Design creativity: smart or slow?

The current economic phase has been called ‘knowledge economy’. The effect, most directly linked to it, is the development of the ‘creative industries’ and, probably, it’s design which more than ever embodies the concept of creativity. In fact, the cultural debate has recognized a condition of reciprocity between creativity and innovation. And design capability moves within various combinations of three key aspects of the relationship between creativity and innovation: the generative process that focuses on the context; the rearrangement made with cultures; and the production of connections. The varying relationships between these three lie in a range with what is known as ‘slow creativity’ at one extreme and ‘smart creativity’ at the other. A range where, nowadays, both designers and companies seem to work with a wealth of approaches, which are increasingly removed, from any reasoning involving coded languages or validated aesthetics.