GRANT MCCRAKEN: WHERE DOES CREATIVITY COME FROM?

By Grant McCracken on March 22, 2012

Lots of creativity comes from using old forms for new purposes.

After World War II, on the campus of the University of British Columbia, people took the quonset huts that had housed soliders and turned them into classrooms.

Old form, new purpose.

But there is nothing really all that creative about the quonset hut conversion.  In both cases, old and new, the hut serves as shelter.

What’s more interesting is when we find a new application for something old.

Exhibit 1

I am corresponding with a woman called Barbara Monteiro.  Barbara has this amazing email style.  She starts her message in the subject heading and then at some point leaps into the text.  It gives her emails pace and a certain breathless excitement.  And in what 10 years of email it’s the first time, I’ve seen email “reinvented” in this way.

Exhibit 2

This morning I came upon a Pinterest site by Ryan Zeigler that uses the 9 picture grid to compose a single photo.  Very clear. http://pinterest.com/ryanjz/

Exhibit 3

In Culturematic, I describe the case of Fantasy football which found a way to repurpose the statistical data pouring out of the NFL to a new and very lucrative purpose.

More on this theme later.  The client is waiting for me!

Originally published on CultureBy. Republished with kind permission.

via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2012/03/origin-of-creativity.html#ixzz1ptpkwE87