Setting the stage for creative freedom

By Heidi Aho, Shahida Parvin, & Eduardo Solorzano Tejeda.

Design Thinking (DT) and Innovation require a lot of creativity. Creativity is often described as a spark of inspiration, but it is far more complex and deeply human. It happens at the intersection of emotions, environments, and culture. To truly nurture creativity, we need to look not only at how ideas form within us, but also at the spaces and relationships that enable those ideas to flourish.

Colorful illustration showing a group of people working together on different layers. Some of them are taking notes or discussing their opinions, another one is imagining and thinking, others are building a board with sticky-notes, some others connecting huge lego blocks, and a another one is pulling a rope from the window to help someone hang next to the board so they can write down something with a pencil. The people are from different scale and with different appearance and colors.

Illustration by Eduardo Solorzano Tejeda

❤️‍🔥 Creative thinking as an emotional process 

Creativity has many layers, but at its core, the search for innovation (and a bit of fun) is deeply personal. Each of us absorbs and analyzes information differently, and each has a unique way of turning ideas into something tangible and communicable.  

The creative process is a personal journey, non-linear, unpredictable, and full of intricacies. Creativity and emotions are tightly connected, which makes design both richer and more complex. People respond emotionally to products, whether physical or digital, and those responses can determine success or failure.  

Recognizing emotions and uncovering pain points requires sensitivity. Designers need to activate their ‘empathy sensors’, paying close attention to how people interact with products or services and what those experiences reflect.  

Design challenges bring out a wide spectrum of emotions. At times, excitement and curiosity fuel the work; at others, frustration and confusion take over. All these emotions shape the process, and together they drive us toward innovation. In the end, they remind us that design is human, and that is what makes it powerful.  

💡 Creating Safer Spaces for bold ideas  

Physically, an ideal environment for creativity is a flexible space where, for example, you have easy-to-move furniture. The space should not be cluttered, and there should not be restrictions on what you can do in the room. It is good to have different tools at hand for creativity to take place, such as sticky notes, markers, large papers, tape, Legos, etc. This way the process is smooth and goes uninterrupted as all the tools are at hand.  

Mentally, the environment should have freedom, where all participants feel free to express themselves, with their unique backgrounds. Even the silliest and out-of-the-box ideas should be welcomed into the discussion and built on, with the ‘How might we…?’-method (Kelley, D. & Kelley, T., 2013). Mistakes are part of the learning process, and they should not be feared. When the participants don’t feel judged or fear being ridiculed, they find the courage to bring their best.  

There has to be room for everyone to unleash their creative potential. This grows from an environment that nurtures new ideas and builds on collective input. As mental space expands, a positive and supportive environment helps ideation flourish and creative thinking spread.  

📝 Closing remarks

Creativity is a highly emotional experience, which flourishes in a well-designed environment. It is not just about the tools or methods, it’s about understanding people, their needs, and the conditions that let their ideas flow. It is not a straight path, but a journey shaped by feelings, surroundings, and the people it is created with.  

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References

Kelley, D. & Kelley, T. 2013. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All. New York: Crown Business. 

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Comments

6 responses to “Setting the stage for creative freedom”

  1. julletakanen Avatar
    julletakanen

    Thank you for your inspiring blog post! Your way of describing the role of the space really resonated in me a lot. My experience in the contact days in DT course were meaningfully also that we were in an inspiring setting. Moving around, standing, having stuff to touch and work with. All senses activated. That made me think of many current ways of working which feel like polarity: people just arriving in meetings in a “normal” meeting room, sitting static and talking in turns, while some are multitasking other things at the same time. And afterwards many complain how work is tiring and work sometimes unmotivating. Maybe changing the setting once in a while and moving, using the body would make a huge difference, in any line of work. What happened in me during DT contact days was total immersion to the tasks at hand. It actually felt like playing. And as you wrote about the importance of safety, to be able to play, one needs to feel safe. Maybe DT way of working could facilitate (psychological) safety at work, where everyone can fail in safety and play!

    Reply
  2. gayatrimishra Avatar
    gayatrimishra

    Thank you for this thoughtful reflection on how creativity is deeply tied to emotions, environment, and culture. I appreciated your emphasis on creativity being deeply personal and how different emotions play a crucial role, both for a designer and the people for whom the products are designed, and ultimately drive innovation.

    One perspective I would like to add is the importance of time and mental space as part of setting the stage for creative freedom. Even if the physical and psychological environment is supportive, if people are constantly under tight deadlines, they may not have the mental breathing room to let ideas incubate. Thus, allowing for unstructured time where individuals or teams can wander, reflect, shift focus, or even pause can be highly beneficial in nurturing creativity.

    Another approach that I have personally found valuable is holding sessions where people from different domains or departments (for example, marketing, engineering, art) meet in a casual setting (over lunch, walks, informal meet-ups) to exchange thoughts without a fixed agenda. These cross-disciplinary interactions can also challenge assumptions and inspire original ideas.

    Reply
  3. lauraaugustinaavramd104b6facd Avatar
    lauraaugustinaavramd104b6facd

    On the part about creating safer spaces for bold ideas, how well to you think this happens in real life and context? Have you seen often workspaces where the room offers the necessary freedom and invites for creativity? Do you believe that this is something that works for everyone or only for some?

    I like to work in spaces where there is a whiteboard (or a similar writing space). When working on a topic in a smaller or bigger team, I feel the need to write and make some basic draft, to make sure that all of the participants to the discussion understand the same thing. But I am struggling currently to understand why so little of this happens in some of my work meetings: people can talk for hours, but they don’t feel any need to write and draw. I sometimes believe at the end that all the participants in the meeting must have imagined what was said in their own individual way :-). But maybe it’s just me.

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  4. valmkinen Avatar
    valmkinen

    Hi Heidi, Shahida & Eduardo!

    One of the key outcomes from our design thinking course and classes is the realisation that we are all creative. What especially caught my attention in your post was the section “Creating Safer Spaces for Bold Ideas.” While reading Change by Design by Tim Brown, I had a similar thought. However, what mostly triggers me is not so much related to the physical environment or tools available to the team. However, I believe it is equally essential for companies to build a culture of innovation.

    I think the Cultures of Innovation is a company’s mindset that fosters experimentation and gives people the confidence to take risks. As well as trust the ideas and allow room for failure. It is a culture that believes it is better to ask for forgiveness afterwards than to ask for permission beforehand. When organisations create this kind of environment, they remove one of the biggest barriers to the emergence of new ideas.

    I would also like to share an example from the company where I currently work. The organisation trusts employees to make decisions, encourages risk-taking, and embraces the principle of “Admit We Don’t Know Everything.” One of my favourite part of our culture is an idea of sharing learnings, even when something fails. If you believe in something and it does not work out, everyone is encouraged to share their experience openly, so that others can learn from it. Then, we literally celebrate this learning experience by opening “learning champagne.”

    Finally, thank you for your blog post. It is very interesting to read your reflection on what you think is the most important. Easy to read and love the illustration. Only one question: why is there one person doing brainstorming? 😉

    Reply
  5. ainonadee Avatar
    ainonadee

    Such beautiful insights over creativity, emotions and their dynamics in the process of innovating! Reading the book “Creative Confidence” (Kelley, D. & Kelley, T., 2013), I also reflected on the inner, emotional process of working with creativity.

    Quoting your blog: “Recognising emotions and uncovering pain points requires sensitivity” – this is a spot on insight. Designing innovative, user-centered, empathic solutions asks for tons of quiet reflection, inner dialogue with one’s own feelings (from sparkling inspiration to deep frustration, even fear) – something that needs to be learned by doing – in practice – and staying mindful of the present moment. It is fascinating, how much mindfulness and something ofter called emotional intelligence is needed in creative processes, like design.

    Being able to keep still, not reacting to failure – not letting the fear of failure take over – just accept and move on, keep iterating.

    Reply
  6. nayomasamarakkodiarachchige Avatar
    nayomasamarakkodiarachchige

    Fantastic job, Heidi, Shahida, & Eduardo! This is a very well-composed post that made sense and was structured. You have presented the argument very clearly that the creative process is not just an individual ‘spark’ but rather a process that involves lots of factors both emotional and environmental. The link you made between the emotions, empathy, and the end product is very clever indeed.

    The way you portray the creative process as a “personal journey, non-linear, unpredictable, and full of intricacies” is delightful, and then you directly connect this to the empathy sensors being needed for the designers.

    Let’s say for your assertion about the birth of Safer Spaces for disruptive ideas that include the mental environment as one of the factors:

    The Depth of Psychological Safety: You illustrate the scenario in which a friendly mental environment would support the use of “How might we?” method and one of the outcomes would be the loosest and most random ideas being brought up. This is exactly in line with the idea of psychological safety and, however, safety is important for idea generating and beyond in Design Thinking. This need for safety is particularly acute during the testing and iteration parts of the process. Psychological safety means that one will not be afraid to challenge assumptions, raise a possible flaw in a prototype, or ask about a user’s pain point if he feels confused as to what that pain point is. Do you think that the emotional effort needed to critique an idea is equal to that of creating one?

    Flow State and the Physical Environment: To mention is to have Legos and markers among others readily available. This is a clear indication of the significance of play and the use of non-verbal engagement. At times creative thinkers are said to be getting in and out of a flow state (periodic focus and enjoyment in an activity). The flexible space you suggested along with the physical tools will draw people into this state of being and thus will be able to maintain it; that is definitely not the case if they are purely engaging in verbal/analytical tasks.

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