The language of creativity

Creativity is the ability to make something out of nothing, the wondrous ability to bring forth an idea and express it to the world. Creativity is ever-changing, ever-evolving. What then, is art and design, two forms of expression that invoke creativity? If we were to think of creativity as a language, then art and design are merely dialects – two sides of the same coin. While both forms make use of creativity, a subtle nuance exists that distinguishes the two.

At its core, art is an expression that seeks to challenge the perceiver. When an artist creates, the art is imbued with a plethora of emotion. The artist seeks to use creativity to better express what cannot be said with words. Similarly, us as the audience, perceive the art in various ways. Art reaches out to us, asking us a question we hope to find an answer to. Our end goal is to understand the art and figure out what it is we are being told. Two people can perceive one piece of art in many ways, and that’s okay, because at the end of the day, art lives to be judged.

On the other hand, design is a solution that aids the receiver. Designers seek to create designs that communicates with a purpose. Here, emotion is of secondary consideration. A designer uses creativity to solve a problem and engage the masses. As an audience, we receive information that has been crafted to convey a message. Design envelops us, guiding us towards the correct answer. If we have a problem, it looks to eliminate that problem. Good design goes one step further, aiming to elucidate a problem whilst motivating us to take a course of action.

More importantly, we believe that good design correlates directly with results. Good design should directly translate into good return of investment (ROI). For that reason, we put a lot of effort into good design. Everything begins from our conceptualization phase, where we consider various plausible solutions to the problem presented to us. We think about what works, and what won’t. We think about marrying functionality and aesthetics into one complete package.

Simply put, we’re no artists. Instead, we draw upon creativity and come up with designs that serve a purpose. At the DBS UNI.CORN DEMO DAY, our rainbow bridge led each group towards the stage, a simple design concept that looked equally pretty decked out in blinging lights. At the SMU MPA gala dinner, our golden glitzy bidding jars served the purpose of allowing interested parties to conveniently drop their silent auction bids into. Handy! Guess that makes us designers, eh?