The document discusses the value of creativity and creative processes within and outside of design. It explores how creative activity is validated and supported through institutions, education policies, and government funding. It also examines how boundaries between fields like art and design are blurring. Examples are provided of artists like Joseph Beuys who promoted expanded definitions of art and creativity, as well as designers like Anni Albers who emphasized the connections between art and design. The document questions how creativity can be better nurtured and recognized through frameworks that consider both quantitative and qualitative measures of value.

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VALUE
(in design: how we define it/how it defines us)
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2. (or)
CREATIVE PROCESS: HOW IT’S VALUED WITHIN AND
OUTSIDE OF DESIGN
THE VALUE OF CREATIVITY CULTURALLY: NOT JUST AS A
COMMODITY;
AS AN ACTIVITY
AS A MEANS OF ENGAGING THE WORLD
AS A VALID FORM OF COMMUNICATION
HOW CREATIVE ACTIVITY IS VALIDATED, ACCEPTED AND
ENGAGED WITH, AND THE BLURRING BOUNDARIES
BETWEEN FIELDS
CULTIVATING CREATIVITY, AND GROWING RECOGNITION
OF NEED FOR IT.

3. 3/22
It’s un-debatable that design offers much of value While on the one hand, we seem to be recognizing,
to others today; “design thinking” has been suddenly, that creativity is a valuable asset in
championed as the new magic ingredient in buisness employees across fields, and that people have “unmet
schools; design is oft-equated with innovation, and needs” to be creative, on the other, what meager
of course the power of design to influence consumer support we’ve had in place for the arts–in schools
and viewer behavior hasn’t fallen from favor either. and at large–is being cut away at even more; we
have a very poor system, it seems, for nurturing the
But “value” itself is less-easily defined. We can kind of creativity that’s in apparent demand. This
certainly pinpoint specific contributions design conflict of needs is confusing, and perhaps leads to a
has made to the evolving sphere of culture and larger question of how we define our values now. As
communication, and to ways it’s assisted endeavors designers, we are in the luxurious position of making
in other fields. However, in quantifying design’s creative activity valuable in the world. It seems, in
bright potential, I believe there are valuable aspects order to give creative process its due, however, we
of design process–more broadly, creative activity need not just more funding and support, but a more
itself–that too easily slip through the cracks, benefits holistic framework alongside quantitative measures,
that perhaps don’t register on the radar of certain or an entirely new model for understanding “value”
broader value systems. altogether.
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

4. 4/22
Some Questions
How do we value creative activity, and what can we do to foster support
for creativity
- as designers?
- as educators, and/or with educational policies?
- culturally: through our institutions and/or government support?
And what other structures are set up to “nurture” the arts/creative
activity?
How fluid with boundaries between art and design are we? How do dif-
ferent disciplines inform each other?
Can art (as an approach: exploration, latteral thinking, intuitive ideation,
etc.) provide extra steps in innovation and/or “problem-solving” that we
need if we are basically re-defining what “graphic design” does?
How do we foster recognition of creative value, and encourage par-
ticipation in creative activity: generally, as designers, as educators and
culturally?
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

5. 5/22
1. STEM into STEAM
John Maeda:
“Great science happens because of great creativity.”
“Be the artist inside the scientist.”
“We believe that creativity is a right.... art and design create... innova-
tors.”
http://vimeo.com/26901487
http://vimeo.com/30624307 (1:30)
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

6. 6/22
2. Liz Sanders: Participation Design
“An unmet need that has emerged repeatedly in the past three years...
is the need for everyday people to be more creative. We see this need
expressed both at home and at work.” (2:17)
“People need... above all the freedom to make things among which
they can live, to give shape to them according to their own tastes, and
put them to use in caring for and about others.”
- Ivan Illich, in Tools For Creativity (3:24)
http://www.knowledgepresentation.org/BuildingTheFuture/Summaries/Sanders_summary/SandersQuick-
time/SandersMovie.html
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

7. 7/22
2. Liz Sanders: Participation Design
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

8. 8/22
3. Government Support: Arts funding cut in Netherlands
“State support of Dutch culture within and outside of the Netherlands
has generously and actively contributed to the vital development of
global artistic practice, presentation, and discourse. Given the Nether-
lands’ role as an exemplar of cultural cultivation, we believe that this se-
ries of events signals a dramatic turn and sets an unfortunate precedent
in the international cultural landscape.”
“... the government itself... keeps on repeating that art should take care
of itself and better start looking at the market instead of the state for any
kind of financial support.”
“The solution posed—to cut-off certain institutions (especially non-exhib-
iting ones where the measure of cultural value is not in property but in
processes that build culture) and to close academies is unacceptable...”
http://fillip.ca/content/responses-to-recent-dutch-arts-cuts
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

9. 9/22
3. Government support: Arts funding cut in Netherlands
If art as it stands today can’t take care of itself without external support,
is it a viable practice? What is the relationship of artistic activity to
commerce?
Is arts practice an inherently elitest activity? Or at least, a luxury of more
wealthy economies?
How might art/creative practice be useful in defining the future? What
do we gain from it?
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

10. 10/22
4. Design School: Blurring boundaries between art & design
“More than anything, these distinctions are devices of disciplinary convenience. ...Graph-
ic design stopped looking like graphic design, as we once knew it, several years ago...
I have met many people in graphic design who might just as easily have studied art,
photography, digital media, or film and whose interests span all these activities—as mine
do—without drawing strong distinctions among them.”
“...everyone’s workload is broader now, and design’s vanguard has moved to a more
open and less definable location—a place that looks more like what we see going on
at the Sandberg Institute.”
“Yes, it does sound close to art, since artists engage in similar activities, and the design
M.F.A. explicitly sets out to develop individuals with a strong personal position and voice.
As design evolves, there is a need throughout higher education to rethink some no
longer black-and-white aspects of the art/design relationship.”
- Rick Poynor, A Report from the Place Formerly Known as Graphic Design, Print Magazine
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

11. 11/22
4. Design School
Jen Bracy,
http://www.jen-driven-
bydesign.com/?p=456
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

12. 12/22
5. Challenging notions of “Art,” connecting Art & Design, expanded models
of communication.
Joseph Beuys - Performance Art, “expanded notion of art”
Sol Lewitt - Challenging the authority and ownership of the artist
Bauhaus Philosophy / Anni Albers - the connection between art and design
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

13. 13/22
5a. Beuys
“... connection between object-based work and an ‘expanded conception of art”
An expanded definition of material that included “will, speech and thought.”
Saw social sculpture & education as one of his greatest artworks.
“The whole process of living is my creative act.”
Joseph Beuys repeatedly said... it was his role to provide “the means to point out that the
human being is a creative being.” ... for Beuys, “Art is not there to provide knowl-
edge in direct ways. It produces deepened perceptions of experience. . . . Art is
not there to be simply understood, or we would have no need of art.”
http://www.walkerart.org/archive/5/9D43B5DB685147C46167.htm
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

14. 14/22
5a. Beuys
Beuys,
I Like America and
America Likes me
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

15. 15/22
5a. Beuys
Beuys,
Action Piece
(Performance)
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

16. 16/22
5b. Sol Lewitt
“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an
artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions
are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes
a machine that makes the art.”
http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v8n1/gallery/smith_e/lewitt_541.shtml
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

17. 17/22
5b. Sol Lewitt
Sol Lewitt,
Wall Drawing 793B1
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

18. 18/22
5b. Sol Lewitt
Sol Lewitt,
Wall Drawing
Instructions and
Certificate
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

19. 19/22
5c. Anni Albers, from “Work with Material”
“Life today is very bewildering. We have no picture of it which is all-
inclusive, such as former times may have had. We have to make a
choice between concepts of great diversity. And as a common ground
is wanting, we are baffled by them...
... We have useful things and beautiful things -- equipment and works
of art. In earlier civilizations there was no clear separation of this
sort...
But most important to one’s growth is to see oneself leave the safe
ground of accepted conversations and to find oneself alone and self-
dependent. It is an adventure which can permeate one’s whole being.
Self-confidence can grow. And a longing for excitement can be satis-
fied without external means, within oneself; for creating is the most
intense excitement one can come to know.”
-- Anni Albers, “Work with Material,” from “Black Mountain College Bulletin, no. 5, November 1938
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

20. 20/22
5c. Anni Albers
Anni Albers,
Second Movement II,
1978, detail.
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

21. 21/22
5d. Questions About Artists
Can we apply Beuys’ philosopy to communication today? Is this method of communicat-
ing “indirectly” something that needs to be valued/recognized today in a larger cultural
sphere?
Can investigation of authorship and process, as exemplified in Lewitt’s work, be valuable
to expanding the role of the designer and common models of communication? How is this
sort of activity cultivated and valued in design schools, in design practice, and/or cultur-
ally (at large)?
How relevant is Albers’ philosophy to now? Do we still recognize/concur that there’s an
inherent connection between process across arts disciplines? How might we shift our per-
ception and view these separations in a more holistic way?
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011

22. 22/22
Bibliograpy and Resources
Amsterdam Budget Cuts William Morris, Art Wealth and Riches
http://fillip.ca/content/responses-to-recent-dutch- http://www.chanceprojects.com/node/283
arts-cuts
Can You Measure Design’s Value?
Manifesta Art Mediation (Businessweek, 2007)
http://manifesta.org/network/manifesta-art- http://buswk.co/ew38tm
mediation/
Education: Documents of Contemporary Art
What’s in a Name? Felicity Allen, Ed.
http://www.jen-drivenbydesign.com/?p=456
Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century
STEM into STEAM Steven Henry Madoff (Editor, Introduction)
http://stemtosteam.org/
(more videos: http://vimeo.com/26901487, Liz Sanders
http://vimeo.com/30624307) Creative culture
http://www.maketools.com/
Sol Lewitt What is Creativity?
http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v8n1/gallery/ http://bit.ly/uBELtY
smith_e/lewitt_541.shtml A Social Vision for Value Co-Creation in Design,
w/ George Simons
Joseph Beuys
http://www.walkerart.org/ The Relevance of Critical Theory to Art Today
archive/5/9D43B5DB685147C46167.htm J.M. Bernstein, Lydia Goehr, Gregg Horowitz, and
Chris Cutrone http://bit.ly/dIiXI1
Anni Albers
http://www.albersfoundation.org/Home.php
Value (in design: how we define it/how it defines us) | Frances Pharr | Grad Seminar | Fall 2011