Lesson 5 ~ Random Word / Image Association

Random word and images association is basically a method of generating ideas that are unique. From a random word or image, it can trigger other images or words that can be evolved into a new creative idea.


So we were asked to think of something that would give of danger signals to other people in order to prevent them trespassing over an area. Think like radioactive, fatal death if you enter kind of places. Then we were given a random word.


KITTENS


um... doesn't paint such a scary picture does it? But then after applying the random word / image association, I manage to come up with a few suggestions. (Doesn't mean it'll make any sense or be any use at all in the real world of course XP)


Idea generating...

1st idea - Having metal claws attached all over the forbidden area so that no one can enter safely.

2nd idea - Having speakers set up so that they let out very loud cat noises. Hissing, snarling, the works.

Part 2 - Juxtaposition

Then we were asked to write a passage on Love based on "chilli"

(I think my brain's gonna be paralyzed from the cheesiness  ><)


Pelita or oil lamp for the concept of "Life"

An oil lamp is like life

If you have substance in your life, the more plentiful it will be just like a lamp needing oil to continue to burn

Just like a flame, life can be gone in split second by a fatal blow

And even though people may have different cases or looks, in the end we're all made of the same thing

Kitten for the concept of "Happiness"

A kitten is like happiness, sometimes hard to find

But once sighted, can warm a heart to the core

The same innocence as a search for happiness

While cradling it in your arms it provides comfort even if it's just a while

Mortar and pestle for the concept of "Man or Woman"

Mortar and pestle, either one can be the woman or the man

But without each other, they are incomplete

Without one, the other would lose reason of existence

Only together they are strongest 

Lesson 4 ~ Juxtaposition

Searched Google for the definition on Juxtaposition and this is what I found

• the act of positioning close together (or side by side); "it is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors"
• a side-by-side position

and even...

• A placing or being placed in nearness or contiguity, or side by side, often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences; An absence of linking elements in a group of words that are listed together; Two or more contrasting sounds, registers, styles etc. ...

Which aside from the pretentious language, seemed to be clear enough, though admittedly only became clear after a few more re-reads. 

And naturally it would come with several types juxtaposition..

The first being 

Similes-Using "like" or "as". Example, as blind as a bat. This part is pretty basic english essays stuff..

Metaphors-Does not use "like" or "as" but instead comparing 2 things with some similarities. 

Logical analogy-Comparison of the body structure and function of something with another. Example, the bird is compared to the airplane as both can fly in the sky.

Affective analogy-A description of something that is usually animal based. Very straight to the point.

Then we had to do a juxtaposition exercise which involves choosing random pairs of numbers   and creating a something out of the words that matched the pairs of numbers that we have chosen. 

This is no 18 - Flower Wood and no. 25 - Lightning Root

And lastly, no 92 -  Leave Rock

And don't worry about the drawings, they're usually that bad XP
After that we we were asked to draw a combination of two animals. Needless to say, that came out with some... interesting creatures..


So came up with my own combinations, the one on the left being a giraffe + rooster = Gooster?
and rabbit + elephant = Raphant? XD

Lesson 3 ~ Mind Mapping

-A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central keyword or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas. It is a very popular technique with applications across many fields, a useful technique that improves the way we take notes, and increases our creative problem solving. It usually used by individuals and corporate teams for different aims or purposes.

We can use mind map to explore and develop ideas for a specific problem, use it to think, take notes during discussions and summarize books and papers. We can quickly identify, prove and understand the structure of a subject. Mind maps encourage creative problem solving, summarizing information, and thinking through complex or difficult problems. 

[Source:Wikipedia]

A logical mind map, the standard one that most people use either to organise thoughts or think of ideas. This kind of mind map is the one where other related topics branches out from the main topic. This is not so good for creative thinking as we usually end up connecting stereotypes.

An associated mind map is one where even though the topics are linked in a way, it's not really related to the main subject. They are more random and at a glance may seem like it doesn't have anything to do with the main subject.

Some mind maps taken from the internet..

A mind map my friend did for me along with a portrait of me

(I don't really drive like a crazy person :P)

After that, we had to do a mortar and pestle exercise. Throwing away the usual uses, we had to think of other crazy and creative uses for it.

1st idea - 

2nd idea -

And yes, I know the 2nd picture doesn't even look like a sun-dial... so you can stop laughing now XP

Bill Gates...

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author and chairman ofMicrosoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people^[4] and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ofCEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.


PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time. After the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when the company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success." At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. 


In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the year 1975 the MITS Altair 8800 based on theIntel 8080 CPU was released, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.


[source: Wikipedia]

Lesson 2 ~ Larry Page and Sergey Brin..

Google creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin began creating Google as a research project for the Stanford Digital Library Project while they were Stanford student in March of 1996.  The SDLP's goal was “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library." and was funded through the National Science Foundation among other federal agencies.


After enrolling for a Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, Larry Page was in search of a dissertation theme and considered exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph. His supervisorTerry Winograd encouraged him to pursue this idea, which Page later recalled as "the best advice I ever got". Page then focused on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic publishing in mind). In his research project, nicknamed "BackRub", he was soon joined by Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford Ph.D. student.

Brin's focus was on developing data mining systems while Page's was in extending "the concept of inferring the importance of a research paper from its citations in other papers." Together, the pair authored what is widely considered their seminal contribution, a paper entitled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine."

Combining their ideas, they "crammed their dormitory room with cheap computers" and tested their new search engine designs on the web. Their project grew quickly enough "to cause problems for Stanford's computing infrastructure." But they realized they had succeeded in creating a superior engine for searching the web and suspended their PhD studies to work more on their system.

Now Google runs over one million servers in data centers around the world, and processes over one billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day.


[Source : Wikipedia]

Lesson 1 ~ Creative thinking...

So after the first class of Creative Studies I admit I was confused, I mean who knew the difference between being intelligent and creative was so complicated?  >_<


But later on, I was trying to fix my logo for another subject when I found a quote..

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.” 

— Edward de Bono

No other time have I wished as much as a quote to be true than this one, because to be honest, I had my fair share of rejected, wrong, and sometimes just plain ridiculous ideas in my life. But sometimes it works out, so maybe this quote has something going for it. :)

So decided to surf the web a bit for some inspiration, and found some cool stuff..

-3D Pavement Art

  

And I noticed that the Mini Cooper always seems to come up with really creative and uniques ads..

So just seeing these stuff made me so amazed at how much work must have been done in order to create something so creative. For now I can only dream of achieving something even remotely close to this, but hopefully as time goes on I'll get a little bit closer to it, whether through creative studies or anything else that may come my way ^^