Stereotypes around campus. Let me give you a tour!
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Stereotypes around campus. Let me give you a tour!
Text: Valeria Solonari Illustrations: Alexei Patrascu
Innovation. Inspiration. Creativity. We toss these words around daily. Are they just fancy ways to say‘ I’ ve had an idea?’ Those of us who are marketers, designers and engineers are often labeled as creative. But what do people mean by that? There’ s a widely-held and poorly-articulated imageof the stereotypical creative person floating about in our culture. Is it Daniel Libeskind? Albert Einstein? A fellow student who I sat next to yesterday? After meeting and interacting with many creative types over the years, I’ ve had to continually expand my definition of what creativity looks like.
Sure, sometimes it manifests itself in the traditional way: creating something out of nothing. That lightning bolt of inspiration, or ideas from out of the blue! But other times, being creative is a slogging, noodling process that develops at a snail’ s pace. This isn’ t to denigrate the classical creative mold, or to lower the bar in defining what we see as creative. It just means that there are different types of creative people and methods out there, and that we don’ t all fit into the same mold. To sow the seeds of discussion, I’ ve identified, with the help of my awesome student friends and colleagues, eight unique types of creativity, knowing full well that these people exhibit multiple facets and bleed into different categories. But given the stereotypes our school departments custom, tell me, have you found yours yet?