Creativity

Creation and creativity are at the core of many disciplines. However, while there is general agreement about what creativity and creative artifacts are, there is no established, agreed-upon definition of how creative people work nor precisely how to evaluate their creative output. This is partially because artifacts and the expertise to evaluate them vary dramatically across domains.

There are two fields of thought on this problem, those that believe that the creative processes is universal and a general set of criteria exist to evaluate creative endeavors regardless of domain, and those that believe the creative process itself differs from domain to domain. These are described as Domain-General Creativity and Domain-Specific Creativity respectively.

Fortunately, we can study common traits and factors that feature in creative processes without concerning ourselves with the validity of either argument. These factors include ones natural skills and abilities as well as what one has learned through study, individual character traits and motivations, and how one learns and thinks. [citation CHCAD] All of these manifest in individual modes of working and creating that are highly individual. Because of this, we believe that creativity and what it means to be creative in our work is something to be explored and experienced through practical application. Thus, our concern is twofold: what is creativity broadly and how can we become more creative in our own work.