crossbar of the T (which stood for breath and collaboration) gets lowered to the midpoint of the two stems, making an H shape. With this formulation in mind, we then get an H-shaped “creative” character. ¶ Furthermore, we might posit one vertical stem—let’s say the left, as representing the creative character’s competencies (and/or “skills”) and the other could represent literacies (and/or “sensitivities”).^[132] But there’s more. When the H’s are stacked vertically, we get a shape that looks like a ladder. In contrast to horizontally-linked T-shaped individuals, H-shaped individuals could “stack” to create ladders that combine skills, knowledge, and expertise. Metaphorically, creative teams can then reach “new heights.” ¶ What do we mean when we say “literacies”? Historically, the term “literacy” was associated with one’s ability to read and write, but since the 1940s, conceptions of literacy have broadened significantly. For better or worse, it would seem that “literacies” now signifies understanding, skill, knowledge, ability, or even aptitude.^[133] ¶ In design education, we have long attempted to teach “visual literacy.” But even visual literacy is no longer the expert purview of artists, critics, art historians, and designers. In support of this view, in the third edition of Visual Culture (first published in 2019), Richard Howells and Joaquim Negreiros state, “If we live in a visual world, learning to be visually literate is not a luxury but a necessity.”^[134] As we ponder expanding conceptions of such literacies, we will simultaneously need to expand our conception of what a “text” is. We’ve already touched upon the notion of context, but now we must parse texts as well. Texts and contexts are at once distinct and interconnected ideas. To explore this idea further, I propose that we revisit a somewhat out-of-fashion word: the codex.
Codex: In Howells and Negreiros’ aforementioned book, the first section explores various facets of visual theory. To make this more concrete, Howells and Negreiros use John Constable’s well-known 1821 painting The Hay Wain^[135] as a reference point, which helps frame a conversation around texts versus contexts. More specifically, the authors aim to instill in the reader a basic understanding of how we “read” images. With no slight to Constable or his painting, the painting is, in many ways, “what-you-see-is-what-you-get.”^[136] The imagery in The Hay Wain is highly accessible and understandable —thus it is relatively easy for a general audience to analyze or “read.” ¶ At first, this notion of “reading visuals” as texts may sound strange to some students in this class. This is likely one reason why Howells and Negreiros chose The Hay Wain, as “reading” the work requires so little context—it thus lowers the barrier for students to discuss and analyze the work. As we further posit the term “context,” we see that it sometimes represents or designates “prior knowledge of the subject”^[137]or, going further, what some might call “knowing the codes.”^[138] ¶ To help us visualize interlinked notions of texts, contexts, and codes, let’s imagine a series of footnotes within footnotes. In footnote A, there may be a reference to footnote B, and within footnote B, there may be a reference to footnotes C and D, and so on. As our footnotes within footnotes expand, the varied references and contexts branch out like a tree. While the word codex was the historical term for a text or book, we’ll also use it here to posit interlinked ideas. ¶ Curiously, the word codex comes from the Latin word caudex, which also translates to mean the “trunk of a tree” or a “block of wood.”^[139] So just as the word model can be used to describe something physical or conceptual, the word “codex”, as posited here, could be physical or conceptual as well. We might thus imagine that every creative project has a codex of interconnected ideas that informs it. ¶ Let’s break apart the word context once more. Within context, not surprisingly, we find the word “text”—and interestingly, the word “text” also exhibits connections to the physical world. “Text” originates from the Latin word texere, meaning “to weave.”^[140] The whole point here is for students in this creative class to see that texts, contexts, and ideas are fascinatingly interwoven. ¶ Now that we have a grasp of how ideas are interwoven, we can more easily posit the productive weaving of ideas. Much like “weaving,” creative work is only possible with various combinations of “material.” ¶ As we posit the productive gathering of ideas, those who have taken one of my classes know I am not a fan of “brainstorming.” The reason I suggest we avoid brainstorming is that it often lacks framing and context, which, if you’ve been following along, we might agree are essential components in creative work. ¶ Instead of “brainstorming,” we might be better served by an activity more akin to a charette, or with a visit to an archive or library, or by collecting “footnotes.” “Footnotes” are used broadly in this creative course. Ideas, images, research, and more can be “footnoted” as part of your contextual research. ¶ By avoiding cliché activities such as brainstorming, we can save time and also debunk widely held myths around creative work: 1) that creativity and innovation occur in sudden, nearly miraculous bursts, and 2) that we need to “search” for ideas when sometimes we need to “explore” them. ¶ In his 1997 paper, the design scholar and educator Nigel Cross stated that, “In creative design […] a creative leap does not necessarily require a radical shift in viewpoint.”^[141] Notably, Cross also stated, “This is what characterizes creative design as exploration rather than a search.”^[142] ¶ There is a second, more literal reason for including “codex” within this c-word list. If you want to be a meaningful creative contributor, I also suggest getting into the habit of reading. Reading is like exercise for the brain. Reading can spark new ways of thinking, doing, understanding, or seeing. Reading (just as we noted for writing) is like fuel for creative thought, for, as it is often said, it is a portal to another place or another person’s mind.^[143] So pick up a book and read. ¶ Here I must also make a plug for the library and the librarian. Librarians are like codexian catalysts, and the library is and will continue to be a special, if not sacred, space and place.^[144] ¶ Unfortunately, reading is on the decline.^[145] In her excellent 2018 book titled Reader Come Home, Maryanne Wolf gently reminds us that the “acquisition of literacy is one of the most important epigenetic achievements of Homo sapiens.”^[146] With some echoes of Aristotle’s notion of the “good society,” Wolf makes a compelling case for reading as a source of contemplation, entertainment, the exploration of ideas, and more. ¶ Much like reading, another highly efficient way to explore ideas is conversation. Unfortunately, like reading, traditional conversation may also be on the decline. But what if conversation becomes a highly desired 21st-century literacy? This may all be wishful thinking, but, at the very least, let’s have a conversation about conversation.
Conversation: For over 2,000 years, rhetoric was viewed as an essential pillar of Western education. From Ancient Greece, as early as the 5th century BCE and into the late 19th century, rhetoric wasn’t just a subject—it was the subject. Today, (perhaps for good reasons), the term “rhetoric” oftentimes carries negative connotations. When describing a viewpoint whose perspective lacks backing, research, or substance, it is quite common to hear someone say, “Well, that’s just rhetoric!” ¶ But as we explore the big-tent c-word conversation, we explore how conversation, as a practice, is different from but subtly connected to rhetoric. It is no surprise that many view or describe conversation as an art.^[147] ¶ Our ability to engage in conversation is one of our most valuable human capacities. As noted earlier, for many years, conversation’s one-way cousin, rhetoric, was viewed as an essential subject—one meant to train and prepare students for engagement in scholarly, public, civic, or professional life. Alongside grammar and logic, rhetoric formed what was often called the trivium.^[148] A translation of the Latin word trivium is “the place where three roads meet.”^[149] ¶ This notion of an intersection or meeting place is a key property as we posit conversation as an elevated 21st-century creative concern. For creatives, conversation is a “space” where voices and ideas can be dynamically exchanged. While we tend to take this ability for granted, it is a human intelligence superpower. ¶ If conversation is considered by many to be an “art,” then like any art, it’s one that takes practice. Some might say conversation is like really good jazz. While I am not an expert in music or jazz, I’m sure we can agree that good jazz exhibits exchange, rhythm, and progression, which generally are marks of a healthy conversation as well. ¶ To some, conversation as a format (as compared to a lecture, for instance) might be viewed as digressive, discursive, or inefficient. Despite these challenges, some are advocating for this tried-and-true format. One such scholar is Sherry Turkle, who in 2015 published Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. Turkle is an American sociologist and is currently the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her research explores psychoanalysis and human-technology interaction. Within a section titled “A Love Letter to Collaboration,” Turkle makes note of a biography composed by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, written to pay tribute to his late colleague Amos Tversky.^[150] In describing Kahneman’s letter, and thus his close professional relationship with Tversky, she notes, “Here we see conversation as not only an intellectual engine but the means by which colleagues were able to cross boundaries that are usually only dissolved by love.”^[151] Then, in a poetic line that follows, Turkle states, “Conversation led to intellectual communion.”^[152] ¶ Another scholar who is interested in the intellectual communion qualities of conversation is Michael Arnold Mages. ¶ In 2024, Mages published Conversational Design: Improving Participation and Decision-Making in Public Organizations, which offers a more applied use of conversation. Mages’ perspectives are especially salient for those interested in design. As many designers will attest, a “design”—be it an environment, a product, an experience, or otherwise can be “shaped” by conversation. For creative leaders who seek to co-design solutions, conversation as a process can be especially fruitful, but managing these conversations can be tricky. ¶ Fortunately, there are learnable techniques that make this process more effective. Mages’ book offers techniques and case studies for conversation leaders and participants alike. In the introduction, Mages states, “When designers design a thing, beyond designing form, function, and meaning, they create a set of potentials for conversations to be had with, through, or facilitated by that thing.”^[153] Mages then states, “conversations are fundamental to human experience.”^[154] ¶ Conversations are, in many ways, unpredictable. In this way, conversations might be described as more like clouds than clocks. As broad metaphors, clocks and clouds are thus the last two c-words explored in this incomplete list.
Clocks: In 1965, Karl Popper delivered the Arthur Holly Compton Memorial Lecture at Washington University. Popper, an Austrian–British philosopher, academic, and social commentator, is viewed as one of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers of science.^[155] Popper’s lecture was titled Of Clouds and Clocks: An Approach to the Problem of Rationality and the Freedom of Man. It was subsequently published as a standalone essay in his 1972 book Objective Knowledge.^[156] In his lecture and essay, Popper employs clocks and clouds as symbolic labels to describe a spectrum of possibilities between determinism and indeterminism. On the left, Popper describes clouds as “highly irregular, disorderly, and more or less unpredictable.”^[157] On the right, Popper describes a precision clock which is “intended to represent physical systems which are regular, orderly, and highly predictable in their behavior.”^[158] Popper later describes his clocks and clouds as “two prototypes or paradigms…in which we can arrange many kinds of things, and many kinds of systems, between them.”^[159] Rightfully so, students in this creative class might ask why we would spend a good amount of time discussing and exploring the value of orderly and predictable “clocks.” Alas, shouldn’t we be spending the bulk of our time with our heads in the creative clouds? ¶ This is an excellent one, which Popper’s handy clock-clock metaphor might help us briefly explore. But first, (with apologies to Popper), we will need to extend Popper’s deterministic use of clocks to encompass an even wider set of principles and considerations. These include, but are not limited to, that which is rational and data-driven, and we’ll also “glob” on that which is generally viewed as structured, evidence-based, or even cost-based. ¶ So now back to the question of “why clocks?” By exploring and gathering clocks, creatives can, in many cases, apply their cloud-based superpowers more intuitively, enabling them to thoughtfully synthesize, imagine, and “connect the dots.” With this clock-based evidence in mind, creatives can sometimes navigate patterns, challenges, and constraints more precisely. ¶ Step into the design studio and you may observe designers and design teams dynamically and dialogically exploring clock-and-cloud-based data factors—the emotional versus the rational, the costs versus the benefits, the tried and true versus the unknown. Contrary to popular myths, many high-performing creatives continually “toggle” between clock-based concerns and cloud-based ones. This weighing of concerns can create tension. For instance, how do we make room for unproven cloud-based ideas if logic is continually rearing its head? Fortunately, as we’ve explored in previous sections, creatives have developed tools, methods, and techniques that make them adept at managing, facilitating, and resolving these tensions. ¶ This notion of clocks can also serve as a springboard for us to think about and consider aesthetics. Across the arts and in related fields, the termaesthetics generally refers to thequality of or perception of forms. For instance, in my own field of two-dimensional design, there is notably “clock-like” aesthetic or approach which we call “the grid.” Grid systems (or “the grid”) were first championed by 20th-century designers such as Josef Müller-Brockmann.^[160] Grids provide designers with an orderly, modular, and systematic approach for the placement of content on a surface. It’s no surprise that clock-like aesthetics and approaches were further popularized following the chaos of World War II. In fact, the grid, along with modernist principles such as “form follows function”^[161] came to embody 19th- and early-to-mid-20th-century modern aesthetics. These form-and-structure-oriented design aesthetics became essential aspects of the movement that came to be known as modernism.^[162] ¶ With this clock-oriented, logic-leaning, Aristotelian set of principles in mind, we might, with some caviats, accept the general premise of Theodore Levitt’s aforementioned “Creativity is Not Enough”^[163] paper. But alas, Popper seems to have seen things both ways, stating that [in contrast to Popper] “indeterminism is not enough.”^[164] Thus, in the spirit of clocks and clouds, we might likewise assume that clocks alone are not enough. So let’s look right at the clouds.
Clouds: In what Popper called a “commonsense view of things,” he noted that “some natural phenomena…are hard to predict.”^[165] As we make our way right across Popper’s spectrum, we encounter Popper’s “hard to predict” clouds. Just as we did with Popper’s clocks, we will likewise expand Popper’s use of clouds to serve as a big tent c-word that broadly encapsulates the unpredictable. This broad formulation of clouds might generally include the chaotic, the subjective, the random, and the relational. ¶ Within this cluster of clouds, we might include emotion, identity, taste, style, movements, intuition, conflict, trust, understanding, culture, expression, imagination, and more. In a nod to our c-word on complexity, likewise with clouds, we may encounter narratives and probabilities more often than certainties. ¶ As a rebuttal to Levitt’s assertion that creativity is not enough, creatives might explore more complex notions of “usefulness.” Is the Mona Lisa “useful,” we might ask? Does it possess value? How are notions of value predicated or connected to usefulness or use? How do you [individually] define useful?^[166] ¶ As I have noted elsewhere, using a mix of clock and cloud-based thinking, sometimes designers “make things to know things.”^[167] From prototyping to improvisation, creatives sometimes even start in the clouds. ¶ To make this cloud-based scenario more concrete, let’s consider an audible artifact embedded in a Miles Davis track from 1958. At the outset of Davis’ rendition of “If I Were a Bell,” ^[168] listeners are greeted by a short voiceover clip featuring Davis. In his signature raspy voice, likely captured in the recording studio, we hear Miles state, “I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.”^[169] With this statement, Davis provides listeners in this class with an intellectual thread as we contemplate, discuss, and explore the cloud side of the human intelligence spectrum. As a seasoned jazz musician, Davis is merely stating the obvious—that in jazz, the result is not known until they play. By making this statement, Davis also helps foster the group’s openness, or even an expectation for discovery. For the audience or listener, the line adds cloud-oriented intrigue, curiosity, and suspense. ¶ Just as we explored clocks as a source of innovation, cloud-based thinking is a parallel partner, offering a parallel path to “newness.”^[170] This notion of newness, oftentimes associated with technology, innovation, or change, is explored in a 2007 paper by Debabrata Chattopadhyay and B.N. Srivastava.^[171] In their paper, the authors conclude that, “Newness, as a concept, is applicable in a wide variety of phenomena – strategic, administrative, technical and technological innovations, organisational learning, organisation development and change.”^[172] But they also note that “Unfortunately, there is inadequate exposition of the very concept of newness in the literature.”^[173] Thus, in this class, students are asked to explore such “cloudy” questions. What is newness, and what is innovation? ¶ In 1953, Alex F. Osborn published Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem-Solving,^[174] which sought to make cloud-oriented creative processes more accessible. In the Forward to his book, Osborn makes several references to J.P. Guilford. In 1950, just a few years before Osborn published his book, J.P. Guilford became President of the American Psychological Association. Years before Sir Ken Robinson and other creative education advocates, Osborn noted Guilford’s attempts to bring attention to “education’s appalling neglect of creativity.”^[175] Furthering Guilford’s argument, Osborn likewise stated, “By and large we have failed to recognize the fact that everybody possesses creative imagination, at least potentially.”^[176] Osborn also stated, “We have failed to find wide-scale ways to develop this gift of our people.”^[177] In this latter statement, in part, we encounter at least one raison dêtre for this incomplete list.
Culture: It is often said that writing aout culture is a bit like trying to photograph the wind. As one of the biggest of our big-tent c-words, culture encompasses everything from artifacts to language, behaviors to beliefs, and the long list goes on. Unfortunately, looking at culture in the present is also a bit like being a fish in a tank; it can be hard to see things in the moment, or from an outside context or perspective, and it is hard to know you’re in the moment when you’re in the moment. ¶ But here, just briefly, we together posit culture as a key point of exploration and understanding for the creative. In our limited time, this brief lecture will intentionally focus on three sub-tent subsets of this big-tent property: artifacts, media, and memory. ¶ In a 2026 article published by Noema, as Nils Gilman grapples with emerging technologies, Gilman puts forward what he describes as “the judgment economy.”^[178] We should always take any broad prescriptions or predictions around technology or the economy with a grain of salt, but we might also use Gilman’s provocation as a springboard for timely discussion and discourse on notions of culture. Akin to what we’ve explored in our c-word sections on currency and craft, Gilman suggests that “value will accrue to those who can exercise sound judgment under stress and conditions of uncertainty.”^[179] Going further, Gilman states, “The currency [emphasis added] is trust, influence and the reliability of a decision [emphasis added].”^[180] As designers and creators, we understand that decisions are encoded in the multivariate artifacts and media we imagine, present, and, in some cases, produce or build. Likewise, for the creators of entertainment, media, and experiences, in part, we strive to encode decisions and narratives into others’ perceptions and memories. These statements somewhat support Gilman’s argument or frame for considering notions of a judgment-based economy. ¶ In support of this, or perhaps in support of those interested in exploring such “judgement-based” roles, Gilman advocates for a renewed exposure to history, culture, and the liberal arts. ¶ With Gilman’s framing in mind, and for the purposes of this course, I might suggest that we look to ancient Roman mythology to help us visualize and understand such ideas. To do so, we’ll imagine Janus, the two-faced Roman deity. In ancient mythology, Janus was known as the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, gates, and endings.^[181] Notably, Janus was typically depicted with two faces, one looking toward the past and one toward the future. Thus, as we posit culture, Janus serves to remind us of our unique human ability not only to look towards the past, but, more powerfully, to imagine or prefigure something completely new for the future. This ability to simultaneously ponder the past, present, and future is one of our core human-cultural-creative superpowers. ¶ In his 2019 book The Janus Face of Ideas, Burton Porter grapples with our cultural and intellectual histories in ways as a nuanced tug-of-war between ideas. For example, the “Janus Face” might see the face of promise and peril and simultaneously, the light of the world and also darkness, the costs and the benefits, and so on and so forth. ¶ Porter is an American philosopher and academic, best known for his work in ethics, philosophy of religion, and the history of ideas. In describing Janus as a symbolic reference point for the book, Porter notes that, “Janus is two-faced, not from hypocrisy or insincerity but because of reflection. He looks at both sides of the question.”^[182]But what does all of this have to do with culture? In his book, I sense that Porter was advocating for good old-fashioned contemplation. Porter states, “This is not a book for specialists but for those interested in ideas, [emphasis added] in the life of the mind.”^[183] If one is interested in ideas, one is a priori interested in culture. ¶ In many ways, we are now surrounded by, if not inundated with, media, messages, culture, and ideas. Thus, there is real value in understanding and appreciating “the life of ideas.” Notions of culture can inform entertainment, technology, policy, marketing and branding,^[184][185] product development, the arts, and more. While there are countless examples of culture as a creative catalyst, Panos A. Panay and R. Michael Hendrix’s 2021 book Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation, provides a timely reference point. Panay and Hendrix suggest that by adopting a culturally informed “musical mind,” onecan become more adaptive, collaborative, and visionary. In their book, Panay and Hendrix provide a musically informed mix of skills and traits, including listening, remixing, and reinventing. The authors provide “an ongoing dialogue” that attempts to share and instill a “musical mindset.”^[186] ¶ Just as Paney and Hendrix note in their Prelude, when they state, “this isn’t a how-to manual,”^[187]—An Incomplete List of C-Words for the Creative Course sacrifices the technical or prescriptive for insights and references, while providing an incomplete, “framework of seeing and responding to a dynamic world.”^[188]

With utmost gratitude to the many voices cited and referenced. First published 18 Apr 2026. Last updated 7 May 2026. Please send edits, corrections, and suggestions to this address.

Footnotes

Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, 2002, p. ix.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Han, Shoen. “Wait, Go Back,” Wired, November–December 2024, p. 16.
Han, Shoen. “About,” Shoen Han, accessed 2024, https://sheonhan.net/about/.
In 1987, for instance, David Bohm and F. David Peat published Science, Order, and Creativity: A Dramatic New Look at the Creative Roots of Science and Life. Bohm and Peat believed that science has become fragmentary and that dialogue and creativity could unlock new ways of seeing the world. As the authors stated, “It is important to extend creativity beyond the spheres in which it is traditionally supposed to lie” (p. 266). See: Bohm, David and F. David Peat. Science, Order, and Creativity. Bantam Books, 1987.
Robinson, Ken and Lou Aronica. Creative Schools. Viking, 2015, pp. 128-157.
Thornhill-Miller et al. “Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education.” Journal of Intelligence, 11(3), 54 (2023).
“Capabilities for life framework.” The RSA, https://www.thersa.org/design-for-life/capabilities-for-life/capabilities-for-life-framework/.
Loc. cit., p. 1.
See also the c-word section on Convergence. From: Cagan, Jonathan, and Craig M. Vogel. Creating Breakthrough Products. Prentice Hall, 2002, p. 144.
Shea, Danny. “Oprah Gives Stanford Grads Books, Calls Class To Service,” Huffpost, last modified Dec 6, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oprah-gives-stanford-grad_n_107282.
See: Martin, Colette and Kristi Hedges. “Creativity Is The New Black,” Forbes, last modified Aug 9, 2011, https://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2010/07/16/creativity-is-the-new-black/.
“20th CEO Survey,” PWC, accessed August 6, 2024, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/2017/deep-dives/ceo-survey-global-talent.pdf.
Storey, Veda C. et al. “The design of human-artificial intelligence systems in decision sciences: A look back and directions forward,” Decision Support Systems 182 (July 2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2024.114230.
Ibid, p. 1.
Ibid, pp. 5–6.
The “taxonomy of eight C’s” were originally published in 2023. They include composition, complexity, creativity, confidence, controls, conscience, certification, and contribution.” See: Alan Hevner and Veda Storey, “Research Challenges for the Design of Human-Artificial Intelligence Systems (HAIS),” ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems 14, no. 1 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1145/3549547.
The phrase “combinatory play” is attributed to Albert Einstein and appears in his book Ideas and Opinions, first published in 1954. See: Einstein, Albert. Ideas and Opinions. Crown Publishing, [1954] 1995), 24.
“Terrain” seems like a fitting word choice here, but “properties” could also be used. In regard to the latter term, Derek Jones et al., incorporate and this elevate “properties” in the title of their 2025 open-access volume, Studio Properties: A field guide to design education. See: Jones, Derek et al. Studio Properties. Bloomsbury, 2025.
Care in education might be the opposite of what Paolo Freire famously described as the “banking model” of education—an approach that treats students as containers or receptacles of knowledge. Freire criticized the banking model of education for how it (among other reasons) stifles creativity. See: Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Opressed. 1968.
Along these lines, a more recent figure that emerged as an advocate for creativity in education was Ken Robinson. Robinson’s 2006 Ted Talk on creativity and education has been viewed over 78 million times. Robinson was knighted in 2003 by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts.
See, for instance, Luis Rico-Gutierrez’s (Dean of Design at Iowa State) 2023 lecture on design and care. Available at: Rico-Gutierrez, Luis. “I+E Day Culture of Care Presentation.” YouTube, uploaded by Iowa State College of Design, 7 Mar 2023, https://youtu.be/P5wyuS9CKf4.
The first five Cs: Competence, Connection, Character, Confidence, and Caring (or compassion) seem to have been first published in 2000. See: Lerner, Richard M., et. al. “Toward a Science for and of the People: Promoting Civil Society Through the Application of Developmental Science.” Child Development, vol. 71, no. 1, 2000, pp. 11-20, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1132212.
The sixth C, “Contribution” appears to have been added by 2005. “Lerner and colleagues have contended that such exemplary positive youth development (PYD) results in the emergence in an adolescent’s life of a sixth C, contribution to self, family, community, and ultimately, civil society” (p. 96). From: King, Pamela E., et. al. “Thriving in Adolescence: The Voices of Youth-Serving Practitioners, Parents, and Early and Late Adolescents.” Journal of Early Adolescence, vol. 25, no. 1, 2005, pp. 94-112, https://doi.org/10.1177/02724316042724.
See: James, Ian. “Tekhne.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias, 25 February 2019, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.121.
Barney, Rachel. “Tanner Lectures on Human Values with Rachel Barney: Lecture I – The End of Craft.” YouTube, uploaded by UC Berkeley Events, 4 May 2024, https://youtu.be/chDcuJmqBjc.
Research is also a craft. As a poorly performing undergraduate design student, one of my professors suggested I pick up a copy of Wayne C. Booth et al.’s The Craft of Research. Now in its fifth edition, this book has helped scores of students of all ages discern the art of choosing research topics, building sound arguments, and more. The book has sold over a million copies.
Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2008, p. 289.
Loc. cit.
Ibid, p. 290.
This lineage of craft and design is briefly explored in my 2025 motion graphics film Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design, which uses the hand-axe as an ancient reference point. See: Vlahos, Dan and Steven Cotroneo. “Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design” in Edited Conference Proceedings of the 2025 Motion Design Education Summit, June 19-21, 2025: edited by Jessica Barness et al., MODE Society, 2025, pp. 169-186.
Students who wish to delve deeper into questions may consider Matthew Niermann’s 2021 book The Humble Creative. See: Niermann, Matthew. The Humble Creative. Wipf & Stock, 2021.
Shales, Ezra. The Shape of Craft. Reaktion Books, 2017, p. 30.
Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, [1973] 1998, p. 55.
Loc. cit.
Koren, Leonard. Arranging Things. Stone Bridge Press, 2003, p. 13.
Ibid, 109.
Levine, Caroline. Forms. Princeton University Press, 2015, p. 2.
Ibid, p. 3.
See: “Affordance.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Mar 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance.
In the visual arts, this is often referred to as the “picture plane.” See: “Picture plane.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Feb 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_plane.
Obrist, Hans Ulrich. Ways of Curating. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014, p. 1.
Ibid, p. 1.
Ibid, p. 10.
“The psychological research on curiosity starts in the second half of the 20th century. A pervasive topic in the psychology literature has been the motivational nature of curiosity.” From: Subaşı, Ahmet. “A Dynamic Systems Theory of epistemic curiosity.” New Ideas in Psychology, vol. 54, 2019, p. 9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2018.12.003.
Powell, Christopher et al. “Deconstructing intellectual curiosity.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 95, 2016, pp. 147-151, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.02.037.
Ibid, p. 147.
Hagtvedt, Lydia Paine et al. “Curiosity made the cat more creative: Specific curiosity as a driver of
creativity.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 150, 2019, pp. 1-13, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.10.007.
Ibid, p. 1.
The term “wicked problem” was coined by the design and planning theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in 1973. They introduced the concept in their paper, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” to describe complex social and planning problems that cannot be solved in a traditional, linear way. See: Rittel, H.W.J., and M.M. Webber. “Dilemmas in a general theory of planning.” Policy Sci. vol. 4, 1973, 155–169. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730.
Hagtvedt et al., p. 2.
Ibid, p. 3.
This reflexive perspective is often referred to as a reflective practice and is most commonly attributed to Donald Schön and his 1983 book, The Reflective Practitioner. Notions of reflective practice are also described or alluded to in the writings of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, the American philosopher John Dewey, and others.
In 2025 Lefteris Heretakis penned a brief memo on commitment in relation to design and creative work. See: Heretakis, Lefteris. “The Discipline of Commitment in Design Education.” The New Art School, 2025, https://newartschool.education/2025/10/08/the-discipline-of-commitment-in-design-education/.
Calvino’s lecture notes were first published [in English] in 1988. See: “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Nov 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Memos_for_the_Next_Millennium.
In my introductory design classes, I explore aesthetic notions of consistency by assigning students a pattern-making exercise. The project asks students to compose three complementary patterns using two colors. The students are challenged to imagine their three compositions plotted along a spectrum, with consistency (or “unity” and/or “constants”) on one end and variety (and/or “variables”) on the other. When students bring in the completed assignment, I ask them to note their intended spectrum position on the back of their work, and then exchange their three solutions with another student. Students then visually “plot” where they think the other student’s solution falls across the spectrum. On a large wall, I place the word “consistency” on the far left and “variety” on the far right. This assignment was substantially inspired by the “Unity and Variety” section of the late Majorie Elliot Bevlin’s out-of-print book Design Through Discovery. See: Bevlin, Marjorie Elliot. Design Through Discovery. 6th ed., Harcourt Brace, 1993, pp. 123–139.
There are many excellent books on habits, productivity, and creativity. One of the most prominent might be Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Upon Covey’s death in 2012, the book had sold more than 20 million copies. See: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Oct 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People.
Calvino, Italo. Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941–1985. Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 179-180.
The term flow, coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s, was used to describe the phenomenon of losing one’s sense of time and increased focus while in deep creative work. The term first appeared in Csikszentmihalyi’s 1975 book Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. Csikszentmihalyi is often called the “father of flow.”
Patton, M.Q. “Video Review of Measuring Education: Memoir.” Education Review, vol. 31, Sept. 2024, https://doi.org/10.14507/er.v31.3871.
“Robert E. Stake” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Jul 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Stake.
Mathison, Sandra. “Countenance Model of Evaluation.” Encyclopedia of Evaluation, SAGE Publications, 2004.
Ibid.
Stake, Robert. (1967) “The countenance of educational evaluation.” Teachers College Record, 68(7), pp. 523-530.
Ibid.
Write, Frank Lloyd. The Natural House. Horizon Press, 1954, p. 135.
Oech, Roger von. A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, Harper, 1986, p. 91.
Ibid, p. 110.
See: Resnick, Elizabeth. Design for Communication: Conceptual Graphic Design Basics. Wiley, 2004, p. 121.
I hope to expand on “drawing” in my forthcoming “Incomplete List of D-Words for Designerly Domains.” For now, I’ll note that every semester, I have my students watch Milton Glaser Draws & Lectures, a five-minute film from 2009. The film, directed by Chris Coy is a single-take overhead shot of Glaser drawing Shakespeare while talking about drawing. The film starts with Glaser saying, “For me, drawing has always been the most fundamental way of engaging with the world.” See: Coy, Chris. “Milton Glaser Draws & Lectures.” Vimeo, uploaded by C Coy, 9 Oct 2009, https://vimeo.com/6986303.
“Visible Thinking.” Project Zero, https://pz.harvard.edu/projects/visible-thinking.
Levitt, Theodore. “Creativity Is Not Enough,” Harvard Business Review, August (2022) [1963].
Ibid, p. 3.
Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, 2002, pp. 267–282.
The outcomes of, or critical response to, some creative works are not always evident immediately or even within short time periods. Outcomes, reactions, and critical perspectives can also unexpectedly shift in a positive or negative direction over long periods of time. See also: c-word sections on clocks, complexity, and clouds.
See: Sheridan, Kimberly M. et al. Studio Thinking 3, Teachers College Press, 2022, p. 4.
This assumption is shared by Michael Craig-Martin in his 2015 book On Being an Artist. Craig-Martin notes that while many of the non-art major classmates he met in Josef Albers’ rigorous color course at Yale may not have become artists, he “always assumed that their direct experience with art-making led them years later to become the best of America’s new committed and sophisticated collectors of contemporary art.” See: Craig-Martin, Michael. On Being an Artist. Art/Books, 2015, p. 37.
See: Kleon, Austin. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Workman Publishing, 2014.
Serig, Dan. “Research Review.” Teaching Artist Journal, 10(2), p. 121, https://doi.org/10.1080/15411796.2012.658320.
In his highly influential 1993 paper, “Research in Art and Design,” Sir Christopher Frayling provided a framework to understand how research interacts with the creative process in academic and professional contexts, categorising such research into three distinct types. See: Frayling, Christopher. “Research in Art and Design.” Royal College of Art Research Papers. 1(1), (1993/4), pp. 1-5.
Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory was pioneered by the American cognitive psychologist and author Howard Gardner. Gardner’s MI theory was first presented in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. His ideas were further developed, extended, and refined in subsequent publications over many years: See Gordon, Lynn Melby. “Howard Gardner.” Britannica, 09 Oct. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Howard-Gardner.
See: “T-shaped skills” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Jan 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills.
One must credit Richard Saul Wurman, Harry Marks, and Frank Stanton for having the vision to connect interlinked notions of technology, entertainment, and design as early as 1984, which is when they founded the now-familiar TED conference. See: “TED (conference)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Nov 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference).
Ottino, Julio Mario, and Bruce Mau. The Nexus. MIT Press, 2022.
Edwards, David. Artscience. Harvard University Press, 2010.
Much of this interest began after reading Roger Martin’s 2009 book The Opposable Mind. See: Martin, Roger. The Opposable Mind. Harvard Business School Publishing, 2009.
Phillip A. Sharp et al., The Third Revolution: The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011).
Ibid.
Cagan, Jonathan, and Craig M. Vogel. Creating Breakthrough Products. Prentice Hall, 2002, p. 140.
Ibid, p. 142.
Loc. cit.
Ibid, p. 138.
Ibid, p. 143.
Here, I might propose extending Nigel Cross’ notion of “Designerly ways of knowing,” to something akin to “designerly ways of leading,” which may require figures with a mix of design, research, change management, transformation, vision alignment, communication strategy, and more. See: Cross, Nigel. “Designerly ways of knowing.” Design Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, Oct 1982, pp. 221-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/0142-694X(82)90040-0.
Students further interested in designful organizations and concerns might check out Marty Neumeier’s 2009 book The Designful Company. In 2009, the President of the architecture firm I worked for presented every employee with a copy, along with a handwritten note on the inside cover. See: Neumeier, Marty. The Designful Company. New Riders, 2009.
See: “Divergence” in An Incomplete List of D-Words for Designerly Domains.
This is also chronicled in Gowan’s 2012 book Shared Vision: The Second American Bauhaus. Gowan studied at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and was present when Fuller gave his first lecture as a research professor in 1959. See: Gowan, Al. ared Vision: The Second American Bauhaus. Merrimack Media, 2012, p. x.
Fuller, Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969, p. 10.
Ibid, p. 12.
Loc. cit.
See: “Building information modeling” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Nov 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_information_modeling.
Jones, Derek, et al. Studio Properties. Bloomsbury, 2025, p. 79. OA: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350407480.
Loc. cit.
Berkun, Scott, and Bryan Zug. Why Design is So Hard. Berkun Media, 2024, p. 20.
Ibid, p. 21.
In my creative classes, I have students watch video footage of well-known creatives receiving critical feedback, and then we discuss how they respond. One example is a video of Steve Jobs at the 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference. See: “Steve Jobs Insult Response.” YouTube, uploaded by Jonathan Field, 1 Dec 2016, https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o.
This essay appears to have been posted to Microsoft’s website as a memo from Gates on January 3, 1996. I was able to locate a screenshot, but I am currently unable to verify its authenticity.
The phrase “content is king” appears in a 1978 issue (p. 103) of The 1978 Photographer’s Market published by Writer’s Digest Books. The entry cites Click and Baird’s book Magazine Editing and Production as the original source.
Just as I was drafting this list, Alicia Juarrero published a 174-page volume titled Why Context Matters. Drawing on historical and philosophical analysis, Juarrero explores these themes in detail. See: Juarrero, Alicia. Why Context Matters. Imprint Academic (Ips), 2025.
Li, Wayne K. Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness. Laurence King, 2025, p. 176.
Li defines being contextually aware as “having a sensitivity toward the connections between customer trends, the production landscape, culture, and technology” (p. 176).
With some of these issues in mind, this list-maker is intrigued by Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London’s recent proposal to reorganize the College into three somewhat contextual “Schools of Thought,”—C School (Culture), S School (Systems) and M School (Material). See: Ramanathan, Rathna. “Foundations, Not Hierarchies: Re:designing Creative Education for Future Resilience.” C+S+M, CSM Papers, Issue 1, Autumn, 2025, https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/about-us/schools-of-thought.
Bracher, Todd. Design in Context. Compendium Editions, 2024, p. 45
Ibid.
Here, I should note that I first encountered the term “contextual research” during my graduate studies at the Dynamic Media Institute (DMI) at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where it is tightly interwoven into project-and-problem-based methodologies. A somewhat narrower use of the term has gained some popularity in fields such as Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design. “Contextual research” seems to have been more fully developed in the mid-1990s by Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyerand. See: Duda, Sabrina et al. “Contextual Research.” In: Kurosu, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction. Design and User Experience. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12181. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49059-1_3.
As a subset of anthropology, students should become familiar with the term “ethnography” along with its basic intents and methods. See: AIGA and Cheskin, “An Ethnography Primer.” 2007, https://www.scribd.com/doc/46873341/Ethnography-Primer.
Maeda, John. The Laws of Simplicity. MIT Press, 2006.
“Apple design chief Jonathan Ive is knighted.” BBC, 2012 May 23, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-18171093.
Silberling, Amanda. “Apple has now sold 3 billion iPhones.” TechCrunch, 2025 July 31, https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/31/apple-has-now-sold-three-billion-iphones/.
Frenchman, Dennis et al. Designing the X. SA+P Press, 2025, p. 86.
Ibid, 89–126.
Alexiou, Katerina et al. eds. Embracing Complexity in Design. Routledge, 2010.
Johnson, Jeffrey. “Embracing design in complexity.” in Alexiou, Katerina et al. eds. Embracing Complexity in Design. Routledge, 2010, p. 193.
Norman, Donald. Living with Complexity. MIT Press, 2016.
Ibid, 265.
Fayard, Anne-Laure, and Sarah Fathallah. “Design Thinking Misses the Mark.” Stanford Social Innovation Review 22, no. 1 (2023): 28–35. https://doi.org/10.48558/G6HQ-RZ22.
Ibid, p. 30.
Morin, Edgar. On Complexity. Hampton Press, 2008, p. 2.
Ibid.
In another reference from Roger Martin’s 2009 book, the author states, “Experience enables us to hone our sensitivities and skills.” Martin goes on to define sensitivity as “the capacity to make distinctions between conditions that are similar but not exactly the same, ” while describing skill as “the capacity to carry out an activity so as to consistently produce the desired result.” See: Martin, Roger. The Opposable Mind. Harvard Business School Publishing, 2009, p. 100.
The Wikipedia entry on “Literacy” lists 15 variants, from financial literacy to musical literacy. See: “Literacy” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Nov 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy.
Howells, Richard, and Joaquim Negreiros. Visual Culture. 3rd ed., Polity, 2019, p. 8.
See: “The Hay Wain.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Sep 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hay_Wain.
Howells and Negreiros, p. 17.
Loc. cit.
Loc. cit.
See: “Codex.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Sep 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex.
This entry on the Chetham’s Library website provides a good summary. As an aside, Chetham’s Library was founded in 1653 and is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world. See: “The Weaving of Words.” Chetham’s Library, 19 Dec. 2025. https://library.chethams.com/blog/a-weaving-of-words/.
Cross, Nigel. “Creativity in Design: Analyzing and Modeling the Creative Leap.” Leonardo, vol. 30, no. 4, 1997, p. 311.
Loc. cit.
As but one example, in Steve Jobs’ talk at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen, Jobs notes that with books and reading, he did not have “an intermediary in the way” and that books get “right to the destination without anything in the middle.” See: Jobs, Steve. “Steve Jobs talk at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen.” YouTube, uploaded by David Krasniy, 17 July 2024, https://youtu.be/yHB_5WmRbho.
My past colleague, Geoffrey T. Freeman, FAIA, penned the still-frequently referenced landmark paper, “The Library as Place: Changes in Learning Patterns, Collections, Technology, and Use.” In his paper, Freeman noted that, “Upon entering the library, the student becomes part of a larger community—a community that endows one with a greater sense of self and higher purpose. Students inform us that they want their library to ‘feel bigger than they are.’” (p. 6). See: Freeman, Geoffrey T. “The Library as Place,” in Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space, Council on Library and Information Resources, 2005.
Bone, Jessica K., et. al. “The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey.” iScience, vol. 28, no. 9, 2025, 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113288.
Wolf, Maryanne. Reader Come Home. Harper, 2018.
A quick search for books titled “The Art of Conversation” yields over a dozen titles.
See: “Trivium.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Dec 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivium.
“Trivium.” Oxford Reference, 12 Dec. 2025, https://www.oxfordreference.com.
“Sherry Turkle” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Jul 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Turkle.
Turkle, Sherry. Reclaiming Conversation. Penguin Press, 2015, pp. 244–247.
Ibid, p. 246.
Loc. cit.
Mages, Michael Arnold. Conversational Design. BIS Publishers, 2024: p. 2.
Ibid, p. 3.
See: “Karl Popper.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Mar 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper.
Popper, Karl L. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford, 1972.
Ibid, p. 207.
Loc. cit.
Ibid, p. 210.
Müller-Brockmann popularized the grid in this seminal book, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, first published in 1981. Müller-Brockmann’s book remains one of the most popular and influential design books in history. It is still used by designers today to achieve structure, modularity, responsiveness, and visual harmony. See: Müller-Brockmann, Josef. Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A Visual Communication Manual for Graphic Designers, Typographers and Three Dimensional Designers. Arthur Niggli, 1981.
While the phrase “form follows function” became a mid-20th-century battle cry of the Bauhaus and the International Style, a variant of the phrase was used as early as 1896 by the American architect Louis H. Sullivan. In an article titled “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Sullivan used the phrase “form ever follows function” to describe the “modern office building.” See: Sullivan, Louis H., “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered.” Lippincott’s Magazine 57 (March 1896), pp. 403-409.
See: “Modernism” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Mar 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism.
Levitt, Theodore. “Creativity Is Not Enough.” Harvard Business Review, vol. 41, no. 3, 1963, pp. 72–83.
Popper, p. 226.
Popper, p. 208.
For many years, I have used this as the basis for a short essay prompt that asks students to pick one thing they find useful, one thing they find beautiful, and one thing they believe is both useful and beautiful. If comfortable doing so, students are then asked to share what they picked in a group conversation.
See: Vlahos, Dan and Steven Cotroneo. “Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design” in Edited Conference Proceedings of the 2025 Motion Design Education Summit, June 19-21, 2025: edited by Jessica Barness et al., MODE Society, 2025, pp. 169-186.
The Miles Davis Quintet, “If I Were A Bell,” released March 1958, track 1 on Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, Prestige Records, vinyl LP.
Loc. cit.
In the entry for “newness,” the Cambridge Dictionary provides three definitions that vary based on intent: the first definition places emphasis on “recent creation” or time, the second suggests “difference” versus similarity, and the third emphasizes “unfamiliarity.” See: Cambridge Dictionary, s.v. “Newness,” accessed November 17, 2024, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/newness.
Chattopadhyay, Debabrata and B.N. Srivastava, “The concept of newness,” Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy 2, no. 3 (2007).
Ibid, 244.
Loc cit.
Osborn, Alex F. Applied Imagination. (Scribners, [1953] 1997).
Ibid, ix.
Ibid, 397.
Loc. cit.
Gilman, Nils. “How To Future-Proof Your Career In The Age Of AI,” Noema, April 9, 2026. https://www.noemamag.com/why-a-liberal-arts-education-will-soon-be-more-valuable-than-ever/.
Ibid.
Ibid.
See: “Janus” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 February 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus.
Porter, Burton. The Janus Face of Ideas. Academica Press, 2019: ix.
Ibid.
Just as this list was being drafted, Robin Landa released Branding as a Cultural Force: Purpose, Responsibility, & Resonance, which provides “a roadmap for identifying and refining branding strategies and creative solutions that create positive cultural impact.” (p. 3) See: Landa, Robin. Branding as a Cultural Force. Columbia Business School, 2026.
In Thomas Frank’s 1997 book The Conquest of Cool, Frank offered a sharp critique of 1960s culture (or counter-culture) oriented marketing. Ultimately, the book asserts that the “cool” culture of the 1960s became the ultimate tool of consumerism, turning rebellion into a way to sell more products. See: Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool. University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Paney, Panos A. and R. Michael Hendrix, Two Beats Ahead. PublicAffairs, 2021, p. 4.
Ibid.
Ibid.

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