I think it’s interesting how our emotional state affects our abilities and perception of reality. While Norman’s “Emotional Design” focuses on how our emotional state affects our ability to use products, all I could think about after reading the first chapter is how our emotional state affects our ability to be creative and generate ideas.
Norman explains that creative thinking requires being in a positive mood in order to make connections across ideas and space. A positive frame of mind broadens one’s thought processes, allowing one’s thoughts to follow many paths and tangents.
Creativity (and the act of generating ideas!), at least for myself, requires that I be willing to be silly and playful. When I walk around taking photos, I know I probably look strange because 99% of the time I am learning over a wall photographing some mundane water fountain for an hour. I generally figure I am on the right track if no one else follows suit.
Besides a willingness to be experimental, creative thinking requires a healthy dose of curiosity (about everything!). I like to ask questions that follow this general outline of a spiral: What will happen when I do this? And if I do this? And what if I do this, on top of that thing I already did, and then I proceed to try it out on this completely different other thing?
Things that ruin creative thought process? Stress! Anxiety! Depression! These negative emotions focus our thinking on to the “danger” at hand, limiting our ability to think broadly (and thus creatively!). When I am stressed, my thoughts become restricted by tunnel vision. I am less able to complete simple tasks I have done a million times before.
Norman points out that our emotional reaction happens first subconsciously, bubbling to the surface with our thoughts. I know that often when I remove myself from a situation and go for a walk, my best ideas hit me. Sometimes all I need is space to let my mind meditate and reflect in the background while I focus on something mundane. The more mundane, the better.
When I first started attending classes at ITP, my thoughts were going a mile a minute. It was exciting and zany and overwhelming and I was glad when my mind calmed down at last. I was glad when I could start to see the form of the new things I was learning, so I could begin to ask questions and thus begin to have ideas to play and experiment.
As always, it’s important to write all ideas down, without judgement.
Because JUDGEMENT is negative, and that’s the one thing to run from as fast as possible when aspiring to creativity. When I begin to judge my creative work is right when I stop feeling creative. Instead of making stuff, all I think about when I am making is what I am making, and why I am making it, and if it fits in with my project. Which is not the definition of being creative. What a catch-22!
I can get in to a creative space that is much broader when it is without judgement. It’s a difficult tension to balance. To create work with an open-ended framework, yet still end up somewhere that has focus.