Week 4 :: Mind Mapping

The method of Mind Mapping discussed today was initially introduced by Tony Buzan, the mastermind behind the mind mapping method.

Mind mapping is, the method of squeezing out every little idea from each part and corner of your mind regarding the selected topic in a much more organized and visually-paired way. It stimulates your brain into thinking out of the boxes of words and typed alphabets, combined with colours and images.

Examples of mind maps we have here would be:

The usage of colour here plays a role as our mind reacts better when it is in colour compared to black and white since it's too 'boring' for our minds to keep focused on.

In any case,
here would be my mind map for class:

week 3 :: defining novelty, creativity, innovation and invention

For week 3, our lecture was delivered by Mr.Mustafa on Novelty, Creativity, Innovation and Invention.
These words are actually tied together when seen in the aspect of creating/designing, even imagination to begin with; just that when it is put together in words, we tend to overly think the whole idea of it without realizing we might as well have been practicing it the whole time.
The act of using the word, not in a verbal manner, I mean.
But then again, that way of explanation is rather confusing and (might sound)opinion based, so...

To start off, let's get the general meanings to these words to help us identify further:

Novelty
1. The quality or state of being novel; newness; freshness; recentness of origin or introduction.
2. Something novel; a new or strange thing.
3. A small mass-produced article of little value; a knickknack.

Creativity
the ability to create

Innovation
1. a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation.
2. the creation of something in the mind.
3. the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new.

Invention
1. the creation of something in the mind.
2. a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation.
3. the act of inventing

Which actually comes to my mind, back when it was in the 90's and the movie Back to the Future was something you never really thought of; Come on, time-travelling, good idea at that moment and kids would go,

"woah, that's gonna be soon in the year 2000!"

Since it pretty much was a look into the future kind of movie filled with various inventions including the oh-so-famous flying skateboard and the time travelling car. But facing the reality, it never came true even though they predicted of flying 'objects' in the year 2000(Close! but not really it however).

I guess there's a combination of all of the words above in the movie(If you were to watch it in the 90's, bigger effect) just an example, you see. The whole deal with the creation of new atmosphere and things in the future, even though it's cliche' at this current time, back then, it wasn't so much. Go watch it, it's awesome enough if you haven't yet.

But anyhow, since we're no longer in the 90's,
I guess you could say that they're coming up with newer creative items for everyday use.
Like for example;
Chairs that can be length adjusted, no more worries if you're lacking of chairs and are having extra guests in the house. You can see how they've innovated the idea of a singular chair and decided to invent a better chair out of their creative thinking and research.

Combs. In the shape of guns. Which i suppose you can use. To comb your hair. And other mischievous acts.


And finally the ruler pen! The invention of two things that you need and rely on the most. All packed in one single pen. Truly a life-saver.

So you can tell that the creative process of creating thing comes together with Novelty, Creativity, Innovation and Invention in one whole big package. They complement each other and together, they help you make good items that can help people in the future.

Week 2 :: Personal Reflection

Class overall was interesting for a start.
I mean, the way it was presented by the lecturer, in terms of verbal presentation.
I guess the way you speak matters in catching people's attention.
Why not? It would be boring to listen to people delivering words in a very monotonous voice.
By the second the person talking gets to the second line of what they're trying to deliver, most probably all of us have already decided to take a trip into the dreamland.

There's that hint of creativity there actually.
To deliver words in various ways depending on the audience you're trying to communicate with.
For example, swinging your hands, making connected sign languages with your fingers to help you get to people's minds. Something like that.

Anyhow,
the lecture was attention-grabbing enough, I enjoyed it.
If by any chance i were to fall asleep, I'd blame the really dim lighting.
:D

Week 2 :: Defining Creativity

Lecture on Week 2 focuses on defining 'creativity'. Which is actually an interesting topic to ponder and might as well critically think about as it's a part of our every day lives.
I mean, come on, trying to pick out what to wear before coming to class is pretty much already a creative start to our day with the process of mixing and matching, etc, etc.

Still, lecture was good. Mr. Yap started it out with a crowbar-like(maybe crowbar looks too far off though) metal part and proceeds to tell us to crack our brains, coming up with different uses of that specific metal thing.
Although in my brain, I kept on imagining it as a small bookshelf to hold tiny little books. Of course, metal would be sort of too grunge to be put in a normal household, so we can spray paint the metal thing and make it all pretty, yes?

In a way, that actually leads to us trying to think of creative things in conjunction with the whole topic he's trying to present, which is 'Defining Creativity'.

According to the slide he presented, Creativity can be defined as:

The generation of new ideas or a new way of doing things.

or

Creativity is the ability to think up and design new inventions, produce works of art, solve problems in new ways, or develop an idea based on an original, novel, or unconventional approach.

That's quite a general way to put it in words.
and according to this Edward de Bono book titled How To Have Creative Ideas; I bought back in my high-school years for just rm5(which was too much of a bargain),

"Creativity is a skill that everyone can learn, practise and use.
It is as much as skillas skiing, playing tennis, cooking or learning mathematics.
Everyone can learn such skills. At the end not everyone is going to be equally good at these skills.
But everyone can learn the skill. And everyone can seek to get better through practice"

-Edward de Bono

In conclusion?
Everyone is creative. It's pretty much important enough to keep us going, or we'd all be living constant lives, eating the same cereal shapes each day, taking the same route to work/school, talking the same topics every day.
Creativity is the element that changes all of that to make everything better.

Hello!

Hi, this blog will archive my blog entries for the Creative Studies class.
I guess this will be a some-sort of a short opening entry as there's not much to say when it comes to entry openers and such.

Anyhow, onto further details...

Name: Ida Kamilah
ID: 1081106520







Let's hope everything goes well this trimester