Nugs

The Ingenious Innovative Designers Journal

An idea I have toyed with for a few years.   I am thinking about the ways that idea generators might engage children’s ability to be creative.  I am thinking about creating a medium for challenging them to create, design, illustrate, imagine solutions to simple but sort of exotic ideas.

• Imagine a new vegetable.

• • What does it look like?
  • How does it smell?
  • How does it taste?
  • Create a recipe for this new vegetable.
• Design a room
  • for elephant dancers to practice in.
  • for children to learn in.
  • for baby dinosaurs to take showers or baths in.
• Design an amusement park that does not require any electiricty.
  • What makes stuff move?
• Imagine a neighborhood where everyone shares one backyard. 
  
  • Design the layout of the neighborhood.
  • What does the backyard need?
• Create an animal that only eats fish but lives in trees.
  • How does it feed itself?
  • How does it move around?
  • How has its body adapted to its unique condition?
• Illustrate a dance ceremony to celebrate:
  • a beautiful snow storm.
  • an important national leader.
  • your friends birthday.
• etc.

It might be a book, like the uncoloring books, with a cover that looks almost like a manual for an adult architect or designer.  It might be a set of cards that parents can use on a road trip or teachers can use for sketchbook and writing starters.  Maybe it is on-line and includes a gallery to upload images to share.  Maybe it is multidimensional.  In the meantime I am collecting ideas for the “exotic ideas!”