An Evolutionary Angle on Creativity with Eisuke Tachikawa
On November 22, 2024, the Bandung Institute of Technology Design Center hosted the book launch of the Indonesian edition of Eisuke Tachikawa's Evolutional Creativity. Evolutional Creativity takes a unique approach at demystifying something that is often thought of as immeasurable. The book approaches understanding creativity and creative talent through the lens of the theory of evolution. The comparisons put forward by the book asks readers to examine creativity as a methodology rather than something driven by intuition—posing a methodology of sorts toward approaching creativity beginning from nine methods of mutative thinking then moving into selective thinking. Grafis Masa Kini was able to sit down with the author himself to talk about his theories on creativity.
As the founder of Japan-based design firm NOSIGNER and a long-time industrial and graphic designer, the notion of creativity as an unlearnable intuitive talent had vexed Eisuke. “In a way it was also the conclusion of a random process of thinking ‘What is creativity?’ Because it's quite difficult to define good design or goodness in design, but if you don't understand that of course you cannot be a good designer. With something like baseball you can use the ratio of hits as a measurement but in creativity and design there's no such measurement,” Eisuke began to explain. He expressed frustration in this inability to explain something many considered to be intuitive. Throughout his career, Eisuke had observed many examples of what is considered creative and he began to recognise a pattern or measurement to these creative breakthroughs. He then began to investigate the origins behind this pattern.
In his master thesis, he began to see a similarity between language and design, and so he began to pursue research into linguistics and design. He also grew curious as to why design in nature can be so beautiful and so complete, holistic. For Eisuke, the seemingly separate questions were connected and integrated, leaving him with one conclusion—”Maybe design or creativity itself as a phenomenon is a kind of evolution.” While he understood that most people do not view creativity as a phenomena in that way, evolution might be the fundamental point of view in understanding what creativity is as a proven theory that is the basis of many natural sciences.
Eisuke understood that your means inform your possibilities. Many people abandon creativity in their youth should an art class be unsatisfactory but it does not necessarily mean that these people are not creative. He believes that creativity is something you can learn, practice and become better at. “Every good designer knows that when you practice you get better,” Eisuke remarked, “It's very important to practice but in a way the methods of practice seem very vague or abstract, full of life success stories from people who are just able to do it. But, this perspective always presents these people as talented. What I wanted to do instead was forget about these individual cases but rather find out what's generally happening inside of our head as a natural phenomenon?”
Eisuke’s book has led him to consult for many brands and businesses on this theory, with brands such as Panasonic, Fujitsu, Toyota, and more than 60 companies as well as Keio University where Eisuke is working as a project professor and other institutions, having already adopted this theory of innovation. As he explained in his presentation at the book launch, Eisuke actually had businesses and business owners as the target audience of this book. In fact, the book was ranked number one on Amazon Japan's business and economics book rankings. “I kind of disguised this book and categorised it under general innovation and business as well as natural science rather than the design field because I believe in the power of design. That power of design is not just about the design industry but also, generally, about everyone's creativity, their aesthetic way of thinking. So actually, for every CEO, every politician, it's quite functional for them to learn a more fundamental way of design thinking. Of course it would have been easier to write this in the design category as I am also working as the President of the Japan Industrial Design Association, that would've been a kind of easy market to approach. In a way, design communities are already enlightened on design but we may not be as knowledgeable around, for example, the way of observation of natural scientists or generally of an entrepreneur’s mind. At the same time these entrepreneurs or natural scientists or engineers may need a designer's point of view. So I wanted to make a bridge between these two things,” Eisuke elaborated. While the book is generally about design, it is also his way of connecting and combining science, engineering, business, and design.”I didn’t want to define this book in just one category.”
While Evolutional Creativity was originally published in Japanese in 2021, the book has only now been officially translated into Bahasa Indonesia and published by Simpul Group. The book launch also featured an exhibition with Eisuke’s theory in practice by the students of ITB’s Design Leadership program. This exhibition will travel to Jakarta on December 15, 2024, opened to the public at Dia.Lo.Gue. Art Space. You can get your copy of Kreativitas Evolusioner here.
