5 Ways to Find New Ideas

Alejandro Flores explains the methods he uses in his design studio to turn his team's ideas into workable concepts

Creativity is not an exact science, and that means there is no single way to achieve it. Each person, each designer, will find their favorite method to make ideas flow. They may even want to try several of them, and choose one or the other depending on the type of project you have in hand, the team they work with, the deadlines, or the means at their disposal.

Alejandro Flores, founder and creative director of the Mexican design studio Human (@human_), has 5 methods for conceptualizing ideas that his team uses to create groundbreaking designs.

Mind mapping

This is one of the most well-known methods. Starting from a central idea, you start making ramifications using related concepts that will help new ideas flourish. It is especially useful to discover new avenues that seemed unrelated to the original idea at first.

Analogies

Comparing an idea, a concept, or an object with another similar—or completely different!—one can also help us open the doors of perception and make good ideas sprout. Although some analogies may seem obvious, especially when we have already done an association of ideas or a brainstorming session, it can be the seed of an incredible design when considered carefully.

Listing attributes

Visualizing all the features of the product, company, or service you are working with can be an excellent way to unlock a great idea. Creativity can arise from the smallest details, so it is essential to keep in mind the main attributes you want to highlight with your design, paying particular attention to the image that the customer tries to project with his brand.

Mood board

A mood board shows the visual path taken for any specific project. Human Studio always uses them because this conceptualization method helps a lot when aligning the client and the design team, making both go hand in hand in terms of style, colors, fonts, symbols, and textures.

Brainstorming

A popular tool in any creative field, this technique involves coming up with as many ideas as possible in a short space of time. This forces the concepts that arise to be spontaneous and show the true associations that our subconscious makes out of some terms. Don't stick to a simple format for these. Within the brainstorming method itself, there are several means to achieve creative results: reverse brainstorming, the five whys analysis, and many others.

In the Domestika course Principles of Concepting and Branding, Alejandro Flores —founder and creative director of Human design studio— teaches you how to create memorable identities, focusing them as a strategic solution to a company's problems and using these conceptualization methods.

English version by @angeljimenez.

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