Abstract
Designers resort to external stimuli as sources of inspiration in the creation process, using images, texts, or other media as triggers for generating new ideas. Although there are several studies on this subject, there are still few conclusions about how these stimuli work in the creation process. In this sense, this article aims to verify what types of stimuli designers prefer, at what moments of the project they usually use, and how they can contribute to the creation process. To this end, professionals from nine Portuguese design studios were interviewed, totaling 17 design professionals, most of them with significant experience in the area. The results confirmed some aspects of the theory, such as the preference for visual stimuli, and brought others, such as three-dimensional representations. In addition, other relevant aspects were found, such as the importance of inspiration sources in the communication process between the team and the client and the constant search for references in the construction of the individual repertory.
Highlights
Creating new design solutions is a complex process involving intrinsic aspects of the individual, communication issues between the team and the client, and aspects related to the external environment
It depends on how much time they have
This was a factor evidenced in all interviews and ways to foster it, such as the constant research of references and the creation of libraries, collections, physical and digital, for a specific project but as something to be done constantly
Summary
Creating new design solutions is a complex process involving intrinsic aspects of the individual, communication issues between the team and the client, and aspects related to the external environment. All these factors interfere with the creative process and the individual's thinking, and the originality, fluency, and flexibility of idea generation (AMABILE, 1989; KNELLER, 1978; TORRANCE, 1969). it is a broad concept because most of the ideas and solutions generated are not entirely new but are formed from the relation of existing concepts, association and analogy with other references. analogical thinking is combinatory, associative thinking and is part of the synthesis process in design (DOUMAS et al., 2008; GENTER, SMITH, 2012, KAO, 2014). According to Tschimmel (2010), analogical thinking relies on visual, symbolic, or imaginative thinking, highlighting the importance of perception and associations by similarity and conceptual differences
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