“Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked" -- Kenya Hara
Creativity often comes from reframing ideas into new contexts, new scales and new functionalities; to look at your problem from a totally different perspective. Reframe is a tool to help you do just that.
You upload the text that's been inspiring you recently--websites you've been perusing, papers you've been reading, the random notes that you've been writing--and the tool juxtaposes it in unexpected ways to help provoke new associations and inspire radically new ideas.
These prompts will not always 'make sense'; but that's the point! Allow yourself be open to ambiguity, embrace associations that seem irrelevant, use your imagination to inspire new interpretations and connections, and let this tool help disrupt your thinking...
HOW DO I USE IT?
> Refresh (or click on the logo top left) to generate a new prompt and click on the white words to change just that term.
> Click the save logo (bottom right) to save a jpg of any prompts that you like.
> You can customize the prompts to include words related to the projects you’re working on by clicking the upload button on bottom right (next to save) and entering the url to a new google spreadsheet (create a new one here then publish it to the web and get the sharable url).
> You can then copy/paste text, upload a pdf or url and click 'upload' and it should parse the text into your personalised spreadsheet and Reframe tool.
WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES TO INSPIRE ME?
Here's how others have customised the prompts for their own projects:
Yes! A physical instantiation of Reframe tool was also made in the form of a deck of cards for designers to use as a creative game to prompt new design ideas. Designers can randomly select a series of cards that form a design prompt sentence that can provoke new design ideas.
Download a template of the cards to make your own here.
You can read more about how we developed it here and some studies we've done on how it affects creativity here.
We'd love to hear what you think about the tool! Please get in touch at pip at media dot mit dot edu if you have any feedback or would like to discuss using it in your own projects or creative workshops.
