YOUR GUIDE TO
Relevance in Creativity
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Welcome readers from ◎ Your Guide to the Mechanics of Creativity
Creating with Combinations (Composition)
That was quite the creative cyclone in ◎ Your Guide to Content in Creativity! We created by:
- breaking an object into its parts (analysis)
- generalizing the parts (classification)
- finding alternatives to the parts
- bringing parts together (synthesis)
In the above diagram, we have two different objects and we will demonstrate creativity by combining them in different ways. Further on in this guide we will explore the concept of RELEVANCE but let’s look at combining first.
A ◈ We start with looking at combinations in composition (physical). One thing to note is that in this case, the two objects have no direct parts in common. If we want, we can combine the two objects completely to get a “new” idea but in the patent world, (patents describe and claim an invention) this is called an aggregate and is most likely not patentable. A famous example is an eraser on the end of a pencil. They both keep doing the same thing and there is no synergy or mix resulting in something new. The idea in the diagram is to combine a cane and a spring and get a pogo cane!
B ◈ You can take a part from one object and SUPERIMPOSE it on the other object. Artist use superimposition as a creative technique. Hopefully you have seen the previous creativity guides and if not then please go back and start with ◎ Your Guide to the Mechanics of Creativity. If you have then you will recall that super is above — so in this case, that is circle A. We impose H on A. An example is taking the fiber husk of corn and adding it to glue to get an…
