Creativity

30 hours – Graphic Design — UTFPR

Creativity is not a personal trait of a genius but a social activity that can be perfected through practice. The basic premise of this course was featured in a news item on TV Paraná Turismo.

The TV news report conveys that creativity is not an innate talent reserved for a select few but a skill that anyone can develop through intentional effort and practice. It introduces Van Amstel’s course where students are taught to nurture their creativity by understanding the mental and physical processes involved and creating environments that foster innovative thinking.

The report highlights the use of graphic diaries as a tool for recording and evolving ideas. These diaries allow students to capture spontaneous thoughts and systematically develop them over time, demonstrating the iterative nature of creativity. In the classroom, the traditional setup is deconstructed to create a “Create Space,” a physical and mental environment designed to inspire new perspectives and encourage experimentation.

The theoretical framework of this course is based on Cultural-Historical Theory of Creativity (Vygotsky) and Socio-Spatial Theory of Creativity (Lefebvre), illustrated by the class of 2019.

Lev Vygotsky’s Historical-Cultural Theory of Creativity redefines creativity as an adaptive and universally accessible process, deeply rooted in human interaction and environmental challenges. Contrary to the notion of creativity as an innate talent or a static quality, Vygotsky views it as a dynamic activity motivated by the conflict between human desires and life conditions. Creativity emerges through the interplay of memory, which organizes lived experiences, and imagination, which structures unrealized possibilities. Imagination combines and reconfigures signs acquired through social interaction, generating new concepts that ultimately shape reality. By emphasizing the mediating role of tools and signs, such as language, Vygotsky highlights how individuals internalize and transform socially acquired behaviors into complex mental operations, laying the foundation for creative thinking.

The Socio-Spatial Theory of Creativity posed by Henri Lefebvre emphasizes that creativity arises from the body and serves to transform social spaces. Lefebvre posits that all human actions occur within socially constructed spaces, shaped by language, norms, laws, and technologies. These spaces, both abstract and concrete, define and often restrict human behavior. However, these constraints also motivate subversion, as individuals and collectives seek to push the boundaries of what is possible. Creativity manifests as actions that break from reproduction—maintaining the status quo—and instead differentiate, reconfiguring both abstract and concrete spaces. This differentiation can lead to the creation of unique, localized “works” that contrast with standardized “products” and often foster collective pride.

Here is how these two theories are applied and refined in this course. In this course, students are in their first semester of Graphic Design, still realizing what they have gotten into. The course aims to excite them with the creative possibilities of Graphic Design. I start by telling them that design is not drawing, but drawing and other craft forms help them express their creativity in design.

We work with many kinds of materials to develop an improvisation mindset that can deal with any situation.

We play surrealist games to harness the subconsciousness and delegate the creative process to external means, effectively including any student who feels blocked or uncreative.

Creativity is not a talent. It is a habit that may be well-developed. Therefore, students are evaluated based on their graphic diaries at four checkpoints distributed across the Creativity course. In this diary, they are supposed to use visual thinking to create new ideas, study other topics, and express themselves.