We may not aspire to be an Einstein or Epstein, but we all need to be creative in our work whether it is writing content for a web site, designing new interaction methods for unusual cases, working out appropriate workflows for an organisation, programming new algorithms for a system backend, or debugging obscure JavaScript frameworks.

However, we all get those times when the creative step, we so desperately need, simply does not come.

Do we just have to wait for insight to happen?  The Greeks imagined muses, one for each art form, who would visit you and put that spark in your heart.  Is that how it feels?  Or maybe you simply look at the creative geniuses whether scientific such as Stephen Hawking, artistic such as Katsushika Hokusai, or your favourite designers and think, “I’m not that sort of person”.

In this course we examine ways to break the impasse of the empty page, particularly focused on achieving technical creativity: finding novel solutions to a particular problem whether n interaction design, graphics or code.

Some of this is about bringing together the right inspirations, building an appropriate understanding of your problem domain and forming a mindset .  It is not a magic creativity machine, but when you put yourself in this creative mental space so that you are in a creative space, new and exciting things tend to happen.

Some of the exercises will encourage you to be playful or even apparently foolish – but whoever has heard of a three-year old struggling to be creative?   Some of the techniques may might find yourself needing to be more systematic than you are used to.  Typically, and paradoxically, it is usually the techniques that feel furthest form your normal ways of doing things that may be most useful.

Crucially we will seek ways in which you can achieve your creative goals no matter who you are, making the most of your existing strengths and finding ways to compliment and enrich them.