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Sample Study Material

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Sample Study Material

UNIT ONE OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING IDEA GENERATION

If you are an observant student, you would have noted by now that to solve the questions that you get in the entrance exams, one has to look at two very important points.

 

  1. ABILITY TO GENERATE A DIFFERENT IDEA about the same topic or situation given in the exam.
  2. ABILITY TO EXPRESS YOUR IDEA ON PAPER in a way that it shows that you have a skill and enthusiasm to work on creative ideas.

We will tackle these two points separately.
ABILITY TO GENERATE A DIFFERENT IDEA.

 

This is the most important point that we are trying to cover in this book. The ability to generate a different idea has to be developed through a systematic process. At TRENDZ, we have developed a unique approach to do this. We call it a three point formulae which has been developed after a thorough research from different books available on the topic and a lot of input from the professionals from the field.
For getting a different idea we have to look at a lot of ideas. In other words, we should be having a lot of ideas from which we can look for an idea that is different.
This means, the first step in generating a different idea is to generate a lot of ideas. Or we have to improve our FREQUENCY in idea generation.
As a small child, if you recall, you could do this kind of an exercise with ease. As your brain was more flexible and explorative. At that age, one in this way since the childhood.

As a small child, if you recall, you could do this kind of an exercise with ease. As your brain was more flexible and explorative. At that age, one can look at an onion as a ball, or can imagine as a flying car or can spin it on the ground; it could become a hand grenade in a kid’s war and many other unimaginable things. But, what were your parents telling you all the time? Stop doing that, don’t throw it, are you mad! stop ! stop! STOP!!
And finally you stopped as you grew up!

Because your mind was forced to do it. In the whole process, what we did not realize as parents was that your creativity was being curbed. Also, slowly and steadily, you started recognizing a potato as a potato! and nothing else. And everyone around you was very happy.

But, this is the prime reason why you cannot come up with 20 different ideas on a subject.
Now, what you were doing as a kid and the way you were thinking then, we have to do now! What that means is that when you are given a situation or a theme or a topic, the first thing to do is to forget the conventional way of looking at it. ERASE THE CONVENTIONAL LOOK OR THE PRESENT DAY LOOK FROM YOUR MIND ABOUT THIS SITUATION OR OBJECT.
Once you have erased this image, now you are that child again. Think like this child. How would you as this child look at this object.

DON’T BE PRACTICAL. Children are not practical. DON’T LET QUESTIONS LIKE “IF “OR “BUT “COME INTO YOUR MIND.

Close your eyes and become this little child. If the ideas are not flowing, don’t worry. They will come with some practice.
1.1 BRAINSTORMING

 

‘What is Brainstorming?’, you might ask. Brainstorming is a simple technique to solve specific problems by gathering information and stimulating creative thinking by spontaneously jotting down all impulsive ideas and thoughts related to the problem. Just think of anything which comes to your mind when you think of the object given to you. You may think of any words, feelings, images, colors, person, or any other thing which comes to your mind.

By following a set of simple steps and instructions you can make your brainstorming sessions more fun and effective –

  1. Focus on generating a Large Number of Ideas
  2. Think Differently
  3. Never discard Wild or seemingly Ridiculous Ideas
  4. Combine ideas to create newer ideas
  5. Most importantly, Be Spontaneous and Uninhibited!

Let us make this clearer to you with the help of an example –

EXAMPLE

List down Ten different kinds of Liquids –

  1. Water
  2. Alcohol
  3. Petrol
  4. Glycerin
  5. Blood
  6. Kerosene
  7. Milk
  8. Sweat
  9. Vinegar
  10. Cough Syrup

A glance at the list above will indicate that the words listed here are not only large in number but also varied in their qualities and properties.

DO NOT EVALUATE THESE WORDS TO BE GOOD OR BAD. We are just improving to be more FREQUENT with ideas. This means that we are trying to think of more and more ideas on the subject.

Let us take another example to explain this point.

Let us take the object to be a lamp.

Light / remove darkness / midnight oil lamp / magic lamp / study / shadows on the wall / switch on / yellow light /flexible handle / can be turned to different angles / metal / night / hot / wire / plug / oil / bulb / electricity / current / dim / focus lighting / wall mounted lamp / show the way / signal for something / ghostly / lonely / used to create fear / outside the hut / lamp post / alladins lamp .

The above was achieved in a brainstorming session of 5 students in 3 minutes.

A lot of the above listed words might not be used in the actual process of the final idea which we create. But, going through the process is the most crucial point in getting to a different and an original idea. Remember, no book has been written or available in the market which can teach you the above. And no other institute can teach you the above copyrighted process. It is the result of years of experience of a team of NIFT designers who understand what the institute looks for in any student that they take in. so, my only suggestion to you as an aspirant is to dedicatedly follow the process step by step in order to reach where you want to be. All the above is vain if you are not giving it time.

In idea generation, once we have achieved a certain level of frequency, we have to proceed to become more FLEXIBLE in idea generation.

Flexibility in idea generation comes from the ability to look at a subject or situation from many different angles. So many times an idea remains unexplored as we are unable to view it from different perspectives. This ability comes as we get more and more frequent with the idea generation.

For eg. When we were brainstorming the word lamp, there were more than one interpretations of the word lamp. At the first thought, we imagined a study lamp. As we brainstormed it, we could think of it as an oil wick lamp or a magic lamp or a lamp post.

When we are able to imagine till this level, we reach a certain level of creativity. Let us take another example.

FAN. The first image is definitely that of a ceiling fan. Can we now look at this word from another angle? One way is to think of different kind of fans. Like table fan / exhaust fan / Chinese hand fan / helicopter fans. Let us now think of a completely different perspective. The word fan can also use in the statement “I am sharukhs fan. “ OR” don’t fan his anger “. Now that’s a totally different way to look at the situation. Can you think further?

Once we start being more frequent and flexible with ideas, we have to understand the third and the most important aspect of all these techniques. An idea which makes you stop for a moment and say “ ah..a , now that’s interesting !”

So many times this happens to us also in our day to day lives. We stop by something and say the same words.
EXERCISE

LIST DOWN 10 SITUATIONS IN YOUR DAY TO DAY LIVES WHEN YOU HAVE THOUGHT TO YOURSELVES “ ah…a , now that’s interesting “ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

YOU CAN MENTION SITUATIONS / IDEAS / PRODUCTS etc.

You should be able to do the above if you are now more flexible with your ideas.

When we analyze the situations that we have listed down, we have to think what was it about this situation / idea / object which made us stop and say this?

What makes me stop and say something like that is maybe a model walking on the ramp wearing a dress made out of newspaper ! strange , isn’t it ? but then that’s a reaction which is expected when you see something strange or something new or maybe something impractical.

If we just understand this example in a deeper perspective. There is a very obvious question which emerges from this kind of an example, which I could not find an answer to for a long time even while working as a designer, is that why would some one design garments like that? Of all the things out of newspaper!

Another question which troubled my mind , which generates out of the same situation, is that how did this guy who designed the garment, think of the idea of using a newspaper as a dress.

And of course, a third question follows, is that who would wear a dress like that?

Where to look for answers to all the questions that we have listed above?

Let us start by thinking on the 3rd question first.

In our day to day lives as Indians, we have averagely lived in this country for 18-20 yrs. In these years of existence, if we think of the garments that we have seen around ourselves, we would probably start with listing down a sari, go on to a suit, and not be able to think beyond shirt and trousers. Am I wrong? Which means that the females around us , be it your mother, your sister or your friends would be wearing one of the above listed in all these years. And our eyes are trained to see them like that. What if you see your mother wearing a denim trouser one fresh morning! hard to imagine, no? but if that happens , your reaction would be the same as my reaction on seeing the girl dressed in a newspaper!

Well then, who would be the client for buying the newspaper dress? Surely, not one of the people that we have thought of around us. Because all the people that we thought of are not the kind of customers that we can sell this creativity to. But think about a director who is looking for a unique and interesting way to dress up his heroine in his upcoming film. The girl he has in mind is young, a little crazy, a little weird, enthusiastic, lives her own way , dreams of a city life, trendy, bold, experimental, stays in new york………. ! now we start imagining that maybe this type of a girl would on some crazy day not mind trying out an outfit like this. Or imagine a photographer who is looking for a theme “CRAZY DRESSING” for the front cover of a popular magazine. (think of an imaginative name for this magazine). Or think of a Newspaper company trying to capture the public interest by printing a model wearing this dress on the front page. It could be a promotional campaign for them!

EXERCISE

Think of 5 more situations in which you can imagine someone wearing the newspaper dress.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

You have to start to get more imaginative now. When we are imagining, not everything is real. Some things are hypothetical or assumed.

Well, once we have listed down the type of clients in the previous exercise, we obviously know now that there ARE people in this world ready to experiment, try out, be crazy and all that we listed. These people might not be like you and me, might not be huge in nos but definitely exist! So some crazy ideas have to be created for them. And why not, when people are ready to spend money on designer ideas.

Also, if we watch these kind of fashion shows carefully (which you must be now since you are planning to take it up as a profession) ,a designer would just have one or two ideas like these and the rest of the collection is very wearable. So the other women, who are not so crazy types, can buy these other garments the designer portrays.

Now, the most important question of all the three! How does a designer think of this idea to make a dress out of a newspaper?

The intense passion for doing things differently and uniquely and not simply following the rules of the game is what makes the designers come up with ideas which are different from the rest. An idea which makes everyone stop and say “ ah…a , now that’s interesting!”

A designer has to apply a lots of brains and research as to what can be different from the rest? A lot of it is by the same techniques that we are teaching you to get the creative ideas.

SIMPLY PUT, THE DESIGNER COMES UP WITH AN IDEA LIKE THIS BY BEING UNIQUE!

We can also put it as TO STAND OUT IN THE CROWD. And to stand out in the crowd, one has to break some rules. Break rules like

  1. but why should someone wear a dress made out of newspaper.
  2. what is the need
  3. it’s a stupid idea
  4. but who would buy it
  5. but how would someone make it.
  6. All the above are blocks to creativity.

 

We have to honestly analyze ourselves and check if we have the above blocks. If an honest answer is YES, we have to work towards removing them.

EXERCISE

Think of 10 craziest ideas of garments that you can imagine to be worn on a ramp stage for a fashion show.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Draw the above imagined dresses.

EXERCISE

Think of 10 creative ideas for different type of gifts that you can gift to

  1. A one year old kid.

_________________________________________________________________________

  1. A 18 year old friend

_________________________________________________________________________

  1. A 60 year old grandmother

Draw the above imagined gifts.

 

EXERCISE

Give unique uses of the below mentioned objects. Think of uses there than the regular use of the object.

  1. A writing pen
  2. A piece of cardboard.
  3. A brick
  4. A newspaper.
  5. A cloth clip (used for holding the garments while drying in the sun)

Remember that you cannot increase the no. of pieces of the mentioned objects.

You cannot increase or decrease the size. Think hard!

 

Creative people are the masters of their minds, not mastered by their minds.

Even if you have done the previous exercises once, try going back and doing them again as now you will be able to do them with a different mindset.

To make you more comfortable with the process of Brainstorming, below are a few exercises –

 

EXERCISE

Make a list of five-letter words ending with the alphabet ‘-D’.

  1. ______________________
  2. ______________________
  3. ______________________
  4. ______________________
  5. ______________________

 

EXERCISE

Jot down at least Ten objects that are Rectangular in shape.

  1. ______________________
  2. ______________________
  3. ______________________
  4. ______________________
  5. ______________________
  6. ______________________
  7. ______________________
  8. ______________________
  9. ______________________
  10. ______________________

 

EXERCISE

List down a minimum of Five objects, which are Red, Square and Hot

  1. ______________________
  2. ______________________
  3. ______________________
  4. ______________________
  5. ______________________

 

EXERCISE

Compose a story using the following words in the same order as they appear here-

  1. Ouch! -Window-Owl-Hairbrush-Milk-School-Car-Magazine-Cupboard-Mom

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

  1. Law-Drunk-Spectacles-Scooter-Midnight-Salsa-Examination-Swimming Pool – History – Cell phone

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  1. United States of America-Water melon-Hostel-Microwave Oven-Alarm Clock-Fire-Fence-Ice Sculpture-Spring-Biology

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

EXERCISE

Relive the following situations in your mind and list down five interesting smells and sounds each –

  1. Journey from Home to School

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. In the School Canteen

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. Lunch at a roadside Dhaba

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. During a Cricket Match

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. In a Nightclub

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. During the Oscars

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. In a Movie Hall

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. At a Railway Station

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. During a Concert

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

  1. In a Forest Trek

SMELLS – SOUNDS-

  1. _____________________ f. ______________________
  2. _____________________ g. ______________________
  3. _____________________ h. ______________________
  4. _____________________ i. ______________________
  5. _____________________ j. ______________________

 

After completing these exercises, you now have an insight to Brainstorming and remember to

follow the simple steps listed above whenever you set out to solve a design problem.

Well! How are you finding this till now?

Hope the above package has given you a lot of insight into what goes to prepare for an

Entrance exam like NIFT and NID. And it is not as difficult as you thought, is it?

TRENDZ is dedicated to prepare you fully for the entrance exam of NIFT and NID. This Course does not end here.

What you have just studied is the first chapter from the creative book. You can download this file, take

The printouts and practice the exercises.

This is your first step and we have a complete course module on Creative, Drawing and other subjects asked in the exam.

Once you have enrolled yourself with TRENDZ you will see for yourself how easy it would be to prepare for

Your dream institute.

So what are you waiting for , you can order your copy of the material now !!

Or block your seat.

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