The Essential List of Glanside Creative Thinking Techniques

Simple Creative Techniques – Mixology

1. Metaphor, Simile, Analogy — Creative possibilities are explored by using comparisons with similar things.
2. Object Concepts — Creative ideas from concepts associated with an object.
3. Making Senses — Each of the 6 sense provide different points-of-departure from which creative themes can be taken forward.
4. Randomise — Random words and phrases provide potential solutions for creative development from a starting (specific) idea.
5. Switchblades — An extreme sideways glance provokes a fundamental change-of-position and so generates highly-creative ideas.
6. Link-Ups — Different but correlated ideas are brought together to generate new creative possibilities.
7. Chains — Each chain begins with a specific idea and extends out into a linked series of creative general ideas.
8. Organics — Creative ideas from concepts associated with organic objects give rise to a different character of general ideas.
9. Hook-Ups — Contrasted & unrelated ideas forced together to produce highly creative ideas for the development of creative work.
10. Character Sketching — The perspective of different characters provides a base for the development of a creative work.
11. Lateral Displacement — A displacement from the original ideas – e.g. Reality, but untested – provides new creative possibilities.
12. Laddering — Ladder-rungs of connections lead off into new creative possibilities.
13. Facets — Examines detail linked to different elements of the narrative.
14. Cascades — Consecutive, more precise redefinition of the starting ideas creates closely-linked creative possibilities.
15. Perimeters — Words that define the perimeter of a specific idea – expressed as a phrase – are changed separately & methodically.
16. Redefinitions — Re-conceiving, reimagining or rethinking of individual ingredients produces new creative possibilities.

Simple Creative Techniques – Cultivation

1. Attribute Listing — examining different Attributes, each in turn, that a creative work could explore.
2. IWWM — asking different questions of the specific ideas being explored in the form of IWWM.
3. So What? — beginning from a specific idea – i.e. a state or action that is to be explored – the question ‘So What?’ is posed.
4. Dry Roasting — focuses on the raw ingredients the creative work needs to contain with points-of-departure developed from those ingredients.
5. Just Write — Descriptive passages are written in response to provocation from pictures, depictions, evocations etc.
6. Why? Why? Why? — working from the specific ideas and asking and answering the question why? repeatedly to discover creative possibilities.
7. 5W1H — working from the specific ideas and asking the questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? to discover creative possibilities.
8. Forward Vision — working from the specific ideas and visioning different ways in which the creative work could develop.
9. Springboards — the use of one a series of set phrases that are likely prompt the free writing or design of a creative option.
10. Lenses — New creative possibilities through looking at a starting idea from a particular view-point, emotion, attitude etc.

Creative Techniques – Bonus Pack

1. Addition & Subtraction — A qualifying word or statement is added to or subtracted from the opening specific idea.
2. The Mind Map — The classic technique of listing and interconnecting the web of ideas that structure a creative work.
3. CAMERA — Combine – Arrange – Modify – Eliminate – Reverse – Adapt the starting (specific) idea to generate creative solutions.
4. Working Through Time — development in the scenario is envisioned over a period of one hour, one day, one week, one month etc.
5. Extreme Analogies — Highly creative possibilities are explored by comparison with things that are distant from the original idea.
6. Aliens — a lens through which creative possibilities are generated from an extreme or divorced view-point or perspective.
7. Reversals — Reversing ideas, assumptions, beliefs, events to produce a new direction for a creative work.
8. Obstacles — The search for solutions to an imagined obstacle offers new directions for a creative work to tackle.
9. Solutions Before Problems — Working backwards from the creative work outcome produces new pathways from the specific idea.
10. Barstool — The Barstool technique purposefully explores the contrary View-from-the-Barstool.

Complex Creative Techniques

1. Essential Glanside — A framework with which Glanside Thinking Techniques can be harnessed.
2. Material Fusion — A process of scanning for ideas, and collecting and development ideas, from multiple external sources.
3. Lens Illumination — A reliable process for managing the development of a creative work.
4. Mixology 1 — The use of a cascade of simple creative techniques to generate many, creative possibilities for the development of a creative work.
5. Mixology 2 — The use of a cascade of simple creative techniques to generate many, creative possibilities for the development of a creative work.
6. Cultivation 1 — A summary of Cultivation techniques that are used to sort, categorise and build on ideas developed in mixology.
7. Cultivation 2 — A summary of Cultivation techniques that are used to sort, categorise and build on ideas developed in mixology.
8. Six Thinking Hats — A technique that can be used to manage any creative thinking process.
9. Visual Creativity – A summary of creative techniques rooted in visual creative thinking.
10. The Bonus Pack — Additional creative techniques provide some different, easy-to-use approaches.

All Sections

The Simple Techniques section of the Glanside website offers individual creative techniques that can help in the design and development of any creative project.

The Complex Techniques section of the Glanside website shows how Glanside Creative Techniques connect and combine to offer a diverse range of creative solutions to tackle any project.

The Applied Glanside section of the Glanside website shows examples of texts that were developed using Glanside creative techniques

The Graphic Glanside section shows the how illustration can be used to add depth to the creative process.

The Features section offers articles investigating the background of creativity and approaches to enhancing creativity