Being a polymath enhances creativity because such people can see the “big picture” and have a rich repertoire of associations.
Robert Lang is a NASA Physicist who brings lessons from folding and unfolding origami paper into engineering and crafting rockets. Frank Gehry is not only an eminent architect but also has made his own line of furniture, jewellery, household items and even a glass bottle for Wyborowa Vodka. Similarly, Lifafa a.k.a Suryakant Sawhney started out as a filmmaking student in San Francisco only to return to his homeland as a musician with many influences.
What is common between these personalities along with Galileo Galilei, Benjamin Franklin and Da Vinci? All of them are polymaths who exemplify our most humane traits. Often Sensitive and mindful, they borrow inspiration from areas they are passionate about and make the design more meaningful and potent.
We need to bust the myth that being sensitive is a weakness and should instead celebrate the power of a deeper, more tuned-in mind. Wired to make connections between vastly different concepts, the sensitive mind can blend frames of reference without ever leaving home. Co-authored by Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo, “Sensitive: The Power of a Thoughtful Mind in an Overwhelming World,” sheds light on the fact that creative minds are often built on the three gifts of sensitivity – sensory intelligence, depth of processing, and depth of emotion.
Recent studies have shown that being highly creative and multi-passionate are linked. Over the years, researchers have identified three "super-factors" of personality that predict creativity: Plasticity, Divergence, and Convergence.
Plasticity is the drive for exploration and inspiration. Prior research has shown a strong link between Plasticity and creativity, especially in the arts. Divergence consists of independent thinking, non-conformity, impulsivity, and low agreeableness. Finally, Convergence consists of high conscientiousness, precision, persistence, and critical sense. Highly creative designers put something into one repository of knowledge and get something out of another.
A new study led by UCLA Health scientists reveals that “Big C creatives” or exceptionally creative individuals’ brains can link more random, distant connections between brain nodes more quickly. This pattern, although less “efficient” is similar to skipping flights to connecting hubs and instead flying directly to get to a small city. Such an architecture enables the brain to ‘take roads less travelled’ and make novel connections.
McKinsey studied over 3 million designers and their organisations. The study showed that cross-functional or multidisciplinary team structures improve business performance in terms of revenue growth, profitability, and share price. Additionally, multidisciplinary teams also make for a better design process. Such teams approach design holistically and tackle complex problems more effectively by collaboratively considering a broader range of factors.
Within the industry, design is already considered as an integrative field of study involving the interaction of several disciplines but design education needs to be revisited and cross-disciplinary research methods need to be introduced into design education. Good designing is a mindful process where the designer invests time, effort and discipline into multiple areas of study.
Designers addressing 21st-century problems need more than creative thinking and a “traditional” model of design education. Modern problems require an advanced theoretical and cognitive model of education, divergent research methodologies and hence, a new model of cross-disciplinary design education.
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