The Creative Process: Part 2
In Part 1 we discussed the first two steps to creative thinking. Here, we will discuss the third.
3. Play
- The ability to be creative and come up with new ideas stems from your ability to combine two seemingly ordinary ideas into a new one.
- Allow me to demonstrate with a very brief example consisting of the following three ideas:
- Think of turtles. Slow, green turtles, living in their shells. Seems pretty boring, right?
- Now think of a rat. A rat that lives in the sewers and eats what it can get in order to live.
- Now think of a city full of crime. Think of criminals on the loose who are killing, stealing, etc.
- Alone, these three ideas seem very normal. But combined together, they formed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one of my favorite TV shows growing up.
- Turtles + Rat + City full of crime = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- Turtles + Rat + City full of crime = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- While the three original ideas used to create the show were very uncreative and normal, the result is a "new" idea, that was created into a TV show, countless movies, action figures, and much, much more.
- Think of turtles. Slow, green turtles, living in their shells. Seems pretty boring, right?
- The same process is used to create a flyer, or a logo, or even a button. Graphic designers have trained themselves to take ideas and churn out newer ones by simply combining already existing ones together.
