Design students should learn to imagine

Imaginative power begins from childhood. As a child we could all imagine hundreds of things but we do not know when we stopped imagining. Rightfully once Einstein had said that ‘imagination is more important than knowledge since knowledge has limitation while imagination encircles the world’. A balanced curriculum and amicable environment helps to provoke people to imagine, which would motivate to do something differently. Imagine is the key to creative pursuit.

“A leading business school did a study that showed that its graduates performed well at first, but in ten years, they were overtaken by a more streetwise, pragmatic group. The reason according to the professor who ran the study: ‘We taught them how to solve problems, not recognize opportunities. When opportunities knocked, they put out their ‘Do not Disturb’ signs.” (Roger Von Oech, A Whack on the SIDE of the Head, London: Harper Collins Pub. 1990, p.27)

Therefore, be imaginative is the key to design profession. Obvious answers limits or restrict imagination to run free. Multiple choices or probable solutions widen the scope of unique solution. Creative thinking requires an attitude that allows one to search for ideas and manipulate your knowledge and experience. Taking unusual steps opens up new avenues or possibilities. Johann Gutenberg, combined two previous unconnected ideas- function of wine press squeezing the juice out of gapes and created the coin punch. Picasso found an old bicycle outside his home, removed the handle bar and the seat, and wielded them to create the Bull Head. Creative mind transform one thing into another.

Plate 3A Auto-rickshaw	3B Innovative Bicycle	3C Wash Basin-Toilet