Is there a common process to creativity?
Geoff Petty thinks so. ICEDIP is Petty’s six-phase model of the creative process.
It divides the creative process into six phases:
INSPIRATION, where you explore, generate ideas, have visions, research similar projects, brainstorm and dream.
CLARIFICATION, where you discuss your aims, focus on your goals, research costs and assess risks.
EVALUATION, where you assess which ideas have best potential, and how to improve your work as it moves forwards.
DISTILLATION β the process of concentrating or boiling your ideas down into a single vision.
INCUBATION, or not thinking about your idea! This phase is about letting go and allowing new connections to happen naturally. You may have the occasional ponder.
PERSPIRATION, the hard work phase where you actually put plans into action, with determination.
Petty recommends you need use the six phases in any order you wish.
Personally I find this neatly labels a process we have all been using within creative projects for many years. However it is interesting to note Petty includes incubation, the idea of not working on a project, as a beneficial phase.
My best work has included this phase. Nothing like a walk in the woods to bring on an βA-ha!β moment! (As any great poet will attest.)
For me, itβs why we should give projects timescales that are too tight.
Like those ones that roll in a month before end of financial year, that need completing in like two weeks, so βwe can spend all of our budgetββ¦ sheesh!
Petty reminds us not to do this. He is right. There are parts of the creative process that will always be a mystery.
We do not truly know where ideas come from, for instance. Incubation allows this mystery to remain, without seeking to grasp at it for definition. And as the Zen saying goes, he who grasps loses.
Can we learn the artistic value of doing nothing?