Creative Problem Solving Process

Art 200/ Art 260 / Greg Clayton

7th Stage: Implement

Creative Problem-Solving: Implement

Finally you're actually 'making' something.

To the non-designer, this may be the only stage that looks like actual work. Here you manifest your concept, make it concrete, use actual materials and tools. Your idea becomes a 'thing' — your logos becomes incarnate.

In Practice: Implementation can happen in a lot of different ways depending on the kind of design you do. Architects and Engineers may do their implementing on CAD software. Graphic Designers might be using Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. Illustrators might be painting or using Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator -- or ink, airbrush or gauche. Web and Interactive Media designers might be doing coding and layout work in Dreamweaver or Flash.
The materials and tools used are specific to your own professional field and to the nature of the project. The main idea is that you are making your concepts real, specific and concrete using whatever tools are appropriate.

In practice, you may well complete several iterations of implementation on the pages of your sketchbook. That is, your sketches are not just for ideating, some pages of a sketchbook are filled with efforts to work out specific details. That's implementation too. You sketch particular ways fitting things together, alternate processes and views. The stages of ideation and implementation can get blurred here — that's OK, just move forward refining your concept.

What you implement — what you make — you will then evaluate.

Creativity | Creative Process | Prior Stage—Select | Next Stage—Evaluate

Accept | Analyze | Define | Incubate | Ideate | Select | Implement | Evaluate | Let Go