the graphic design school blog

The most dif­fi­cult part of being a cre­at­ive of any kind is idea gen­er­a­tion. Why do you think there are so many copy-cats out there? There are sev­eral meth­ods avail­able to brainstorm.

Mind map­ping has been around since the 70’s, it’s uses and attrac­tion is snow­balling. So what is it? And how does it apply to Graphic Design?

Author: Simone Giorgi for The Graphic Design School
In between tutor­ing stu­dents in The Graphic Design School’s Online Course and writ­ing courses, we thought that we would whip up this little blog entry simply for your view­ing pleasure…Ahhh no sleep for the wicked! Enjoy!

What is a Mind Map?

A mind map is an intric­ate web of thoughts, ideas, names, words and images that all stem from one cent­ral idea or word in dia­gram form.

Many design­ers use Mind Map­ping to brain­storm and gen­er­ate ideas. The loose and visual man­ner in which a mind map is cre­ated is not only a fant­astic tool to ‘free up’ cre­ativ­ity, its a great way to com­mu­nic­ate to cli­ents, team mem­bers and pro­fess­ors while in a design’s concept phase.

Mind Map­ping: A Crash Course

Lets look at a mind map that has a topic that we are all famil­iar with before look­ing at a mind map in terms of a design tool.

One can see in the Mind Map above, the author has star­ted with a cent­ral topic ‘Solv­ing Global Warm­ing’. The main points then radi­ate out­ward from the centre. These rep­res­ent the main points of the Mind Map. Each one of these points sprouts its own branches and twigs. This star-like pat­tern of ideas is referred to as ‘Radi­ant Thinking’.

Get­ting the Cre­at­ive Juices Flowing

Mind map­ping expert Paul Fore­man has ded­ic­ated an enorm­ous amount of time to the study of mind map­ping, in his e-book entitled “Idea Cre­ation”, he shares his philo­sophy on open­ing up your mind to the cre­ation of ideas through mind mapping:

• Everything stems from a thought
• Every thought is a word
• Every idea is a thought
• Every word is a poten­tial idea
• Every image is a poten­tial idea
• Every thought is a poten­tial idea
• Good thoughts come when bad thoughts stop
• Good ideas come when bad ideas go
• You flick your brains switch to ‘on’ when you stop over-thinking
• Once you still the mind ideas come
• Patience allows time for ideas to evolve
• Pre­con­ceived notions only breed pre­con­ceived ideas
• Stress­ing for answers brings stress­ful results
• Stretch­ing your mind is effort­less and simple
• Say­ing: “I can’t think of any­thing” Really means: “I think I can’t think of anything”
• Ideas don’t dry up – thoughts do

Mind Map­ping in Graphic Design

So, now that you know a little of how mind map­ping works. How can you use a mind map while gen­er­at­ing design ideas?

We con­tac­ted Damien Horan. Renowned graphic designer for inter­na­tional surf brands, Mambo, Vol­com, Insight and a suc­cess­ful Freel­ance graphic designer in his own right.

Damien recently designed the logo and brand­ing for hip new restaurant/bar “Little Avalon” (named after the local surf break). Damien, hav­ing lived and surfed in the area for years knew all there was to know about the local surf culture.

Damien worked in con­junc­tion with infam­ous Mambo graphic designer and artist Jim Mitchel, in devel­op­ing the con­cepts and ideas for the bar. Damien knew that the bar had to appeal to the surf cul­ture in order to ‘make it’ in the Avalon scene.

Owner oper­ator Shane Clin­ton, wanted the ambi­ence of a chic inner city bar, with the familial feel­ing of local surf shops. It was import­ant that the brand­ing of Little Avalon, com­bine the cul­ture of city and surf. Not an easy task.

Damien had received his cli­ent brief and used these to define the map’s main branches. The res­ults of his research and images were then applied to the outer branches/twigs. Apply­ing these words and images to a mind map helped cre­ate visu­als, with rel­ev­ant con­nec­tions between the maps branches as well as between the twigs. Cre­at­ing a some­what intric­ate, yet easy to read, visual embod­i­ment of all design aspects that the logo needed to encompass.

Points real­ised through­out the process:

• Typeface must have serifs that rep­res­ent the organic shape of a wave.
• Inspired by a B&W photo of the area the color palette became very dark. Keep­ing it crisp, black and white were chosen.
• Explor­ing the avail­able typefaces with curved serifs, he was inspired to cre­ate his own font.
• An abbre­vi­ated ver­sion of ‘Little Avalon’… ‘LA’ was the loc­als appela­tion of the surf break, there­fore essen­tial to fea­ture it in the branding.
• The ‘LA’ and ‘Little Avalon’ where to remain inde­pend­ent of each other.

Damien’s work­ing sketches.

Hand Drawn Sketches

Com­puter Comps

Final Logos

Applic­a­tion

One can ima­gine eas­ily from this example how you may use a mind map in your career as a designer or dur­ing your stud­ies as a stu­dent. Although idea gen­er­a­tion is only one step of a much more involved design pro­cess. It is a recom­mend­able prac­tice to adopt at any level.

Unlike many meth­ods of brain­storm­ing that encour­age refin­ing the concept for an idea. A mind map does the oppos­ite, it helps us think hol­ist­ic­ally about a prob­lem and tackle it from all sides. Although most design­ers employ more than one method to brain­storm, we find mind map­ping a very suc­cess­ful way to get those cre­at­ive juices flowing.

Mind Map­ping Spread­ing its Wings

David Kel­ley, founder of IDEO one of the planet’s most innov­at­ive design firms, uses mind maps to foster cre­ativ­ity. IDEO designed the Apple mouse, the first laptop com­puter, and the Palm V.

Mind maps are a pop­u­lar think­ing tool in Sil­icon Val­ley. Kel­ley says:

When I want to do some­thing ana­lyt­ical, I make a list. When I’m try­ing to come up with ideas or strategize, I make a mind map. Mind maps are organic and allow me to free asso­ci­ate. They are great for ask­ing ques­tions and reveal­ing con­nec­tions between seem­ingly unre­lated ideas. I start in the cen­ter with the issue or prob­lem I am work­ing on and then as I move farther away I get bet­ter and bet­ter ideas as I force myself to fol­low the branches on the map and in my mind. The cool thing is that you allow your­self to fol­low your inner thoughts, which is dif­fer­ent than mak­ing a list where you are try­ing to be com­plete and deal with data.

Oprah magazine fea­tured an art­icle The Mind Map: “Six Steps to Get Your Cre­ativ­ity Flow­ing” on the role of mind map­ping and idea gen­er­a­tion tech­niques. In this art­icle Oprah states:

For­get Mak­ing a List! Lists often come from the organ­ized, ana­lyt­ical left side of your brain, and to solve an intract­able prob­lem, you want to engage the right, the cre­at­ive side. Make a mind map instead. Get a big piece of paper and start in the cen­ter with a circle that con­tains the ori­ginal prob­lem. Write dif­fer­ent solu­tions, and fol­low paths out­ward on the page, limb by limb, push­ing bey­ond the obvi­ous. To plan a party, for example, I put “A great din­ner party for friends” in the middle, and among the many branches, one went: “Make your own sundaes → mashed pota­toes → have dessert first → sit on floor → indoor pic­nic.” Another branch went: “Pro­gress­ive din­ner → go to a dif­fer­ent res­taur­ant for dessert(s) → show up at friends’ houses unin­vited → scav­enger hunt to find food.” A third: “Teach some­thing → learn some­thing → jug­gling → magic trick → expert invitee on food/wine.” Your to-do list will just get you from point A to B.

Other Fun Stuff, Extra Read­ing and Free Mind Map Templates

At The Graphic Design School, we are Mac lov­ers. We are now also iphone freaks, keep­ing in touch with the stu­dent forum when on the go is import­ant for staff and tutors. We found this groovy new free iphone app Zepto­Pad Brain­storm­ing App that allows you to mind map on the run!

A great mind map­ping applic­a­tion for black­berry also avail­able from Mind­Berry

Free Mind Map Tem­plates Ebook

Paul Fore­man from Mindmap Inspir­a­tion, has gen­er­ously donated read­ers an e-book with 22 mind map tem­plates. Down­load the Free Tem­plate Ebook here.

Art­icles

“A Mind Map From IDEO’s David Kel­ley», Busi­ness Week

“The Mind Map: Six Steps to Get Your Cre­ativ­ity Flow­ing», The Oprah Magazine

Gal­ler­ies

Mind Map Art Website

Tony Buzan

John Clapp’s Sketchbook

NovaMind’s Web­site

mappio.com

The Mind­jet Blog

Blogs

Mind Map Insiration

Mind Tools

mind-mapping.org

mindmapsearch.org

IQmat­rix Blog

Aus­tin Kleon Blog

The Mindmap Blog

Books

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day

Mind Maps at Work: How to Be the Best at Your Job and Still Have Time to Play

“Share Your Graphic Design Pro­cess Group” on Flickr

We have star­ted a group on flickr for Graphic Design­ers and stu­dents who wish to share their Graphic Design Process.

Share Your Graphic Design Pro­cess, on flickr