Today Hong Kong had something to tell to design educators, and specially to those who keep an eye at Asia.
Concurring with the bodw (business of design week) today started the 2 days event DesignEd Asia 2006 titled “Creativity :: Point :: CounterPoint”.
The Creative Person & the Creative Context:
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
He summarized some concepts about flow related to the creative process from his book in a series of really understandable slides.
He made the statement that the problem of creativity is not in the supply (we don’t need to make the people more creative), it’s in the demand (we need to make the society more receptive).
The Challenges & Opportunities of Creative Education within a Global Context: by Renke He.
He mainly talked about the need to change the label “made in China” to “designed in China”, and proudly showed some BusinessWeek cover pages talking about China + design.
He also questioned the shape and form of the “Chinese touch”, by showing some examples of traditional Chinese elements and contemporary Chinese design.
BTW, did you know that China delivers more than 100.000 design related graduates a year?
Educating Creative Professionals – Experiences from the East & west: by Douglas Tomkin and Kees Dorst.
They ensured that the word “creativity” is over valued and that the “idea” gets too much importance on the design process.
They reminded that design is a problem solving activity and encouraged everyone to practice “creative exploration”, what means having multiple solutions by defining the good questions for a problem.
Creative “Lion”: by Jian Hang
In an unfocused talk, the speaker quoted Napoleon to remind us that China was called “the sleeping lion” a cople of hundred years ago, and he is still waiting the wake up.
With a sense of inferiority compared China with the western creativity, and he said that Chinese mindset is to follow rules and not to be creative because is socially unaccepted, but this need to be changed (that’s a good paradox).
He also complained about the westernized Chinese movies that misrepresent the authentic Chinese aesthetics.
Project Briefs that Enable Creative Solutions: by Alice Lo.
She used up her 45 minutes talk saying that if you tell the students to “design a chair” you get “non-creative chair designs”, and if you tell them to “design a comfortable place for sitting” you get “creative breakthrough innovative ideas”… and then she gave us a free book called “Creative Tools”.
Field of Creative Perception: Inventing Design Issues within the Process of Drawing: by Takeshi Suonaga.
He started with an interesting case study of a project where they designed a device for teenage girl’s shopping experience that allow them to store, personalize and share data in order to “help” them to make shopping decisions.
Then, he explained us that if you ask your students to draw 100 sketches from one day to another, you not only ruin their nigh plans, but you are giving them the opportunity to discover the magic moment of “drawing without thinking” which leads to a “creativity driven by action not by imagination”. He explained that by drawing and letting your hand flow free, you are creating a “space for thinking, where your brain perceives movements and translates them into idea generation”.
The day ended with a panel discussion titled “Beyond School: Nurturing Creativity in Young Designers”.
Panellists repeatedly highlighted that Hong Kong fresh design graduates have very poor creative skills and suggested that the best way to empower creativity among Hong Kong design students is to study abroad.
This statements obviously didn’t pleased all the audience, and some teacher reminded the panel that China’s design students hardly go abroad to study and their results are celebrated as creative.
