Almost all great ideas follow a similar creative process, and this article explains how this process works. It is important to understand this because creative thinking is one of the most effective skills you can possess. Every problem you face at work and in life can benefit from innovative solutions, side thinking and creative ideas.
Anyone can learn creativity using these five steps. Creativity is not easy. It takes courage and tons of training to unleash your creative genius. However, this five-step approach can help to undermine the creative process and explain the path to innovative thinking.
To illustrate how this process works, I will tell you a short story.
A problem that requires a creative solution
In the 1870s, newspapers and printers faced a very specific and very expensive problem. Photography was a new and exciting medium at that time. Readers wanted to see more pictures, but no one could figure out how to print pictures quickly and cheaply.
For example, if a newspaper wanted to print a picture from the 1870s, it would have to hire an engraver to engrave a copy of the photo on a steel plate by hand. These plates were used to press the image onto the page, but after some use they often break. This process of photography, you can imagine, is significant, time consuming and expensive.
The man who invented a solution to this problem was named Frederick Eugene Ives. He became a pioneer in the field of photography and received more than 70 patents at the end of his career. His story on creativity and innovation, which I will now share, is a useful case study for understanding the 5 key steps of the creative process.
A Flash of Insight
Yves started as a printer trainer in Ithaca, New York. After two years of learning the intricacies of the printing process, he began managing a photo lab at nearby Cornell University. He spent the rest of the decade experimenting with new photographic techniques and learning about cameras, printers and optics.
In 1881, Ives had an insight into an excellent printing technique.
“While running my photo stereotype process in Ithaca, I read the problem of the halfphone process,” Eves said. "I went to bed one night in a state of brain fog due to the problem. As soon as I woke up in the morning, the ceiling was clearly visible, fully working process and equipment in operation."
Ives quickly translated his vision into reality and in 1881 patented his printing approach. He improved for the rest of the decade. By 1885, he had developed a simple process that yielded even better results. The Ives process, as is well known, reduced the cost of printing images by 15 times and was the standard printing technique for the next 80 years.
Well, now let’s discuss what lessons we can learn from Ives about creativity.
The printing process developed by Frederick Eugene Ives is an excellent example of an optimal creative process.
The printing process developed by Frederick Eugene Ives used a method called "halftone printing" to break a photograph into small dots. The image looks like a set of dots in close proximity, but when viewed from a normal distance the dots combine to form an image with different shades of gray. (Source: Unknown.)
5 stages of the creative process
In 1940, James Webb Young, an advertising executive, published a short guide entitled A Technique for Creating Ideas. In this guide, he published a simple, yet in-depth report on developing creative ideas.
According to Young, innovative ideas occur when you create new combinations of old components. In other words, creative thinking is not about creating something new from a blank slate, but rather taking what already exists and combining those bits and pieces in a way that has never been done before.
Most importantly, the ability to create new combinations depends on your ability to see the relationships between ideas. If you can create a new connection between two old ideas, you have done something creative.
Young believes this creative affiliation process will always take place in five steps.
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