Launching the Imagination – Problem Seeking and Problem Solving

        In chapter five of Launching the Imagination the author, Mary Stewart, does a great job to describe how design can be used at a verb and a noun. I have never thought of it as a noun before, but how she says that it’s a plan, pattern, layout, arrangement of lines, shapes, colors, and textures really made me stop and think about it. Because design is deliberate, Stewart explains the problem seeking and solving process. Just like in a story, there is always a problem that needs to be solved when it comes to a piece of art. When dealing with a piece of art in the past, I always had the problem of what to draw or what to make or paint, but never thought of the problem as a way to make the piece of art better. I always thought that the problem was just something that got in the way of the design process. Stewart describes different ways of inspiration and different ways to thinking when trying to tackle a piece of art. I feel like using convergent thinking and divergent thinking can both be helpful, but I think that one may be better than the other depending on the type of art you are working on and the message you want it to reveal. She talks about ways of brainstorming and doing research before starting a piece of work, but I always thought that those were things that you did before writing a paper, not trying to produce a piece of art. I think that doing research can only expand you knowledge which can only make all the art you produce can even better.