Follow These 5 Steps towards a More Creative Mind

Almost all brilliant ideas go through a similar creativity process, which is explained in this essay. Understanding this is important and one of the most valuable qualities you will get is the ability to think creatively. Innovative strategies, lateral thinking, and new thoughts can help with almost every challenge you encounter at work or in life.

These five steps will help anyone learn to be more artistic. That isn't to suggest that being imaginative is easy. It takes confidence and a lot of preparation to discover your artistic talent. This five-step method, on the other hand, can help to demystify the imaginative process and light the road to more ambitious thought.

Let me tell you a short story to demonstrate how this method works.

A creative solution is required to solve a problem.

Newspapers and printers in the 1870s faced a very real and costly challenge. At the moment, photography was a novel and thrilling medium. More pictures were requested by readers, but no one could work out how to print them easily and cheaply.

In the 1870s, for example, if a newspaper wished to print a portrait, they had to hire an engraver to hand-etch a copy of the photograph onto a steel plate. These plates were used to press the image onto the paper, but after just a few applications, they would sometimes break. You can imagine how time-consuming and costly the photoengraving process was.

Frederic Eugene Ives was the man who came up with a solution to this issue. At the end of his career, he had amassed over 70 patents in the world of photography, making him a pioneer in the field. His story of imagination and invention, which I'll tell you about now, is a good example of the five main steps in the creative process.

A Glimpse of Understanding

In Ithaca, New York, Ives began his career as a printer's apprentice. He started overseeing the photographic laboratory at nearby Cornell University after two years of studying the ins and outs of the printing process. He spent the remainder of the decade learning about cameras, scanners, and lenses while experimenting with modern imaging techniques.

In 1881, Ives had an epiphany for a superior printing process.

“I learned the issue of halftone process when running my photostereotype process in Ithaca,” Ives said. “I went to bed one night in a state of brain fog over the dilemma, and when I awoke the next morning, I saw the fully thought out procedure and machinery in motion before me, seemingly projected on the ceiling.” - This quote is excerpted from A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young. Page 21.

In 1881, Ives patented his printing method after rapidly translating his idea into practice. He spent the rest of the decade honing his craft. By 1885, he'd created a more efficient method that produced much better results. The Ives Process, as it became known, cut the cost of printing pictures by 15 times and became the industry standard for the next 80 years.

The Creative Process in 5 Stages

A Technique for Producing Ideas, written by James Webb Young, an advertising executive, was published in 1940. He made a clear but insightful point about creating new ideas in this guide.

According to Young, revolutionary innovations emerge as old components are combined in new ways. To put it another way, innovative design isn't about coming up with anything different from scratch; it's about taking what's already there and putting it together in a way that hasn't been done before.

Most importantly, the ability to see the connections between ideas is critical to creating new combinations. You've made something clever if you can make a new link between two old thoughts.

Young claimed that the artistic connection process followed a five-step process. Changed Words Structural Changes Thesaurus

1. Gather new information. You learn at first. During this time, you can concentrate on 1) learning particular material specifically related to your mission and 2) learning general material by being acquainted with a variety of topics.

2. In your head, go through the materials again and again. During this point, you discuss what you've discovered by looking at the evidence from multiple perspectives and playing with combining different concepts.

3. Get out of the way of the problem. Then you go on to something new that excites and energizes you, putting the dilemma entirely out of your mind.

4. Allow the idea to come back to you. Your idea will come back to you with a spark of inspiration and fresh enthusiasm at some point when you have stopped worrying about it.

5. Based on input, shape and build the concept. Any idea that wants to flourish must be put out into the world, subjected to critique, and tweaked as needed.

The Definition in Action

Frederic Eugene Ives' artistic method is a prime representation of these five stages in motion.

Ives began by gathering new information. He worked as a printer's apprentice for two years before taking over the photographic laboratory at Cornell University for four years. These encounters provided him with a wealth of information on which to draw and make connections between photography and printing.

Second, Ives continued to go over everything he had heard in his head. By 1878, Ives had dedicated almost half of his attention to experimenting with modern methods. He was still tinkering and playing with new ways to bring concepts together.

Third, Ives took a step back from the issue. He went to sleep for a few hours before seeing a moment of wisdom about this situation. It's also possible to let artistic challenges sit for prolonged periods of time. Whatever length of time you take a break, you must do something that interests you and diverts your attention away from the issue.

Fourth, his concept came back to him. Ives awakened with the answer to his dilemma right in front of him. (On a personal note, I often have new thoughts when lying down to sleep.) The answer emerges quickly after I grant my brain permission to stop functioning for the day.)

Finally, Ives spent years revising his concept. He changed so many parts of the method that he needed to file a second patent. This is an important aspect that is often ignored. It's quick to fall in love with the first iteration of the concept, but brilliant concepts change over time.

In a nutshell, the creative process

“An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.” —Robert Frost

Making new associations between old ideas is what the artistic process is all about. As a result, we can define creative thinking as the process of recognizing connections between ideas.

The five-step method of 1) collecting information, 2) intensely going on the material in your head, 3) walking away from the issue, 4) allowing the solution to come back to you spontaneously, and 5) checking the idea in the real world and changing it based on feedback is one way to tackle innovative problems.

Being imaginative does not imply being the first (or only) one to come up with a concept. Many often than not, innovation is about putting things together.