Design Creativity, Technical Execution & Aesthetic Appeal: A Cat with Caveats (Part 2)

DS 86: Proceedings of The Fourth International Conference on Design Creativity,Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

Year: 2016
Editor: Julie Linsey, Maria Yang, and Yukari Nagai
Author: Karl, Jeffries; Theodore, Zamenopoulos; Alison, Green
Series: ICDC
ISBN: 978-1-904670-82-7

Abstract

This study explores to what extent technical execution and aesthetic appeal may be related to
assessments of graphic design creativity. Eight professional graphic designers, using the Consensual
Assessment Technique (CAT), rated thirty-two artworks for a creative typographical task. The artwork
was created by novices who has no experience of graphic design, through to professional graphic
designers with 35 years of full-time experience. Building on previous studies, written instructions to
judges emphasised artwork be rated on creativity only (without considering technical execution and
aesthetic appeal), and this “creativity only” feature was verbally re-emphasised to judges by the
researcher. Inter-rater agreement for creativity was a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92; considerably higher than
in previous studies. This finding has implications that may extend to other areas of design and relate to
the use of the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) as a measure of design creativity more broadly.

Keywords: graphic design, creativity assessment, consensual assessment technique (CAT)