Background
Historically, my greatest difficulty with any project, artistic or scientific, has been conjuring an idea to begin from - the process I deem ideation. The internet is filled with articles listing off ideation exercises described theoretically for very specific audiences (writers, managers, teachers). Sometimes there will be an example diagram and use case but never a reflection on how well the exercise helped nor on the reason to choose one method over any other. To fill this gap, I have decided to collect, test, and eventually review any exercise I come across (on my standard 8-point scale).
This project began from exercises in the MIT course entitled Exploring the Dramatic Imagination where we attempted to “explore strategies and methods used by artists and theater makers to develop artworks and performance”. The course was led by set designer Sara Brown and participants consisted of MIT students and incarcerated women at the Suffolk County House of Correction at South Bay (also the site of the Prison Mural Painting Project).
Freewriting
Principle:
Write any thought that comes to mind in real time.
Pros:
No forgetting ideas
Constant production
Theoretically unfiltered, possibly revelatory
Cons:
Wandering feedback loops follow unrelated ideas (including a fixation on an inability to ideate)
Text to revisit grows quickly
Restrictions:
Requires established focus on a question/idea to prevent wandering
Automatist Surrealism
Principle:
Write/draw any thought that comes to mind in the process of recollection, typically of a dream state.
Pros:
Theoretically unfiltered, possibly revelatory
Can place unrelated images adjacent leading to emergent dialogues
Cons:
Intermittent starting opportunities
Relies on fleeting memories which may become intuitive false memories while working
Restrictions:
Requires established focus on a question/idea to prevent wandering
Requires relevant dream experiences
Mindmapping
Principle:
Start with a central idea. Branch out using words associations by writing new words and drawing connecting lines.
Pros:
Absolute freedom to follow word associations
Bite-size steps between words
Ideas intuitively clustered
Cons:
Easy to move too far in one direction
Topological complexity (ideas may repeat in distant branches)
Difficult to include relationships (must construct new branches or add directivity)
Restrictions:
Will not directly answer a prompt (still need to curate and combine elements later)
Connected to a central idea not multi-part question
Basic Iteration
Principle:
Revise an idea using intuitive principles.
Pros:
Sense of constant production
Choices develop a reason to exist
Cons:
Doesn't push unfamiliar perspectives
Can reach the end of intuitive direction (idea appears final, only improvements are refactorings to another idea)
Restrictions:
Typically limited in scope/performed separately for different parts of a whole
Conceptual Art
Principle:
Let a set of instructions be the art, carry out intuitively.
Pros:
Value separate from execution, execution not required
Can form a collective result out of a collection of independent executions
Cons:
Minimal control over outcome
Too much ambiguity may separate outcome from intention
Restrictions:
Less applicable to problem/solution situations
Willingness to accept outcome
Requires a method to develop instructions
Multiversal Interpretation
Principle:
Design another universe of characters from a list of basic descriptions.
Pros:
Can quickly expand into emerging story
Cons:
Descriptions may negate each other/overcomplicate their coexistence
Restrictions:
Task to design characters
Requires initial form and direction
Storyboarding
Principle:
Draw rectangles with filled-in scenes placed chronologically.
Pros:
Reduces ambiguity in the final execution
Allows work to progress out-of-order
Enforces requirements
Cons:
Requires modularity in story
Distant from the thought process of required elements (a downstream victim of refactoring)
Restrictions:
For time-based work (video, stories with timelines)
Requires elements/characters/concepts/focus to be imagined in advance
Crazy 8s
Principle:
Fold a piece of paper and draw one solution per minute for 8 minutes.
Pros:
Constant production
Cons:
Hefty job to create different iterations
Restrictions:
Must have a prompt asking for a solution and criteria for valuing ideas
Worst ideas
Principle:
List/draw worst ideas, then imagine the opposite/improvements/mitigation strategies.
Pros:
Prevents taking the most prominent unwanted directions
Cons:
Requires another strategy to reach the ultimate outcome
Restrictions:
Must have a prompt asking for a solution and criteria for valuing ideas
Opportunity Redefinition/Word Insertion
Principle:
Replacing or adding words to textual ideas to iterate
Pros:
Can make idea more precise
Cons:
Can become nonsensical/astray when working one word at a time rather than comparing to other possibilities
Restrictions:
Prototypical example is a business proposal discussion
Try a title
Cubing
Principle:
Visually produce a diagram with an idea seen from a set of perspectives (Describe, Compare, Associate, Analyze, Apply, Argue)
Pros:
Could focus on one prompt and idea at a time
Directed to follow sensitivities
Cons:
Some ideas not conducive to perspectives given
Restrictions:
Typically have a prompt asking for a solution and criteria for valuing ideas
Semiotic Square
Principle:
Visually produce a diagram including the idea and its opposite then constructing a spectrum
Pros:
Can devise nuance and speculation
Cons:
Subjective
Small part of a design
Restrictions:
A desire to think of a signifier for one concept in a nuanced or speculative manner; prototypical example is gender
SCAMPER
Principle:
Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate and Rearrange/Reverse
Pros:
Could focus on one prompt and idea at a time
Cons:
Long acronym requiring practice or a list to implement - could simply say iterate
Restrictions:
Requires initial ideas
Six Thinking Hats
Principle:
Assign individuals to overemphasize an assigned role (logic, emotion, caution, optimism, creativity, and control) during an ideation meeting.
Pros:
Roleplaying experience
Cons:
Takes the premise from a book that each individual has a niche then assigns each one outside of their comfort zone
Restrictions:
Requires a group
Brainwalk Assembly Line
Principle:
Walk between stations each designed around one idea modification rule
Pros:
Can focus on one prompt and idea at a time
Spatial separation of ideas
Cons:
Can become stuck on ideas which are not easily modified/combined
Restrictions:
Prefers a group, dearth of ideas to start from
Synectics
Principle:
Brainstorming with a system rewarding metaphors and irrational statements like "I wish that mail delivered itself"
Pros:
Follows the suggestions of a group studying effective creativity
Cons:
Sounds like performance art and possibly a cult
Restrictions:
Requires a group with a trained Synectics facilitator