Volker Albus
Professor of Product Design
Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe
Professor Albus, you teach product design. Can creativity be learnt?
Creativity is hardly something you learn; you’re either creative or you aren’t. Creativity does have various facets, however, which can be discovered and then subsequently trained and developed.
What is your creativity credo in your dealings with your students? How do you guide them?
I try to attend to each student individually and not assess him or her according to fixed abstract creativity parameters à la: If you can’t draw, you’re not creative, you’ve got no talent. The study of design at our college is structured accordingly. Everyone who studies here has the possibility of developing his or her very own creative self-understanding through a diverse range of projects offered by the different teachers. As a rule, this takes two to three semesters. After that, most students are in a position to organize their studies more or less independently.
What is creativity dependent on? What features and what environment favour creativity?
I think creativity has a lot to do with self-confidence. It is the ones who diverge significantly from the supposed norms who have to be encouraged and promoted in their unconventional views. This is not a matter of indulging every form of individuality, but rather of exploring the whole range of possible functions and uses, which sometimes takes you far beyond the familiar horizons of experience. This kind of self-confidence can only be developed where such forays into the unconventional are expressly encouraged.
When it comes to creativity, how would you asses training in Germany by international standards?
In principal, we can be satisfied with the training structures here. What we should do, however, is consider gradually extending the design study courses to include behaviour research. After all, increasingly design is developing into one of the main creative disciplines, like for example, architecture has been for some time now.
How do you judge the job prospects in the creative economy?
I see them as extremely good. Were the car industry, for example, to finally realize that buyers are not just focused on martial-looking body work, but also on a simple means of transport, it would hardly have the problems it has today. In other words: almost every realm of life is vitally dependent on the designer as a mediator between technological development and permanent socio-cultural change.
Thomas Rempen
Professor of Communication Design
Folkwang Hochschule Essen
Professor Rempen, can creativity be learnt?
Certain modes of achieving creative solutions can be practised. It is also possible to develop a persuasive style, the engaging aspect, the striving for beauty. But creativity as such cannot be learnt, in that we must realize that what we like to call great creativity involves not only a sense for what is possible, but also an equally justified sense for what is impossible.
What is your creativity credo in your dealings with your students?
I encourage them to create a striking design that they need not be ashamed of, never to seek a common denominator, not to consider the consumer as more stupid than themselves. Success means winning over peoples’ emotions.
What is creativity dependent on?
I believe you have to have a talent for it. Creativity requires curiosity, initiative, sensitivity, a security of style. But many an idea is also a matter of chance.
How do you judge training and job prospects in the creative sector?
Germany can certainly stand up to international comparison. There is a lot to be done in the creative economy and the job prospects are very good.
Axel Kufus
Professor of Design
Universität der Künste Berlin
Professor Kufus, can creativity be learnt?
I understand creativity as having the courage to effect change. The capacity to ask, to seek and find, or, if you find nothing, then to invent. This requires attention to and a sensitivity for the incidental, but also a delight in imaginative speculation. In order to teach this interplay, we initiate projects that repeatedly challenge our students.
What is your creative credo in your dealings with your students?
My ideal is that instead of adhering to a curriculum, students use the university as a rich field of experiment, and that we accompany them in their pursuits on equal terms, as advisors, critics and promoters, but also as co-learners.
How do you estimate training and job prospects in the creative economy in Germany?
Due to the standardized training, many students often just keep to the beaten path. But we are aware of our resources. Talent can only be promoted through individual support. Creativity cannot be restricted to a few areas. The old and the new economies should mutually inspire each other. That is how new visions thrive.
