Alma Hoffmann is a quirky and funky design educator who motivates and pushes her students to be the best they can be. She is not a stranger to explore unconventional teaching methods—such as laying on the floor, if needed, to look at something from another point of view, or making students look at things upside down. Her curiosity drives her to explore and continue learning. She is also the Design editor at Smashing since many years.
Creativity, whether it is about artistic or problem solving, is the result of learning to skillfully use the resources we have at our disposal. One such resource is how our minds process information and the world around us. Though creativity is not exclusively about problem-solving, understanding how the mind sustains our creative process facilitates and strengthens the ability to problem solve.
Creative thoughts lead us to create, to design, and to make things. But this process is not necessarily a function of engineering or programming. A creative mind shows itself in the act of making things that function in a remarkable way in our lives. Harnessing our creative mind means to take advantage of our minds’ natural process of interpreting the information we receive. There are two modes in which we receive information: visual and verbal. According to scientists, the visual mode dominates this process.
By utilizing methods that reinforce this process, we cooperate in facilitating the mind with information that eventually will lead to making connections that are creative in nature.