Richard Tucker. Deakin University

Creativity has been defined 'as the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain'. I would question the words 'novel' and 'useful' because, if the idea is 'useless' but new to the creator, the creator has still given birth to an idea via some form of creative process. I suggest, therefore, that 'creativity' is simply the production of ideas. But it is not quite that straightforward. Innovation is often distinguished from creativity as the successful implementation of ideas. Yet there is a creative process between the birth of an idea and its implementation—that is evolving/ developing/ operating on an idea. This development of an idea is also creativity. I would therefore say that creativity is a two-stage process: it is, firstly, the production and, secondly, the development of ideas; where 'production' is understood as the initiating activities a designer undertakes to inform or inspire ideas.