Thinking outside the box...

What is creativity exactly? It's kind of a hard concept to describe as there are so many different ways to interpret it. I'd say that creativity is the process of generating ideas and following them through to produce a successful outcome... although that sounds almost mathematical? Creativity to me has always been about artistic expression. I find creativity to be very much to do with the arts and the visual representation of things. It's also related to thought processes- When I visited the Tate Modern a couple of years ago I saw the 'Lobster Phone' by Salvador Dali, where he took two ordinary forms and turned it into something that was intriguing because you just wouldn't normally see a lobster and a phone juxtaposed together.

When I was younger I used to love doing craft activities, I would make my own birthday cards, jewellery... would you say that it was creative because I chose to make it myself rather than buy them?

Okay, so from researching creativity I have found that I'm kinda getting mixed up with creativity and innovation, so what is the difference between the two? I mean creativity is about the ideas but I suppose it's more of a mental process... Innovation is taking those ideas further and converting them into original yet useful concepts and applying them in a commercial aspect.

<= In Japan the way the food is presented is highly important, even more so than in European cuisine. The Japanese chefs will go to great lengths to think of creative ways to display the food so that it is visually appealing. I remember when I hosted Erisa, my partner in the Japanese exchange I participated in way back in 2005, she would photograph the meals we made for her which I guess was really sweet because she must have thought they looked pretty good!

As for who actually 'does' creativity in games, I'd say most of the positions definitely involve creativity one way or another. The artists are creative in the most obvious way, with concept art being a development of the ideas they produce. The art director has to manage the artists and have a creative overview of what the game will eventually look like. It is a skill to be able to influence peoples imagination with writing so to make the story line believable and realistic it requires creative output on the writers behalf. I believe creativity is enhanced by technical constraints, as it pushes the programmers to think differently in order to come up with a solution to the problems they face.

I discovered some of Henry Moore's work when researching for one of my A-level projects. His sculptures to me are creative because of the way he deconstructs the shapes of an object into simple forms which make them appear almost abstract yet still able to be recognised as a whole. I also like the fluid curves of the sculptures and think it compliments the environments he places them in.

See ya ~Emi ^o^