Will Design Ever Rule the World?

Creativity is literally the highest form of intelligence. And it is an intelligence not easily replicated by machine.

It is very difficult to quantify the effects of creativity and imagination because it not only builds a greater bank of knowledge, it broadens horizons on absolutely all levels. We must only look as far as the technology sector has brought us over the last decade or so in order to see how just how amazing the creativity and imagination-based designers and developers have built upon existing knowledge to create better, more effective, fun and stylish designs, platforms and products.

Without creativity and imagination, we embark on an extremely dangerous course of stagnation because knowledge in isolation only reproduces past results. Repetition is certainly useful, but only to a certain degree. And action without innovation will eventually make our world highly unfulfilling and frivolous. Great ideas do not arise from a chambered effort to expel our creative intelligence, but rather a highly extensive process of expressing our thoughts and energy without self-scrutiny. Which brings me to a shortlist of reasons why design (and creative individuals) will rule the world one day …

Creativity and Imagination:

Right-brain individuals naturally make connections between different and complex ideas in order to create new and innovative solutions. Since we do not keep our noses stuck in a book of rules, we are able to think completely outside the box, drawing parallels to things that others just do not see. While left-brain thinkers may see our process(es) as risky and unruly, they just are not wired to see the connections us right-brained individuals see. Therefore, making both individuals a great team which house complimentary skills.

Impactful Design:

To boil things down … Design thinkers tend to brainstorm the design process in an ideal way by combining creativity, the power of story, empathy and rationality. We tend to take people’s needs and desires into account and use them to determine the meaning of truly good design. Our visual, technology-driven world is kind of like a giant 3D puzzle where all of the pieces that make up the business landscape are becoming clearer as the days are long. More often than not, right-brained creatives are stepping up to provide invaluable innovation where conventional models are no longer able to. We strive for success while completing “the puzzle” with its last piece; the business skills piece.

Knowing/Understanding the WHY:

Right-brain individuals are highly motivated by method of understanding. We tend to naturally focus on the WHY of any and all issues which heightens our problem-solving approach to reflect a deeper comprehension of the task at hand. However, the conventional, left-brain individuals’ approach to solving problems often miss-fires on the creative side of things, in that it fails to define said issues accurately and doesn’t always fundamentally understand WHY said visual (or mechanical) problem needs solving to begin with. This WHY step is extremely critical to conceiving an effective solution.

Powerful Storytelling:

Many times, you’ve heard me harp about the powerful way’s storytelling can bring your brand and designs to life. I harp about this because it’s truthfully that important. Storytelling is the paramount in connections being made. In sharing our business (and life) story with the world, we generate appealing emotions to our audience’s brain by adding facts, figures and data. Stories are humanistic and very powerful (if done right). By embracing your brand’s story, you can tap into your audience’s inherent power to motivate, persuade, unify and move them.

Humans value meaning over data.