The Creativity Canvas (Pt. 2)
In my first post on the Creativity Canvas (or Creativity Diamond due to its shape), I talked mainly about the importance of creativity, my drive for that topic and my vision to develop an intuitive, actionable tool that supports people to design creativity into their lives deliberately.
I stopped with a teaser image of the Creativity Diamond and a list of the 16 elements in 5 sections that together form that diamond. Remember this visual?
In this second blog post of the introductory trilogy for the canvas, I present the elements in a bit more detail, and layout my design decisions. This second post is somewhat longer, and it might seem “technical”. For your understanding of the tool, it will be very helpful nevertheless. To truly grok the canvas, it is beneficial to know why the canvas looks the way it does.
For a smoother reading experience, however, I split the blog post into two parts so that you can pause in between or even decide the order of reading. Feel free to reverse the reading order (reading Part B first) or skip the technical part (B) if you don’t care why the canvas looks the way it does.
Part A — Element Details
Read this (first) if you want to learn more about what I understand by each element. Here I describe — one by one — each section and element briefly and suggest two or three reflective questions.
Part B — Design Decisions
To learn more about the architecture of the canvas, read this part (first). Here you find out why the canvas has its distinctive shape, why it has 16 elements and why they are arranged a certain way.
Part A of this blog post already offers some new perspectives for your creativity. The next (and last) blog post of this introductory trilogy will be even more practical. I will share ideas on how to use the Creativity Canvas and outline next steps.
PART A — ELEMENT DETAILS
Here is a list of the five sections and 16 elements that make up the Creativity Canvas and initial trigger questions for each element.
Creative Engine
The creative engine section represents, well, the engine for creative endeavours. It triggers action in all other elements. Exploring your creative engine might answer WHY you engage in certain creative activities.
Strangely, despite the importance of knowing your why, I have the feeling that many of us do not think about it as often and thoroughly; we are on autopilot. To highlight the engines’ importance, I positioned it in the centre.
1. Curiosity
Asking “why” or “why not” are powerful questions that drive creativity and can spark lifelong creative endeavours. Curiosity is a major driver for infants and kids to learn and plays an essential role for creative quests throughout our lives.
Serendipity that is, unplanned and unforeseen, yet inspiring encounters can spark curiosity and will be therefore covered in this component, too.
Ask yourself:
- What am I curious about and why?
- How can I be more curious more often and/or increase the chances for serendipitous situations?
2. Problems
Sometimes we stumble upon problems on our own, other times they are imposed upon us by someone else (e.g. at work). In any case problems, too, can start the creative journey in order to solve that problem.
When people hear the word creativity, they regularly reduce it to problem-solving solely. Finding and defining the problem, however, is just as important for creativity. That part is often overlooked or rushed through.
Ask yourself:
- Is there a problem (in my life) worth to be solved and if yes, what exactly is the problem?
- Why would I want to solve it?
3. Drive & Self Expression
Purpose, internal motivation, the inner why, your raison d’être … there are many terms that represent what I will refer to as drive. They all describe something that delights you without external motivators.
The concept of self-expression is, in my opinion, the biggest source of creativity. Not so much because it is “stronger” than the other triggers, but because I believe that everyone has a drive of some sort. See my first blog post on the essential role of self-expression.
Ask yourself:
- What drives me, and why?
- What is the inner core of myself that I want to express so that people see me as the person I truly am?
4. Insight & Incubation
Insights are the „aha-moments“ throughout the creative process. They occur for instance when a good idea bubbles up to the surface of your consciousness, when you manage to define the problem you set out to work on or when you deduct learning during the reflection of your creative journey.
Insights are not so much the one, big eureka moment but rather many, small “aha’s” throughout your creative work. Incubation, too, i.e. time off your actual creative work, can influence your creativity. In a way, it’s thinking even if it is your subconscious mind that takes over.
Ask yourself:
- How do I promote insights to occur, and what do I do if I have one?
- How do intentional breaks from the problem play a role in my creative process?
Building Blocks
Building blocks are the raw materials that are eventually processed into something else. You recombine those blocks in novel ways to create something original. This notion of building blocks underlines that creative thoughts and outcomes are not derived out of thin air but rather built through re-imagining existing things.
5. Personality & Mindset
Personality plays a major role in this model and is part of many influential models, e.g. the componential theory of creativity or the investment theory of creativity. Just think of how characteristics such as grit or persistence can affect creativity.
Your mindset, too, can influence your creativity. It certainly makes a difference how you think about the risk, for example, or how well you can excel in an ambiguous environment.
Ask yourself:
- What are the personal traits and perspectives that boost or hinder my creativity?
- (How) Can I alter my personality in the long-term?
6. Knowledge & Skills
This component might take quite some time to develop, depending on what creative output you strive to accomplish. Ten thousand of deliberate practice associated with writer Malcolm Gladwell is a well-known rule of thumb to master a domain.
Becoming a master cook in vegan cuisine or experimental desserts might require those many hours of learning. Cooking a spontaneous meal with leftovers on the other hands only requires some basics on how an oven works and basic knowledge on food and food processing.
Ask yourself:
- Given a certain creative goal, what knowledge and skills do I need?
- How do I acquire those?
7. Resources
There are resources other than knowledge and skills. For many creations, you need tangible things, tools, space, (intellectual) property, money and much more to achieve your goal.
Whether you like it or not: to a considerable extent, our resources depend on luck. Just the fact that you are born into a certain culture, society and family with access to some resources and not others is a point in case. To compensate, you can gain access to resources by reaching out to others.
Ask yourself:
- What resources do I need and which do I have?
- Can I substitute missing resources, maybe through the help of others?
Computing
The elements in this area describe the thinking part of your creative process. Subconscious processing belongs here, too, as does thinking on a meta-level. The elements of this section run down mostly in our head even though creative thinking can already involve the rough production of something tangible or a visual representation of the idea.
8. Quality Definition
Your creative work will very much depend on how you define what a good(-enough) quality outcome is. Do you merely enjoy a creative activity, e.g. painting? Do you plan to become a professional who sells illustrations? Or do you even aspire to master the domain and become the next Van Gogh?
Another way to see this element is through the lens of goals. What goal are you trying to achieve in what quality?
Ask yourself:
- How does success look like for my creative project, endeavour, work or habit?
- What result is “good enough” to reach your goal?
9. Thinking Styles
This component is what most people associate creativity with and what many seek after in “creativity workshops”. People are looking for thinking techniques that help them to leave the ingrained neural pathways for thinking to come up with fresh and novel thoughts.
Brainstorming is such a tool. It’s probably the most prominent one despite the ineffectiveness described in many studies. In the last decade, design thinking techniques became popular, too.
Ask yourself:
- Which thinking tools do I know that allows me to leave routine neural pathways in order to generate novel approaches?
- How do I find good creative thinking techniques, and how can I train them?
10. Planning, Evaluation & Reflection
Awareness for your creative process and capacities can take you a long way. This element is about assessing your creative success (based on your quality definition), reflecting how you could achieve better results and planning your next steps. You learn and grow by understanding your creative capacities and process.
Ask yourself:
- How do I assess my creative endeavours, and how do I learn from it?
- How is planning part of my creative process (if at all)?
Externalisation
Psychology professor and creativity expert Keith Sawyer refers to externalisation as actions that get your thoughts into some kind of visible form out into the world. It’s about the actual making of whatever you set out to do. Externalisation includes rough representations of what you think, which can lead to new insights and learning.
Your regularity of work and interactions with others are other aspects that influence your making process.
11. Habits
If you want to become really good at something — whether it is writing, improv theatre or baking — healthy habits are key. Even though they might play a minor role in one-off creative actions, habits are the engine of continuous creative performance.
Ask yourself:
- Do I need healthy habits to accomplish my creative vision?
- If yes, how do I set them up as part of my life?
12. Creative Work & Collaboration
Creativity, even though grammatically a noun, functions more as a verb. You are creative in something, not creative as such. Your creative work will be influenced by several factors, e.g. space, tools, inspirations, … But eventually, you need to show up and get the work done.
Also, surprisingly often creativity is not an action by one “lone wolf” but results from the interaction of many — the “wolf pack” if you want.
Ask yourself:
- How does actual work look like in my creative process?
- How do I set the right conditions within constraints I might face?
- How do I collaborate with others throughout my creative performance?
13. Communication & Feedback
Creative work — regardless if solo or in a group — many times needs to be communicated. Sometimes communication involves persuasion as novel ideas are many times rejected first.
Feedback by others — just as personal evaluation — is another vital step to assess progress. In the early stages, ideas are quite vulnerable, and unreflected feedback may stop the creative quest (too early).
Ask yourself:
- How do I communicate my creative work to others and with what intention?
- How do I make sure that I get regular, high-quality feedback?
External Noise
We, humans, are no islands. We shape our environment just as our environment shapes us. This “noise” from outside can have positive or negative effects on your creativity. The appropriate level and type of noise depend on what you set out to create, on your aspirations and on whether or not your performance demands acceptance by others.
14. People, Networks & Communities
The people you know can be formidable sources for further resources and support for your creative endeavours. From individuals (friends, family, mentors) to larger groups (networks, communities) — each social tie holds potential: feedback, resources, ideas, contacts, …
Ask yourself:
- Who are the people that can support me in my creative pursuits?
- How do I create and sustain a fair and healthy relationship with those people and groups?
15. Social Environment
The social environment was added in a later step to the well-known „componential theory of creativity“ by Harvard professor Teresa Amabile. Her emphasise reflects the importance of people in our (professional) surrounding and their influence on our creative outcome. This social environment can be supportive or debilitating, depending on how it deals with risk, ambiguity, failure, time …
Ask yourself:
- Which social environment do I need for my creative work?
- To what extent can I actively shape it?
16. Domain
According to creativity expert Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, creativity involves the transformation of a domain (and its symbols, components, regulations, …). Creatives who changed entire domains are for certainly Einstein, who changed the domain of physics with his relativity theory, or Steve Jobs, who re-imagined the domain of the music industry with iTunes (among other things). Changing the domain is a high form of creativity and might be reserved for a few eminent creators.
Ask yourself:
- What level of influence do I want to have in my domain?
- To what extent do I allow to be influenced by it?
PART B — DESIGN DECISIONS
Here you’ll read why my framework is a canvas, why it is a square, why it has five sections, and why the elements are arranged in that very specific order. I also mention principles to keep in mind when working with the canvas.
Why a canvas?
As I read various creativity texts, theories, models, and narratives by eminent creators, I came across certain keywords and concepts over and over again — for instance, the role of internal motivation or the concept of habits. At one point, I started to write and rewrite lists of “creativity elements”.
Lists are great. Despite that, I thought that I needed to add visual support in order to wrap my head around those elements quicker and more intuitively like a sketch or a model or … a canvas.
My major inspiration for a canvas style layout was the business model canvas by Alex Osterwalder (as you can see in the first models below). What makes the canvas powerful is that it is easy to use and to communicate, it provides you with a good overview, and it is a living artefact that should be constantly revised and updated. The components of the (business model) canvas are like beacons that draw your attention to important questions that need to be answered.
In contrast to the business model canvas, not all 16 elements are always relevant to the full extent for all manifestations of creativity. It rather depends on your creative endeavour, which elements become relevant and should be reflected in more detail.
For instance, you will look at different elements when pursuing a creative hobby than when you think about creativity at your workplace, which might be again different from solving an ad hoc problem with novel ideas.
Now that I had an idea for a visual, I needed to find the right form.
Why a tilted square?
Despite several attempts to arrange the creativity elements I researched into a landscape-style canvas, I was not satisfied with any outcome. The landscape rectangle shape didn’t really work for the Creativity Canvas I had in mind.
In a Darwinian spirit, I experimented with variations and re-arrangements of the (business model) canvas — small adaptations of parts initially and changes in the whole design later on.
Two inspirations eventually led to the tilted square.
Firstly, divergent and convergent thinking styles described by J.P. Guilford. They are often depicted in a diamond shape. The opening, diverging triangle represents the generation of many alternative ideas. The following closing (converging) triangle symbolises the combination and selection of one idea that is novel and useful. I found that shape interesting and fitting since it emerged from creativity research and started to experiment with it.
The second inspiration gave me clues for the layout of the 16 elements I am using. It was James Melvin Rhodes’ 4-P-Model of creativity. Rhodes categorised his research on creativity into four parts that apparently all start with a “p”: person, process, product, and press (that refers to the interaction between the person and its environment). His 4 p’s are the four corners of my model (though I named them differently).
It’s important to mention as a side note, that the thought process was not linear as in the sketch above but recursive with many dead ends along the way.
After I had a hunch for the basic shape, I needed a guiding principle on how to arrange the remaining 12 elements I considered important.
Why five sections?
Before I arranged the individual elements themselves, I needed a broader guiding concept. I found that orientation in process theory. Creativity research, as it turned out, also has a realm that focuses on the creative process. One of the earliest models is the four-stage model by Graham Wallas (1926).
There are various process theories of creativity, with varying steps and each naming process steps differently. Generally a process — any kind of process — has a trigger event (“Creative Engine”), input (“Building Blocks”) that through a process (“Computing”) generates output (“Externalisation”) and external influences (“Outside Noise”) that you can’t manage to full extent.
The five sections in my Creativity Canvas represent a creative process. Having five sections helped me to cluster my elements. Throughout the designing process, I worked with three (input, output, process), four (input, output, process, trigger) and eventually five sections which I felt worked the best.
The layout of those sections and elements was influenced by another designing guideline along the way.
Why two axis?
The 16 elements are arranged along two axes: the potential-to-performance axis and the person-to-system axis. The two-axis helped to arrange the remaining elements in a reasonable and comprehensible manner in-between the four corners.
From potential to performance
The horizontal axes represent a transition from creative potential to creative performance. Creativity researcher and expert Mark Runco further developed the initial 4-P creativity model by Rhodes, which again was another major inspiration for this axis.
I like the notion of potential versus performance because it lets you assume that every one of us holds the prerequisites for creativity — some more, others less. That potential, however, is just half of the story.
The other part is to externalise your creative capacities. Therefore, the more an element is positioned left, the more it describes a creative potential. Elements further right, generally describe performance or factors that influence performance.
From the person to the system
The notion that creativity might be defined by a domain and by the field you are active in, first crossed my mind while reading Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s systems model of creativity. It made me aware of how the outside world and social context can influence and even define creativity.
From this inspiration, the person-system axis derived. It represents a continuum with elements within the individual sphere on the upper end. On the bottom end, you find elements that influence your surrounding or are vice-versa influenced by it.
It will depend very much on your creative work whether or not your social environment is involved and plays a role and to which extent.
Three principles when working with the canvas
Now that you know about the major design decisions for the Creativity Canvas, I want to point out three principles that you need to consider when working with the canvas.
Elements are handpicked, not random
While designing the Creativity Diamond, I iterated back a forth between several other elements, repeatedly combined elements to form one tile for the canvas and then separated them again. Many of the elements important to understanding creativity are not represented explicitly as single tile but are woven into other elements.
Some examples of elements that are not explicitly mentioned:
- goals (considered under quality definition),
- emotional intelligence (partly considered under personality and collaboration),
- tolerance of risk and ambiguity (part of personality and mindset) and
- creative frustration (part of drive, quality definition and drive).
You might find other important factors that you miss in the canvas. Whether or not I integrated a concept into my canvas depended mostly if that concept was actionable. Actionable here means that you can deliberately act on that element, train and improve. I think to have designed a thought through setup; at least as solid starting point.
Axis are transitions, not ordinal scales
The two-axis are means for arranging the elements I have selected. I am sure there are other combinations of axis that would have led to another arrangement.
What’s important, however, is that you don’t see the axis as either-or-dichotomy but as gradient. The elements positioned rather in the potential, performance, personal or system sphere respectively are tendencies.
Take curiosity, for instance, which is placed centrally on the horizontal axis and a bit towards the system sphere on the vertical axis. Of course, you could argue that curiosity should be more in the personal sphere or even solely personal. Then again, your curiosity is often triggered by something in the world out there and through interactions with others. The specific placement of this element is, therefore considered “good enough”.
Metaphorically practical, not scientifically correct
Creativity is a complex domain, to say the least. It’s hard if not impossible, to consider all aspects, leave alone truly and ultimately understand it. Understanding creativity is like trying to catch a slippery fish with your bare hands — a very, very slippery one. Think of an eel or something.
Creativity researchers Kozbelt, Beghetto and Runco (2010, Theories of Creativity in the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity) pointed out two orientations for theories of creativity: scientifically oriented and metaphorically oriented theories. In their own words:
“Whereas scientifically oriented theories endeavor to provide an empirically accurate map of reality, often with the hope of growing into grand theories that have wide (if not universal) applicability, metaphorically oriented theories offer a more speculative stance on phenomena and focus on provoking new understandings and possibilities.”
The creativity canvas is certainly a metaphorically oriented theory. It’s a pragmatic approach to support the understanding and application of creativity. It’s a tool that is meant to be simple in use and a trigger for active creativity design. It’s an approach that highlights important aspects, prompts the right questions for reflection and supports deliberate action.
“Metaphorically practical” considerations might, in this case, trump “scientifically correct” research and go far beyond peer-reviewed conclusions. My hope is to back the canvas up with research in future though.
PS:
I finish this post with a side note on why I called the tiles of my canvas “elements”. With regard to the wording, I was inspired by the Periodic Table of elements by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. It certainly influenced the visual outcome, too. How fitting that 2019 is the International Year of Periodic Table of Chemical elements. Other than that, the two systems have nothing to do with each other. As mentioned in the first post: ideas are mainly re-combinations of other ideas, and you never know from which far off the field, some inspiration hits you. Be open for that.
In the last part of the trilogy, I will propose ideas on how to use the canvas and introduce my next steps to further develop the Creativity Canvas in order to make it “the most useful tool” to explore and develop creativity.
