Deep Dive, Design. And the word I almost chose instead.

Last week, I encouraged you to commit to a set of five core values that knit together your work, and speak to why you do it. I hope my post sparked some good thinking for you. I’d love to hear what you came up with.

Again, the core five here at Stacy Communications are: Confidence, Authenticity, Design, Connection, and Wellbeing.

This week I’m sharing, as promised, why DESIGN is part of my core five.

I connect deeply to this value, yet it’s one of the last words I selected, after turning over and around, several other words and ideas.

I want to be honest about this to help you. Here’s why:

A newly-minted set of core-value words can have a resolved quality about them. And that can lead you to “forget” (or overlook) the uncertainty, requisite patience, and even vulnerability that’s part of choosing them.  

To keep the process light, yet not rush it, I tell my client: let one or two words drop off from your list of candidates, round by round. As you close in on five, try and replace two remaining words on the list with a single new word that captures facets of both. 

That’s how I arrived at DESIGN.

DESIGN ties together three key, related elements of my approach. 

Process (a specific method of creative problem solving, known as “design thinking”)

Artifact/Outcome (the solution, idea, thing or vision that’s ultimately created)

Aesthetics (the visual, sensory, artistic qualities of said thing)

And it’s the unique specificity of the connections that’s important in any core value word you choose.

As you're likely used to associating “design” with a “style" or an “object,” I fill in the “process” part below.

Design as a creative problem-solving method (thank you, Stanford d.school) has 5 elements: EMPATHIZE—DEFINE—IDEATE—PROTOTYPE—TEST/REFINE

What’s swell here? For one, the commitment to define the issue at hand that keeps you from creating a marvelous solution to the wrong problem.

Instead, you’re asked to set aside your assumptions, and empathize—observing, engaging, and questioning from the perspective of the folks for whom you’re creating.

From there, lift up key insights (from patterns, gaps, or inconsistencies you notice) and define the real problem or issue.
     (Ex: A public health physician trying to introduce a whole-grains diet to his diabetic patients takes time to talk to them and finds out they have cupboards of white rice from the food bank.)

You then take ACTION and generate multiple ideas that might work as solutions. In prototyping one, two, or a few (in lean minimum viable form), you can test, edit, and refine with a certain freedom.

In sum, I love the way vision and expression (seeing and making) are entwined here, in a way that feels natural.

And the connection between vision and expression (and the role of imagination in it) has long captivated me. It’s how I ended up an art history major, and then Ph.D., with ten years teaching writing at a visual art school.

What you may not know is that artists who drew me into art history and its practices of seeing (Carl Andre, Robert Irwin, and James Turrell) worked serially with spare luminous materials, refining an idea by exploring it once and again over several related works. I still love that tie between idea making (“what if?….” ), expression (“why not try?….), and lean, incisive editing that I first found so appealing.

I share this story with you and for you, because I bring all of the above, with specificity, to the work I do now: to the ideas I co-create with clients, and how they are expressed aesthetically in the accompanying words and artifacts or outcomes created.

And that leads us to the big reveal. Though it may no longer be a surprise.

The word I had before “Design” was “Creativity."

I almost left it there, yet felt I could nod more directly to the strategic element of what I do. The identifying and achieving a specific (business) goal for which to harness imagination.

That’s when I tried replacing two words with a new one. I marinated on things, played around and arrived at: Creativity + Strategy = Design

Committing to “Design” as a core value lets me amplify certain elements in my approach to creativity: goal-oriented intention, focus, expression, economy (less to create more), orchestration, impact, and clarity.

On the day-to-day, I’m always after simplicity, concision, singularity, and openness. One organizing idea. One call to action. One lean palette, message, or project.  Along with an idea that things can evolve, and continually be refined (even core values).

This is freeing as a model of creativity, knowing you can both ship it now, and return to make it better. Sweet. So go ahead, and create away.