Process Focus

Okay, I admit it. I really like creative methodologies. Some people geek out over typography, bezier curves, a fast bowl, Firefly. I like how ideas are developed from something half-grasped through to a fully fledged thing. I like the techniques of exploring an idea and making it into something bigger than it was. 

Anyway, I have been aware of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies for quite some time. Then there’s Jeff Noon’s Cobralingus Engine. And IDEO’s Method Cards. Lots of different ways of getting your brain to think in different ways. 

So I thought I’d try and have a go at creating my own. I liked how all the other cards worked, but I wanted something that was specific for product designers. Something that could help them sketch out new ideas and come up with innovative concepts. And so here they are: Iterations. These cards help you create more interesting designs in your concept sketching.

The Theory

Creative methodologies usually combine divergent thinking (applying a stimulus to generate potential outcomes) and convergent thinking (bringing facts and data together and applying logic).   

The Iterations cards help divergent thinking by giving suggestions on how to process the output. They work as a set of guitar effect pedals to your process. There is an input, a set of ambiguous instructions that can be applied to this input, and an undetermined output created by these effects.

In layman’s terms: you draw a concept sketch, then draw a card. Then draw a concept based around your interpretation of what the card says. Then draw another card. And repeat.

Development and testing

My jumping off point for these cards were the few samples that Jeff Noon had put out onto the internet as part of his Cobralingus Engine. Instead of using blocks of text like Noon uses in his Cobralingus Engine, the input is a sketch, a concept, an idea.

I then added as many other similar commands and instructions that were ambiguous enough to be taken in several different ways, tested them to see if they would work and then tweaked them until I had about fifty. 

I spent a while sketching, drawing a card, sketching the result, drawing another card, sketching the result for all the cards to see how the cards felt being used. I had to remove a couple of key words like BULK and FREEZE as the concept didn’t seem to add anything to the sketching development.

Printing 

After what seemed like an endless time of testing, tweaking and getting the wording correct I got the lovely people at moo.com to print this version of the cards.

Here is the content of the full final list of cards

• ENTROPY Introduce corruption to Iteration.
• CHORUS Repeat motifs across components.
• ECHO Repeat, but less.
• ENHANCE Furnish with elements of beauty.
• POSSESS Imbibe iteration with the spirit of a personal hero.
• EXPLODE Fragment Iteration into disorganised components.
• REMIX Combine all previous Iterations.
• RESPAWN Re-Iterate all components, motifs and functionality in a new way.
• ABORT Prematurely complete process.
• DRUG Visualise the effects of legal and non-legal intoxications.
• DISTORT Next process only affects one part of Iteration.
• COPY Duplicate component or aspect.
• PURIFY Remove all unnecessary affectations from Iteration.
• SHUFFLE Disorder components.
• COMPRESS Remove excessive space.
• EQUALISE Assign same value of importance to all components.
• PASTLIFE Re-Iterate as an ancestor from a different time period.
• LOOP Repeat last Iteration. 
• SAMPLE Add new functionality.
• PURGE Remove all functionality.
• BOUNCE Re-Iterate as the absolute opposite.
• CUT Remove component or aspect.
• THOMPSON Encourage craziness in Iteration.
• DELICATE Like a leaf on the wind.
• ORDER Logical, linear, layout.
• FORCE Complicate the Iteration to the point of unusability.
• GHOST Echo a design classic.
• LAX Be lazy about the process.
• LIFELINE Get a colleague to Iterate.
• DISGUISE Make Iteration look like something else.
• LOBOTOMISE Remove all complications from Iteration.
• SPLIT SIGNAL Create two Iterations each containing half the components.
• CLEAN Lighten colours, soften textures, smooth components.
• DIRT Darken colours, harden textures, roughen components.
• LYNCH Encourage surrealism in Iteration.
• FUZZ Soften sharpness. Smooth edges.
• VIRUS Grow new iteration from each component, function, affectation.
• REPLACE Replace component with another.
• OVERDRIVE Create ten Iterations in twenty minutes.
• REVERB Remove main component leaving associated affectations.
• SATURATE Re-iterate using five more cards.
• BLUR Blend component processes and affectations together.
• DODGE Remove extra detail from affectations or functions.
• BURN Apply extra detail to affectations or functions.
• BLANK Left blank for user to create their own.
• BLANK Left blank for user to create their own.
• BLANK Left blank for user to create their own.
• BLANK Left blank for user to create their own.
• RULES Instructions on how process works.
• ABOUT About Duncan McKean. 

The reason why there are slightly enigmatic words like component, iteration, affectations is to avoid the trap of direct instruction and allow inference of what functionality or component could mean.

Please feel free to make your own, but remember: they are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0