Visual Communication: The Design Process & Creativity

Course Information and Overview

• Course Details:
      * Course Name: Visual Communication (TVKK12)
      * Credits: $7.5\,credits$
      * Institution: Jönköping University
      * Year: $2026$

• Lecture Topic: The Design Process & Creativity (Part $1$ of $2$).

• Core Text: Karl Aspelund, The Design Process, $3rd\,Edition$, Bloomsbury.
      * ISBN: $9781609018382$
      * Note on Spelling: The material references both "Karl Aspeland" and "Karl Aspelund."

Understanding Creativity

• Definitions of Creativity:
      * General Definition: The ability to produce original work.
      * Functional Definition: Creativity is identified as a form of problem-solving.
      * Human Status: It is considered a universal human capacity.
      * Context: Creativity is context-dependent and occurs within a social context.

• Integrated Definition: Creativity is the ability to produce ideas or products that are both novel and useful. It is the interaction of ability, process, and environment through which an individual or group produces a product that is both novel and useful within a social context.

• Reflection: Designers are encouraged to think about their own specific creative processes.

The Strategic Value of a Structured Design Process

• Bias Reduction: A structured process reduces cognitive bias and overconfidence. Designers' instincts often reflect prior experience, personal taste, or dominant mental models rather than the actual needs of the users. Structured processes are explicitly designed to counteract these internal biases.

• Consistency and Reliability: A process makes creativity repeatable rather than accidental. Because inspiration is unreliable, a process makes outcomes less dependent on individual brilliance or current mood. It allows for creative outcomes to be produced systematically, even under significant constraints.

• Framework Benefits:
      * Separates problem framing from solution generation.
      * Supports collaboration among team members.
      * Enables learning from failures.

Karl Aspelund’s Seven Stages of the Design Process

1. Stage 1: Inspiration

2. Stage 2: Identification

3. Stage 3: Conceptualization

4. Stage 4: Exploration/Refinement

5. Stage 5: Definition/Modeling

6. Stage 6: Communication

7. Stage 7: Production

Stage 1: Inspiration

• Active Seeking: Inspiration cannot be passively waited for; designers must actively seek it.

• The Myth of Inspiration: Designers are cautioned to beware of the myth that inspiration simply "strikes."

• Methodology for Inspiration:
      * Collecting Impulses: Become a collector of impulses. Make a point of experiencing, seeing, and listening to new things periodically.
      * Research: If an assignment is outside of a designer's normal comfort zone or preferences, intensive research is required.

• Guiding Philosophy:
      * David Bowie Quote: "The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from."
      * Austin Kleon's Principles: Reference to NYT Best Sellers Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative and Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered.

• The Trap of Research: It is dangerous to believe that inspiration and research are ends in themselves. An idea and the philosophizing surrounding it are different from a tangible, useful product that is more than just an expression of a concept.

Stage 2: Identification

• Sources of Design Problems:
      * A project brief provided as a request from a client.
      * A self-directed new design.
      * Improvement of an older, existing design.

• The Role of Constraints: Design depends largely on constraints, which may be inherent or imposed. These include:
      * Price
      * Size
      * Strength
      * Balance
      * Surface
      * Time

• Functionalism vs. Aesthetics: Strict functionalism may ignore the possibility that aesthetic appeal or decoration is, in itself, a design function that must be considered.

• Temporal Constraints (Parkinson’s Law): "All work expands to fill available time."

• Budgeting Constraints:
      * Open-ended budgets are rare, and this lack of limit is generally considered detrimental to the focus of a project.
      * The $20\,\%$ Rule: It is common to routinely add $20\,\%$ to budgets for "unknowns." Experienced designers use this as a standard buffer.

Stage 3: Conceptualization

• Goal: Once the design problem is identified, the designer examines methods for conceptualizing ideas to find a solution.

• Elemental Images: This stage requires developing a thought structure that uses known elemental images to explain the unknown and the unseen. Designers must describe and explain designs that do not yet exist.

• Brainstorming:
      * Taking all ideas and thoughts and looking at them, playing with them, and freely creating connections.
      * Brainstorming should be done without fear of making mistakes.

• Example (Coldplay - "Magic" Music Video):
      * Director: Jonas Åkerlund.
      * Production Designer: Emma Fairley.
      * Note: Utilizes 19th-century magic aesthetics (The Great Herrmann, Harry Houdini, Blackstone) for conceptual framing.

Stage 4: Exploration and Refinement

• Process Shift: At this stage, brainstorming segues into a focused, solution-oriented state.

• The Role of Sketching: Tools become tailored to create specific results, such as sketches. Sketches serve two primary purposes:
      * To explore the possibilities inherent in the idea.
      * To communicate the idea to others.

• Communication as Dialogue: A dialogue requires a language. Sketching and illustration are used primarily to convey information, followed by emotion, and finally a sense of "the real."

• Fine Art vs. Design Sketching: The language of sketches does not need to adhere to the standards of fine art.

Stage 5: Definition and Modeling

• Physical Embodiment: The project moves from exploration to a definite embodiment in the physical world. The focus shifts to "exactly" and "precisely."

• Nature of the Model: The model is "real," but it is not the "real thing."

• Client Value: Models are extremely valuable for demonstrating designs to clients. Bringing in a model invites the client to participate "inside" the design process.

• Clarification: When presenting a mock-up, the designer must declare up front whether they are presenting the look, the function, or both to avoid confusion.

Stage 6: Communication

• Designer's Main Responsibility: Clear communication is the primary responsibility of the designer.

• Communication Factors: Designers must consider what is being communicated, to whom, how, and why.

• Presentation as Performance: A design presentation should be treated and prepared as a performance.

• Managing Client Expectations: Designers may need to show clients that their actual needs are different from what they initially claimed to want.

Stage 7: Production

• Collaboration: Working with a production team requires respect for the team's abilities, experiences, and opinions. Collaborators may often know more about specific subjects than the designer.

• Handling Criticism: Chasing everyone's opinion is counterproductive. Criticism should be viewed through the lens of how it connects to the needs of the clients and end-users.

• Realities of Production: Successful production must account for late changes and compromises dictated by budget reality, schedules, and unexplored territory.

Assignment and Tactical Advice

• Report Assignment:
      * Due Date: $12/5$
      * Requirement: A report documenting the design process in the Brand Book project.
      * Length: Approximately $4-5\,pages$.
      * Task: Select an established process (e.g., Karl Aspelund’s) and document the steps taken.
      * Evaluation Criteria: Assessment will be influenced by the stated intention behind specific design decisions.

• Final Advice:
      * Trust the process.
      * "Don’t dance on the deadline."

Questions & Discussion (Client Horror Stories)

• Topic: "Clients Hell" (Collective Anonymously Contributed Stories):
      * Case 1 (Whitespace): A client demanded "NO whitespace!" on a postcard. Despite the designer explaining that whitespace is not bad and that there wasn't room for text on the edges, the client insisted on dropping the font to $5\,pt$ and writing vertically because they "HATE whitespace."
      * Case 2 (The Slide Show): A client requested a $2-minute$ video consisting of a slide show of $387\,photos$. "Napkin math" by the designer showed this would require displaying more than $3\,photos$ every second.