Chapter 9 - Creative Design and the Generative Evolutionary Paradigm

Abstract

Design as seen from the designer's perspective is a series of amazing imaginative jumps or creative leaps. But design as seen by the design historian, is a smooth progression or evolution of ideas that seems inevitable with hindsight. It is a characteristic of great ideas that they seem self-evident and inevitable after the event. But the next step is anything but obvious for the artist/creator/inventor/ designer stuck at that point just before the creative leap. They know where they have come from and have a general sense of where they are going, but often do not have a precise target or goal. This is why it is misleading to talk of design as a problem-solving activity—it is better defined as a problem-finding activity. This has been very frustrating for those trying to assist the design process with computer-based, problem-solving techniques. By the time the problem is defined, it has been solved. Indeed the solution is often the very definition of the problem. Design must be creative or it is mere imitation. Conceptual analogies such as search, search spaces and fitness landscapes aim to elucidate the design process.