Creative Problem Solving Process

Art 200/ Art 260 / Greg Clayton

6th Stage: Select

Creative Problem-Solving: Select

Here you judge.
Here you choose.
Here you reject some ideas and keep others.

After all of that non-judgmental ideation, the day of judgment arrives and you have to pick what you will use, and what you will set aside for another day.

question: By what standards do you choose?

answer: your concept statement.

If you don't have some basis for your choices, then its just a random selection...whatever feels right...whatever happens to be available...whatever.

Key Point: A successful designer will have reasons for choosing his design.

In professional practice, you must be able to defend and sell your idea to skeptics and to conservative, cautious, budget-conscious clients.
If you do not have a reason for your choice, they are wise to turn you down.

How do you choose?
Why this idea? Why this typeface?
Why this color scheme? Why this photo? Why this technique/media?
Why this degree of order/structure?
Which media? Which photo? Which typeface?
Which composition? Which text?
Why this balance of white-space to mass/graphic?
Why this simplicity or this complexity?

There are hundreds if not thousands of choices within a creative project. You need some basis for your choices. Where will you find that basis?
In your concept statement.

The more thorough your concept statement, the more obvious your choices will be — and the more grounded your design will be within the goals of the project. A well-developed concept statement leads to a concise, unified, effective design.

So, if your choices are getting fuzzy or arbitrary, go back to the Define stage — and probably to the Analyze stage — go further developing and clarifying your concept statement.

Compare your ideas to the goals that you outlined in the Define stage — that's where you decide your priorities.

Some of your ideas may be fun, yet they don't address the real problem.
Some are brilliant, but can't possibly be implemented on budget or on time.
The more successfully you did your work during the Define stage, the easier it will be to select among your options. If needed, loop back to the Analysis or to the Define stages — revisit your core objectives.

Selection involves comparing your current ideas/solutions to the goals, boundaries and problem definition that you're working within — you decide which solutions offer the most strengths.
This stage is where your "analysis" and "define" and "ideate" work gets combined.

Creativity | Creative Process | Prior Stage—Ideate | Next Stage—Implement

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