The Creative Process

" It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin, "The Origin of the Species"

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."- Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), Italian Renaissance artist.

"What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams." - Nikos Kazantzakis (1885-1957), Greek novelist.

"Creative minds have been known to survive any sort of bad training." - Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, 1946.

"I copied paintings at the beginning so I wouldn't have to copy later on." - Picasso

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

In our roles as Engineer, Teacher, Marketer, Writer, Artist and Webmaster, we have always been involved in "The Creative Process", accomplishing our goals in many complex projects. This in-depth knowledge and experience allows us to help our clients walk through the processes of Market Positioning, Promotional Planning and Media or Web Design quickly, accurately and at a lower project cost, while enjoying the process.

The Creative Process is usually iterative, requiring thought and rethought, until a finished product emerges. This aspect of the creative process sometimes makes it necessary to spend a little more time up front in the planning through concept approval stages. After the concept stage is complete, the realization of the project speeds up dramatically. Radical changes in the latter stages require more redundancy of effort and increase time and costs for all parties involved. Mountain Eagle Marketing has a number of tools, up to and including Client concept approval and input on-line, real time, helping you hold down costs and meet project time schedules. Another advantage of using these more advanced tools is, that we can work long distance with relative ease.

Mastery of the creative process reduces design, development time and associated costs in any creative endeavor from Science & Engineering to Art, from concept through product or service introduction, to marketing and sales.

There are many good reference Web Sites on the different "Creative Process Models". Some of the links are listed below for interested viewers:

Creativity Models, Resources and Links

Seven Stages of the Creative Process - This is one of the oldest of the MG Taylor Models, developed in 1979 by Matt Taylor and Richard Goring as part of an unpublished book entitled Designing Creative Futures.

Working Paper: Models for the Creative Process, by Paul E. Plsek - "Analogous to the various models used in business to guide strategic planning, quality improvement, problem solving and other activities, there are models to guide creativity and innovation. In this working paper, we will explore the various models for creative thinking that have been suggested in the literature over the past 80 years. We will extract common themes from these various models and present a composite model that integrates these themes."

The International Center For Studies In Creativity

The Creative Process - "This section of the Creativity Web gives a brief history of the various views of the creative process, starting with ..."

The "Gaping Void"- Creative Site on Creativity, one of the best!

Creativity & Innovation in Science & Technology

The American Creativity Association