4

Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2018

Theories – Research – Applications

Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking:

Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

Jessica Jacobs
Columbia College Chicago, USA
E-mail: [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: As the problem-solving methodology of design thinking has

gained legitimacy in business and educational environments,
Design thinking
this article suggests we also think about incorporating
Creativity
“art thinking” into approaches in design pedagogy. To study
Creative process
what skills and techniques can be useful in other disciplines,
Design pedagogy
we can first review the stages of the creative process which
Innovation
are centered around preparation, incubation, ideation, illumi-
nation, and evaluation. Within those stages, we can tease
out specific elements unique to the artistic process that can
be particularly useful, including mindsets of emotional
Article history: engagement, intuition, and tolerance of ambiguity as well
as cognitive strategies such as the use of metacognition,
Received 03 May 2018
resource banks, generators and constraints, prolonged
Received in revised form 02 June 2018
research, problem-creation, conversation with the work,
Accepted 03 June 2018 closure delay, and reflection and thematic coherence.
ISSN: 2354-0036 Emphasizing these elements and strategies in design peda-
DOI: 10.1515/ctra-2018-0001 gogy can expand possibilities for creativity and innovation.

INTRODUCTION
Recent studies have indicated that employers are increasingly concerned about a per-
ceived lack of creativity in the workplace. In an American Association of Colleges & Uni-
versities survey of employers, 92% felt that innovation is essential to their company’s
continued success, and 71% felt that more curricular emphasis should be placed on inno-
vation and creativity (Hart Research Associates, 2013). In the field of design, educators
may not be successfully preparing students to enter the workforce and subsequently sus-
tain careers (Davis, 2005). Design educators and practitioners have also sounded the call
for designers to be more creative and generative in an uncertain world (Davis, 2015; AIGA,
2017). Designers are being asked to expand their roles into those of inventors or research-
ers, executing self-generated visions rather than the visions of others (Burdick, 2007).
5 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

In addition, speculative future practices need to be utilized to train designers to envision

scenarios and design solutions for an unknown future (Teixeira, 2017).
Despite these calls for designers to be more creative and generative, there are few
studies of how the creative process occurs in design, and creative strategies do not ap-
pear to be emphasized in design education (Oxman, 1999; Dorst & Cross, 2001). In addi-
tion, there is a lack of research that examines the management of those creative process-
es (Jacobs, 2017). Given these limitations, educators need to more fully understand, ex-
pand, and perhaps reconfigure how we teach the creative process to design students in
order to prepare them for a complex and uncertain future.
Design and the fine arts have been historically connected in higher education both
philosophically and operationally. While designers and artists share many creative
methodologies, designers can be thought of as working to solve externally-defined prob-
lems, while artists create internally-defined “problems” to solve (Lawson, 1994). In fact,
many creative thinking methodologies share commonalities across domains, including art
and design, yet there are differences in both processes, personality attributes, and skills
(Kaufman & Baer, 2005). While there are similarities between the creative processes of
artists and designers, there are domain-dominant aspects of the creative process of artists.
“Design thinking” is a staged process model of creativity that has been developed
and exported to management and higher education as a human-centred problem-solving
methodology. In many respects, it simply packages problem-solving methodologies that
are common across domains into a framework that is easy to understand and apply. The
premise of this speculative paper is that these domain-dominant mindsets and cognitive
skills of artists can be labelled “art thinking”, which can be successfully transferred and
utilized by designers to develop and self-generate more creative and innovative solutions.
“Art thinking” overlaps with design thinking in several areas, but has a domain-dominant
emphasis in the following cognitive strategies and mindsets:
Cognitive Strategies
Metacognition
Use of resource banks
Prolonged research
Problem-creation
Use of constraints and generators
Conversation with the work
Delaying closure
Reflection and evaluation of thematic coherence
6 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

Mindsets
Emotional engagement
Intuition
Tolerance of ambiguity.
Some designers deliberately cultivate some of these practices, but it is not a point of
emphasis in the design process/methodology research. If educators embed these mind-
sets and practices into design pedagogy, it may be possible to develop larger and more
expansive frameworks for students to understand creative problem-solving.
To provide context for this inquiry, current discourses in design thinking will be com-
pared to the research on actual creative practices of designers. Then, there will be a brief
review of studies of creativity that focus on the practices and process of creativity, specifi-
cally on the creativity of artists. Following this review, a set of domain-dominant features of
the creative processes of artists (“art thinking”) will be proposed that could be infused into
the design process and pedagogy to stimulate creativity and self-generative innovation.
DESIGN THINKING: CREATIVE PROCESSES AND MINDSETS OF DESIGNERS
While design thinking has been popularized in recent decades across professional publi-
cations, its definition lacks a consensus. In a comprehensive review of the literature
to date on design thinking (Johansson-Sköldberg et al., 2013), the researchers posited
that design thinking means different things in different contexts, often divided by theory
(academia) and practice (management). Design thinking that is connected to a designer’s
process has been discussed in academic circles for decades, while design thinking
as applied to management has only become a discussion topic in the past fifteen years
(Hassi & Laakso, 2011). From this research, design thinking embodies two categories
of distinction: “designerly way of thinking” and “design thinking” (Johansson-Sköldberg
et al., 2013, p. 122). “Designerly thinking” is the more academic discussion of the profes-
sional designer’s practice and non-verbal processes, while “design thinking” takes place
in mainstream management literature outside a purely design context.
The use of the word “thinking” in design thinking is, of course, not fully representa-
tive of all of the action and doing inherent in the process. Lindberg et al. (2010) highlight
the difference between examining design thinking processes versus design processes.
Design thinking is not a process, but shapes processes. For the purposes of this paper,
focusing on the “designerly way of thinking” and examining the research about how de-
signers actually practice design provides a fuller picture of how “art thinking” might en-
hance creativity within those practices and processes. In the research on “designerly
thinking”, scholars have focused on the working processes (methodologies and activi-
7 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

ties), cognitive strategies (thinking styles), and mindsets (cognitive attributes or disposi-
tions) of designers.
Design processes and practices include the following activities (Hassi & Laakso,
2011; Cross, 1990; Kimbell, 2011; Lindberg et al., 2010; Bauer & Eagan, 2008):
iterating that moves from generating insights about users, generating ideas, proto-
typing, testing and implementing ideas
forming multidisciplinary teams
asking “what if?” to imagine future scenarios
visualizing
thinking by doing
using a human-centred approach
using convergent and divergent modes of thinking
collaborating multidisciplinary teams
resolving ill-defined problems
exploring the problem space and the solution space
understanding through immersion and subsequent redefinition.
Design cognitive strategies (or thinking styles) include the following (Hassi & Laakso,
2011; Bauer & Eagan, 2008; Lindberg et al. 2010; Tovey 2015):
adopting solution-focused cognitive strategies
abductive reasoning/thinking
oscillating between divergent and convergent thinking
reframing problems in a reflective manner
utilizing a holistic view of the problem
practicing integrative thinking
imagining possible solutions .
Design mindsets include the following cognitive attributes or dispositions (Hassi
& Laakso, 2011):
experimental
tolerant of ambiguity
optimistic
future-oriented.
By examining the creative problem-solving methodologies across domains and spe-
cifically for fine artists, we can begin to think about how “art thinking” - cognitive strategies
and mindsets of artists - can weave in and out of some of these components to enhance
creatively throughout the generative process.
8 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING: DOMAIN COMMONALITIES, SPECIFICITY

AND DOMINANCE
What do we mean when something is labelled as creative? Definitions vary somewhat,
but there is some consensus around Mayer’s (1999) definition that creative describes
something that is both original and useful. Kozbelt et al. (2010) provide a thorough sum-
mary of theories of creativity, all of which support the idea that creativity can be under-
stood simply as a problem-solving process featuring different modes. Lubart (2000) takes
a broad view of creativity in a thorough summary of staged and componential models of the
creative process. The majority of this research focuses on elucidating working methodolo-
gies of the creative process which have many similarities to the design process.
The majority of these methodologies have been developed through research that
takes a general view of creativity across domains. There are few studies that focus on the
creative process of the artist, and the extent to which that process is domain-specific con-
tinues to be debated (Kaufman & Baer, 2005). In an analysis of the overview of creativity
across domains, Kaufman and Baer (2005) noted that all of the authors in their edited vol-
ume found differences in creative processes, personality attributes and skills, including
differences within individual domains themselves (Kaufman & Baer, 2005). Kaufman and
Baer (2005) concluded that a skill or trait may not necessarily be unique to that domain,
but it has a special emphasis within it. This is the presumption of this paper as well - that
creativity can be conceptualized in a loose model in which some skills or traits are im-
portant across domains, some are shared by a limited set of similar domains, and some
are quite domain-dominant or domain-specific.
ART THINKING: CREATIVE PROCESSES AND MINDSETS OF ARTISTS
Artists are not necessarily more creative than non-artists nor do they generate more crea-
tive solutions. However, the artistic process allows for a different kind of understanding of
creativity, one that emphasizes self-generation, metacognition, and thematic coherence.
These attributes could help designers in a contemporary environment in which creativity
is seen as essential in developing novel solutions to complex and rapidly evolving envi-
ronments, conditions and problems.
There are limited, yet influential, studies on the creative process specifically in art-
ists (Getzels & Cszikszentmihaly, 1976; Kay, 1991; Dudek & Cote, 1994; Sapp, 1995;
Mace, 1997; Mace & Ward, 2002; Botella et al., 2013; Glăveanu et al., 2013). In these
studies, it is interesting to note that the researchers’ methodology models differ from the
previously mentioned models of creativity across domains. The artist models feature few-
er discrete stages and allow for much more movement between stages. Prominent varia-
9 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

tions on the more general creative problem-solving models in general include Getzels
and Csikszentmihalyi (1976) stages of experiencing conflict, formulating problem,
expressing problem visually, resolving conflict through symbolic means, achieving cogni-
tive and emotional balance; Sapp’s (1995) stages of associative exploration, problem pa-
rameter exploration, multiple focus exploration, primary focus exploration, and refine-
ment; Mace and Ward’s (2002) stages of artwork conception, idea development, making
the artwork, and finishing the artwork and resolution; Botella et al.’s (2013) stages of idea/
vision, documentation/reflection, first sketches, testing forms and ideas, provisional
objects (drafts), and series. Additional domain-dominant traits of artists that emerged in
these studies will be highlighted in subsequent sections of this paper.
FROM DESIGN THINKING TO ART THINKING: DESIGNERS OF THE FUTURE
Designers are increasingly asked to research and understand their work more deeply and
become more inventive, self-generating solutions to design challenges. “Designers are
assuming leadership roles in which they are called upon to imagine systems, services,
ecologies, experiences, and networks… As researchers and entrepreneurs, they must be
prepared to generate self-defined areas of investigation and opportunity” (Burdick, 2007,
p. 2). In response to these changing conditions, several streams of design scholarship
have called for more connection between design practice and pedagogy, including the
study of the creative processes of working designers (Dorst & Cross, 2001; Moultrie
& Young, 2009), the study of design management pedagogy (Jacobs, 2017), and the
need for designers to be more creative and responsive to complex environments (AIGA,
2017; Burdick, 2007). Designers need to function in a cross-disciplinary fashion in teams
with multiple and varied expertise (Davis, 2015). They also need to be collaborative and
able to navigate within complex systems. In many college curricula, students are not be-
ing taught to collaborate together in deep engagement with complex systems and user
research (Davis, 2015). In addition, there is increasing pedagogical emphasis on creativi-
ty and its elevation to a level equal to or beyond critical thinking and its importance in
learning outcomes (Krathwohl, 2002). The convergence of all of these trends calls for
more explicit understanding and training of the creative process for designers. Design’s
close connection to art suggests a natural link and transferability of cognitive strategies
and mindsets between artists and designers.
There are clear overlaps in the creative processes of both designers and artists.
Some artists’ practices, thinking styles, and dispositions may not be domain-specific
(in fact, many of these are shared with design), they could be considered domain-
dominant. This paper proposes that “art thinking” does not necessarily diverge from de-
10 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

sign thinking, but the process has a strong emphasis within a few key cognitive strategies
and mindsets. If we take the same approach as efforts to systematize design thinking
processes, we can strategize about ways to bring the creative processes of artists, or “art
thinking”, into design.
DOMAIN-DOMINANT COGNITIVE STRATEGIES OF ARTISTS AND THEIR TRANS-
FERABILITY TO DESIGN PROCESSES
There are some domain-dominant cognitive strategies of artists that designers can study
and employ to develop creative ideas and innovative solutions. These include emphases
on the use of metacognition, resource banks, prolonged research, problem-creation, con-
straints and generators, conversation with the work, closure delay, and reflection and the-
matic coherence.
Metacognition
Embedded within an artist’s palette of cognitive strategies is the ability to view one’s own
work in a metacognitive fashion. Metacognition refers to the monitoring of one’s own cog-
nitive processes and influences while focusing on a specific task (Kitchner, 1983). Meta-
cognition plays a key role in problem-solving and is especially important for solving open-
ended, creative problems (Jausovec, 1994). Poor problem-solvers are less efficient at
monitoring their own creative processes. While metacognition is a skill that designers
need, it is especially acute for artists, as their problems are self-generated and successful
solutions are primarily assessed against the artist’s conception of the problem. Through
metacognitive thinking, the artist has knowledge and control over his or her cognitive pro-
cesses. He or she must constantly be aware of what is known and unknown while devel-
oping a strategy for further inquiry. Rather than continually focusing on a solution as a de-
signer might, the artist may reflect on the problem for a more prolonged period of time.
All studies of the creative process of artists highlighted the artist’s ability to con-
sciously move between different modes of thinking within a given situation, which reflects
a metacognitive mindset. The artist’s mind can quickly switch between modalities of
thought such as visual, verbal and aural (John-Steiner, 1985). This transition between
modalities sparks creativity (Gruber & Wallace, 1999). Artists use different types of men-
tal abilities to be creative and generate ideas, and then to refine and execute those ideas
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).
Designers also shift often and rapidly between different modes of activity and think-
ing during creative periods (Cross, 2001). “Six out of a total of eight times a novel design
decision was made, we found the subject alternating between these three activity modes
(examining-drawing-thinking) in rapid succession” (p. 13). However, metacognitive skills
11 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

may not be well developed in designers and design educators, and designers may not be
taught to be aware of these shifts in problem-solving modes (Hargrove, 2011). As Oxman
(1999) writes about design education in the studio, “the educational focus still remains
on the representation of the design object, rather than on an explicit articulation
of knowledge” (p. 107). As metacognition is a key component of the creative process
across all domains, design educators need to explicitly teach this cognitive strategy.
Hargrove (2011) mapped out some strategies to teach metacognition in his descrip-
tion of a semester-long process in which students continually reflect on their selection and
employment of cognitive strategies to solve design problems. This approach promoted
more independent, self-regulated thinking. Hargrove (2011) also utilized assignments such
as journal keeping and a final reflection that connects cognitive strategies to the final de-
sign process and outcome. Design educators should structure projects to allow for multiple
modes of thinking that are by various turns lateral, strategic, holistic, creative, reflective, re-
active, and analytical. Design students should then be asked to explicitly reflect on these.
Metacognitive awareness allows for switching between modes, a necessary cogni-
tive strategy for designers to develop solutions to complex problems. While metacognition
is only briefly mentioned here, it is a central component carried throughout the suggested
list of cognitive strategies and mindsets in this paper.
Resource banks
Several of the creative problem-solving methodologies (Osborn, 1953; Amabile, 1988;
Puccio & Cabra, 2009) and artistic problem-solving methodologies (Getzels & Csikszent-
mihalyi, 1974; Sapp, 1995) include an initial stage of pre-preparation, something that is
not included in design thinking models. Within this stage, we can find the domain-
dominant trait of artists of growing and cultivating “resource banks” which provide a well
for creativity. During this pre-preparation stage, the artist is simply consuming infor-
mation, absorbing input, categorizing it, and filing it for use as possible source material.
Artists describe themselves as “sponges” in a receptive stage, taking in the stimuli of the
world to be stored in a personal vocabulary (Glăveanu et al., 2013). Ideas emerge from
a resource bank filled with previous work and research that the artist has built up over his
or her career (Mace & Ward, 2002). During the idea stage, the artist experiences a crea-
tive spark after a period of wandering and waiting, during which a stimulus (such as an
image, sight, sound) triggers something that has been latent in the artist for a long time
(Botella et al., 2013). The artist has a deep understanding of their discipline so that when
inspiration or idea strikes, it is recognized and acted upon. This state of awareness func-
tions like a kind of priming device, allowing an artist to be ready to respond when seeking
to find, generate, and/or solve a creative problem.
12 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

Artists are especially aware of assembling source material as an ongoing process, not
just as a means to respond to a creative brief, as a designer might. Experienced design-
ers also exhibit high sensitivity to their internal and external environments (Cross, 2011).
Aspiring and beginning designers should be cognizant of this strategy to develop
an awareness of their resource banks and consciously build them even when not working
on a specific project or client need. This may help to ameliorate the issue of designers
quickly scanning through award annuals for inspiration, or copying previous work
(Dorland, 2009). Design educators should emphasize this activity with students as an in-
tegral part of an ongoing practice, with or without a client commission. Independent
of a specific assignment or creative brief, students could record and reflect on the infor-
mation streaming in from their internal and external environments. This could be achieved
through some sort of journaling or recording that identifies sensory information and con-
tent from a range of sources including personal thoughts, sketches, news, music, film,
independent research, and so on. The development of this intention and practice should
be clearly elucidated for students.
Prolonged research
Connected to the practice of using a resource bank is the ongoing, deep immersion in the
domain and artmaking practice that provides artists with a source of creativity. Creativity
researchers have emphasized the importance of understanding the domain in which one
is operating (Ericsson et al., 1993; Gardner, 1993; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). The artist
comes to know his/her own domain and becomes expert in it, both in its traditions and
areas for possible problems or new explorations. Artists are then willing to cast out in new
directions while less creative types are content to adhere to what is already known
(Gardner, 1993). Diving deeply into a new domain is essential for meaningful creative
growth and innovation. Artists are continually scaffolding onto previous art forms and par-
adigms of artmaking (Turner, 2006). In addition, many artists undertake extensive re-
search, either as part of an ongoing practice or dedicated to a specific project.
Design thinking incorporates this domain immersion as well. From the design think-
ing management perspective, Brown (2009) calls this the inspiration phase, while from
the “designerly ways of thinking” academic perspective, Dorst (2004) labels it the formula-
tion phase. Research is a standard of learning for thinking critically within a discipline and
immersion and planning are key components of the design process. However, unlike de-
signers, artists are more likely than designers to linger in this phase, thinking about the
domain and the problem before jumping to the solution (Cross, 2010; Dorst, 2004). In his
study of how designers think and practice, Lawson (1994) writes:
13 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

The problem for the designer is when the attempt should be made to recon-
cile all the ideas, or lines of thought, which are developing. If this is attempted
too early, ideas which are still poorly understood may get lost, while if this is
left too late they may become fossilized and too rigid (p. 140).
Designers often jump quickly into developing a solution without examining the prob-
lem thoroughly. In fact, it may be that designers need to take the time to reframe
the problem or proposal (Cross, 2001). Asking designers to consciously linger in the re-
search phase can lead to increased openness to multiple solution paths. Applying this
aspect of art thinking to the design process can call for less goal-oriented work and pro-
vide more room to explore paths that might not lead to fruition. It can also allow for differ-
ent methods of recording research, such as visual notetaking, scrapbooking or blogging.
Design educators can build this extra time into their assignments in order to emphasize
the importance of refraining from jumping to the solution too quickly without spending ad-
equate time focusing on problem generation and clarification.
Problem-creating
A key difference in processes between designers, artists, and other domains (such as
scientists) is in the problem-finding aspect of creativity (Kozbelt et al., 2010). Many crea-
tors and researchers have noted that finding the right problem (or asking the right ques-
tion) is far more important than solving the problem (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976).
During the preparation phase of the creative problem-solving process, understanding the
domain-dominant feature of problem-creating in art might help designers employ other
methodologies to develop more creative solutions. Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi’s (1976)
in-depth longitudinal study of college students that examines personality traits, process,
creative production and career success is one of the most-cited accounts of the creative
process of artists. As in other general creative process studies, the researchers’ key dis-
covery is that finding a problem is more indicative of creative behaviour than solving
a problem. Researchers found that time artists spent working on the drawings did not in-
crease their quality. Rather, the time spent formulating the problem before beginning did
increase the quality of the drawings.
While designers may search for new problems, the search usually occurs within the
context of the design brief. Artists, on the other hand, are unique in their driving force of
self-generating their ‘problems’ (Cross, 2001). Lawson (1994) offers the following distinc-
tion between art and design: “Design is directed towards solving a real-world problem
while art is largely self-motivated and centers on the expression of inner thoughts”
(p. 138). Therefore, design will always inevitably be guided by rational thought and evalu-
ation that is relevant to the real-world. Lawson continues:
14 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

Designers must consciously direct their thought processes towards a particular

specified end, although they may deliberately use undirected thought at times. Art-
ists, however, are quite at liberty to follow the natural direction of their minds or
to control and change the direction of their thinking as they see fit (p. 141).
Studies also demonstrate that designers generate more varied solutions when the
problem (rather than the solution) is precisely defined (Cross, 2001). So while a design-
er’s tendencies are to immediately begin iterating and developing solutions, they may be
better able to generate solutions by examining the problem further before moving into the
solution phase of the process.
“Art thinking” is distinctive in the artists’ self-generation of the problem. Artists do not
wait for a problem to be handed to them or look for a problem in what already exists; ra-
ther, they create it from within, through their primed and prepared mind. Unlike designers,
artists are more comfortable creating and reframing the original problem and less focused
on a solution (Cross, 2001). This can be valuable when inventive thought is needed. Art-
ists are adept at creating challenges for themselves, asking new questions of their work
and applying new constraints to it. In lieu of having the problem defined externally
(as in design), the artist generates his/her own problem based on emotion and input, con-
necting to larger themes throughout his/her work.
Adopting a stance of being open to a new approach to viewing and constructing
a problem is a transferrable skill to a variety of disciplines, including design, which can
lead to increased creativity and innovation. Design students are often uncomfortable
in the absence of being given a specific assignment or brief. Therefore, educators need
to include more assignments that allow for self-generated creativity. Rather than provide
the design problem for students in the brief or assignment, instructors could ask students
to first define the problem, which could be based on a given set of circumstances, envi-
ronmental conditions, business needs, social problems, and so on. Rather than immedi-
ately focus on solving a problem as quickly as possible (which can often lead to tradition-
al, non-innovative solutions), “art thinking” can encourage people to take the time to think
more deeply about the problem itself.
Generators and constraints
Following the pre-preparation and preparation stages of the creative process, artists
begin to synthesize their research and domain knowledge in the incubation stage.
As - which characterize the work of visually talented individuals as they link their impres-
sions into a landscape” (John-Steiner, 1985, p. 24). Moments of inspiration are often de-
scribed in magical, mysterious terms; however, they are actually the product of creating
the space to allow the mind to make connections between various inputs.
15 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

In a valuable study of limited scope, McDonnell (2011) compared the creative process of
two fine artists to the creative process in design. She focused on the differences in strate-
gies used by designers and fine artists to impose constraints on a project. McDonnell uti-
lized Darke’s (1979) term “primary generators” as frameworks that artists use for their
practice in which they set their own challenges. The thematic, aesthetic and material con-
straints that artists set for themselves are employed in order to maintain thematic coher-
ence across a body of work (McDonnell, 2011). Gruber and Wallace (1999) noted that
most creative thinkers work on themes or threads of thought constantly throughout a life-
time, maintaining continuity across multiple projects at once. Inevitably, one project leads
to another and the projects inform one another, leading to the development of new points
of view. Kay (1991) described this use of generators or frameworks as a “personal aes-
thetic bias”, a support structure or framework that forms an organizing principle for the
creative thought process of the artist (p. 248). This guides the search for the problem,
providing selection criteria through which the artist explores and forms the basis of lan-
guage for the artist’s body of work. The art making process is overarching and includes
an ongoing practice rather than single finite pieces of artwork.
Constraints can be seen as the flip side of generators. Constraints impose further
limitations on the work in order to proceed with a guiding framework. Much of the litera-
ture on creativity addresses the idea of constraints - how the creator perceives them,
when they are introduced into the process, and how they may or may not impact creativi-
ty. A difference between art and design is that in design-related fields, problem parame-
ters are often already decided on, and the progression through the creative stages will be
defined by these parameters (Sapp, 1995). If the parameters are too restrictive in the ear-
ly stages of the process, the potential for creativity may be limited (Sapp). The way in
which the artist proceeds through the problem-solving stages depends heavily on the re-
strictiveness of the parameters. As in the self-generated problem definition of the prepa-
ration stage, the constraint for an artist is most often internally (rather than externally) de-
termined. This is in contrast to the designer for whom constraints are usually set by client
demands, budget, project needs, and so on. Similar to the creative process in science,
the creative process in design is more likely to have a consistent process because the
constraints are stronger, whereas art will not (Simonton, 2004). Artists’ processes are
therefore more likely to vary.
By transferring this domain-dominant practice of artists to their own practice, design-
ers could be more metacognitively aware of the frameworks and primary generators that
they are using. Building on resource banks and problem-finding, if students deliberately
reflect on the development of their ideas, they could also clearly identify a given set of
16 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

generators and constraints. Educators can also consciously introduce constraints to stim-
ulate more generative creativity. In addition, students could identify and utilize their own
generators and set their own constraints.
Conversation with the work
Moving from the incubation stage of the creative process into the ideation stage of the
process (it should be noted that these stages occur within a methodology in which stages
are not always linear), conceptual development coalesces for the artist as he or she syn-
thesizes diverse source material to make connections and develop concepts. In the stud-
ies of the creative process of artists, the researchers’ examinations of this stage of idea
development revealed the ways in which artists would have “conversations” with their
pieces, developing a dialogue with the pieces, reacting to them, and making incremental
changes along the way. (This can be framed as another metacognitive approach.) Prob-
lem-finding is not limited only to the preparatory phase; rather, it is ongoing for the artist,
often in conversation with the artwork (Dudek & Cote, 1994). Mace (1997) described the
decision-making process as a responsive interaction between artist and work in which the
artist responds to the work and adjusts accordingly. As the artist makes decisions, he or
she converses in a way with the work as they proceed, a unique experience that devel-
ops situationally (Mace, 1997). If artists let the solution develop while responding to the
work throughout, rather than just applying a known solution, more creativity results. This
is a phenomenological appraisal of artistic creativity in which the artist “feels” their way
towards the creation of the work.
Botella et al. (2013) also described artists’ accounts that their work “posed ques-
tions” to them (p. 167). Artists enjoyed engaging in this dialogue with the work,
“confronting” the art object (ibid.). Glăveanu et al. (2013) described this as a “dynamic be-
tween doing and undergoing” in which artists refer to the back-and-forth nature of devel-
oping a work and series (p. 6). It is a constant negotiation between the artist and the de-
veloping concept of the work (Mace & Ward, 2002). The development and evolution
of the work is altered via this conversation and response to the medium. It also demon-
strates how artists are comfortable with openness, working on open-ended problems, al-
lowing the problem they have created to evolve.
While design students may already be asked to reflect on their final products, this
simple rhetorical and phenomenological device of framing the iterative process as a con-
versation with the work could be a valuable pedagogical tool. This encourages a metacog-
nitive understanding of the interplay between the practices of doing and thinking by asking
students to answer “What did you try? How did it work?” This reconnects to Hargrove’s
(2011) research on utilizing ongoing reflective practices in his design studio courses.
17 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

Delaying closure
Creativity studies across domains show that some of the most creative ideas may come
later in the process, after the ideation stage. In studies of artists, professional artists were
found to have “delayed closure”, continuing to experiment with solutions longer than non-
artists (Walker, 2004, p. 10). By refusing to settle for an initial early solution, creativity can
emerge in the form of new combinations and associations. Artists were shown to do this
more than non-artists, and they found the experimentation phase of their projects to be
quite enjoyable (Mace, 1997). In another study of art students, those who were willing to
delay closure during the art making process moved beyond obvious possibilities and gen-
erated more creative artworks (Walker, 2004).
This strategy of delaying closure works in tandem with the rush to problem-solution
mentioned earlier. If design students feel that they have satisfied the assignment or the pa-
rameters of the brief, they may stop development too early in the process, possibly thwart-
ing the development of a more creative solution. Design educators can emphasize the im-
portance of deadlines, but at the same time allow for solutions to come later in the process.
Educators should explicitly communicate this opportunity for students to rework an idea af-
ter a stage has been passed if a more creative solution has been identified and developed.
Reflection and thematic coherence
During the final evaluation phase of the creative process, metacognition is enacted again
via reflection. At this point, artists understand the need to step back from a project, re-
group, and reassess from an objective point of view (John-Steiner, 1985). Artists can be
thought two employ two types of metacognition, both internal and external: “The first type
involves verifying or measuring the product against an internal standard - the original pur-
pose of the creative enterprise and the mental image formed during illumination. The sec-
ond type of metacognition involves verifying the product against an anticipated external
standard - a would-be audience” (Armbruster, 1989, p. 180). Artists become especially
attuned to responding to both internal and external standards, and this awareness could
be useful in other disciplines (Armbruster, 1989).
Artists and designers are continually reflecting on what they are producing and us-
ing those assessments to move forward with their work. This is often built into their daily
working process and speaks to the dialogue between process and product (John-Steiner,
1985). Beyond the completion of a finite project, an artist must continually reflect on their
body of work within the arc of a career. Artists are expert in self-reflection on what they
have done, seeing it from a metacognitive perspective (Turner, 2006). The artist has an
internal dialogue in which s/he is continually pushing his or her thinking, taking risks
to move past the safe and reliable solutions to continually raise new questions (Walker,
18 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

2004). In Botella et al.’s (2013) methodology of the artistic creative process, the final
stage process is called “series” during which artists iterated more variations and engaged
their work in the world. Just as an artist thinks about problem-solving with the work to ex-
ecute the initial idea or concept, he or she also sees their work as part of a larger body of
thematic coherence, as part of his or her “streams” of work overall.
The iterative nature of design thinking highlights that designers are also continually
framing and reframing their work. While experienced designers do this (Cross, 2011), are
design educators teaching students to do this? Is it built into the curriculum beyond a sim-
ple portfolio class? As an artist develops a body of work and assesses it, so too should a
student be given the opportunity and tools to assess their own work on the path towards
improving it. This metacognitive, reflective arc could be explicitly identified, scaffolded into
lower-level courses, and embedded into upper-level capstone or portfolio courses in de-
sign curricula.
DOMAIN-DOMINANT MINDSETS OF ARTISTS AND THEIR TRANSFERABILITY
TO DESIGN PROCESSES
In addition to analysing these cognitive strategies of the creative process of artists for po-
tential transferability to design processes, there are some domain-dominant, overarching
mindsets or artists that designers can look to cultivate in order to generate more creative
solutions. These points of emphasis include emotional engagement, intuition, and em-
bracing ambiguity.
Emotional engagement
In one of the first research projects to study the creative process of artists, Patrick (1937)
found artists to have more “emotional feeling” than non-artists during the process (p. 54).
Dudek and Cote’s (1994) analysis also highlighted artists’ intense emotional involvement
during the artmaking process. The authors relate this to the artists’ “emotional preoccupa-
tion with self”, to create or communicate the experience of emotion. Artists are highly
aware of these feelings and use them as source material for their work. They are also ex-
cited and engaged about getting an idea, and this emotional connection, which is mostly
positive, continues throughout the project (Botella et al., 2013).
Studies indicate that artists are more emotional than scientists, and designers fall
somewhere in between (Feist, 1999). Wakefield (1994) uses the term “empathy with one-
self” as a way to describe the artist’s exploration of emotional states and conflicts as
source material or a means of problem-finding (or concept/theme-finding) and solving.
This use of the word empathy is notable in relation to the empathy stage of the design
thinking process in which the focus is on empathy for the user (through the use of ethno-
graphic studies, research, etc.). For the artist, the focus is towards the self. Glăveanu et
19 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

al. (2013) described the ongoing emotions of the process: “These range from pleasure
and satisfaction to melancholia and even depression but, most of the time, the reported
states are positive and have to do with the ‘jubilation of being alive’” (p.5-6). This is clear-
ly a key distinction for artists - to be in tune and connected with their emotions.
Self-awareness and emotional connection, both to self and others, can be a key ful-
crum from which designers and design students can think about operating. Research
in social psychology indicates that self-empathy and self-awareness lead to more empa-
thy for others (Neff, 2003). Through more conscious emotional engagement with oneself,
one’s intuition, and one’s work, a designer might become truly empathic and in touch with
themselves on a path to becoming more human-centred, self-aware, and generative
of a broader range of creative solutions. Design educators can find a way to include more
exercises to develop reflection and self-awareness. Possible strategies to increase empa-
thy include teaching mindfulness, reflective writing during multiple stages of the design
process, debriefing and class discussion, and role playing.
Intuition
Connected to the personal and emotional engagement of artists, intuition is a key point of
emphasis in art thinking. Most successful artists are in touch with their intuition
(Wakefield, 1994). For artists, ideas don’t always come from a brief or an assignment, but
they spring internally from life experiences and knowledge of their medium. While one
may think of a magical ‘aha!’ moment that occurs in the creative process, it is more often
the case that artists are making connections and associations between embedded
knowledge. For designers, Cross (2001) notes that the idea of a creative leap is better
described as a key moment that bridges the problem and solution. This bridge can also
be thought of as a two-stage process with an initial intuitive, emotive phase as well as a
more analytical, iterative second phase (John-Steiner, 1985).
Experienced designers have also been shown to deeply rely on their intuition, but
they are unaware or at least unable to express how that intuitive sensibility developed for
them. “They believe that this ‘intuitive’ way of thinking may be something they inherently
possess, or it may be something that they developed through their education” (Cross,
2011, p. 9). Cross speculates that what the designer describes as intuition is actually
a pool of knowledge derived from extensive experience.
As evidenced by the designers’ inability to identify the source of intuition, the cultiva-
tion and translation of experience into intuition has not been transferred to design peda-
gogy. Rather, designers are expected to accumulate this knowledge through experience,
trial and error. Developing a metacognitive awareness of intuitive decision-making and
20 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

identifying key moments of intuitive bridging from problem to solution might allow design-
ers to tap more consciously into emotion and intuition, generating more questions and
alternative problems. In design education, we should demonstrably allow for these emo-
tional and intuitive stages and respect that not everything that arises from these process-
es will lead to fruition. Techniques and strategies can be employed to foster intuitive and
associative thinking. Projects should be facilitated in a way that allows for increased room
for exploration and reflection prior to evaluation. Again, design educators should build in
space for metacognitive reflection to understand and cultivate these mindsets.
Embracing ambiguity
Descriptions of the creative processes of artists and designers often include a tolerance for
ambiguity which has been described as the most mature stage of ego development
(Loevinger, 1987). Both designers and artists are comfortable with ambiguity, which may be
evident in the sketching process (Cross, 2001). However, the artist seems to go beyond
mere tolerance to an embrace of ambiguity. This is something that can be useful for educa-
tors as they scaffold students through critical thinking and developmental stages of learning.
As an integral part of their process, artists are accustomed to trying an idea and fail-
ing. From the outset, one doesn’t know how the problem created can be solved, so trial
and error is vital. Successful artists produce a prolific amount of good work as well as bad
work (Gardner, 1993). While designers are comfortable with iteration and failure within
the context of the larger project or design brief, artists operate in an uncertain and limited
marketplace, often attempting problems and solutions for which there is no audience or
acceptance. Without a client to serve or a finite ‘problem’ to solve, artists may be more
tolerant of ambiguous solutions and non-productive explorations.
Experienced designers understand that ambiguity and uncertainty are essential to
the exploratory nature of the design process (Bucciarelli, 1994). However, design stu-
dents are often uncomfortable without specific guidance, permissions, rigid frameworks
with which to proceed. They become reluctant to move forward and test an idea, restrict-
ing their capacity for learning. In a business setting, less experienced designers may gen-
erate fewer innovations and creative solutions because their tolerance for ambiguity is too
low, making them risk-averse to an extent that it hinders their growth. On the contrary,
artists are more tolerant of ambiguity which allows them step back and make connections
between and assessments of ideas (Lewis, 2014). We should explicitly model this em-
brace of ambiguity for our design students. This could be achieved by relaxing rubrics,
allowing for multiple problem solutions, and rewarding novel solutions.
21 Jacobs, J. Intersections in Design Thinking and Art Thinking: Towards Interdisciplinary Innovation

CONCLUSION
There is a problem-solving process that is common to all domains and all human cogni-
tion. However, a range of factors influence how those problems get solved, how they get
solved creatively, and how innovation is generated. A comparison of the creative process
of designers and artists illustrates key areas of overlap and distinction. Both use key cog-
nitive strategies and mindsets that fall within loose methodological stages of pre-
preparation, preparation, incubation, ideation, elaboration and evaluation.
In the same way that design thinking has been applied in the classroom and work-
place, we can expand our methodologies to include “art thinking”, specifically through the
education of designers. There are some key domain-dominant points of emphasis in both
cognitive strategies and mindsets specific to artists that may be especially transferrable to
design students. Artists are expert at the mindsets of emotional engagement, intuition,
and an embrace of ambiguity. They also employ such cognitive strategies as the use of
metacognition, resource banks, generators and constraints, prolonged research, problem
-creation, conversation with the work, closure delay and reflection and thematic coher-
ence. Utilizing some of these approaches within design pedagogy may address the previ-
ously mentioned calls for designers to have more creativity and self-generativity.
Future research might then strategize how to expand upon and apply these pro-
cesses beyond art and design to other disciplines. In an educational environment, all of
these elements and strategies can help students mature developmentally and engage
with subject matter from a more critical, creative, and engaged perspective. The creative
process could be pulled out into individual components and highlighted in the classroom,
or more effectively, used as an arc for a project or an entire class. Projects can be con-
structed to allow for more freedom to discover connections and iterate new ideas. Just as
in the classroom, the ability to critique and metacognitively reflect upon ideas in the work-
place would be invaluable to developing innovative new solutions. As businesses look to
hire more employees who are creative, educators have a responsibility to infuse some of
these techniques into all of the disciplines in which we teach. Finally, by systematizing the
problem-solving approach of “art thinking”, we can possibly shift the focus from the crea-
tive person/personality to the process itself. Therefore, creativity and innovation can (and
should) be taught to many people, not cultivated exclusively in the gifted minority. Crea-
tivity is a skill that can be developed, practiced, and improved upon over time.
22 Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 5(1) 2018

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Corresponding author at: Jessica Jacobs, Business and Entrepreneurship Depart-

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