75Tools
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At Booreiland, we start every project with a solid dose of creative thinking. Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, we’ve got an arsenal of proven techniques to get our creative juices flowing. One day we had a light bulb moment, and decided these creative tools were far too good to keep to ourselves. So we transformed them into a deck of cards that could be used by anyone who needs creative inspiration.
Client — Self-initiated
Products — Tool · App · Branding · Campaign website
Disciplines — Interaction design · Visual design · Front-end development · Back-end development · Brand communication
Year — 2012 / 2017
Creativity is a skill that anyone can master, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. To make the creative process accessible to absolutely everyone, we grouped our favorite creativity techniques into five categories: Get Started, Check Around, Break It Down, Break Free and Evaluate & Select.
The cards can be used independently or as a five-step process, depending on your project and where you need more ideas.
The graphic design gets you in the mood to start brainstorming with simple sketches like you might make on a flip chart. The front of each card is limited to a title and graphic, plus color coding for the five categories.
The back of each card reads almost like a recipe, showing the key ingredients (time and participants) at the top, followed by a clear set of instructions. Despite featuring lots of text, the layout makes it easy to scan and determine if the approach is relevant for your project.
We loved the tactile aspect of the card deck, but also wanted the concepts to be available when you’re on the go. So we made a companion app accompanied by a fun website to support the launch.The free version of the app includes three cards per category, while the paid version offers the full deck.
The physical card deck is a great tool to keep on your desk, but isn’t ideal when you’re running around. The app is more convenient and serves a wider variety of user journeys. For example, some of our customers are creative facilitators who enjoy using the cards when they’re leading a workshop.
The app allows them to tag their favorites or save strings of cards without having to worry about leaving anything behind. Other customers want to browse through the tips on the go, and carrying around the box is simply a hassle.
To maintain the brand identity and highlight the importance of each individual tool, we kept the visual association with the cards. However, we took advantage of the digital capabilities to create the best possible user experience, implementing features for browsing, searching and saving favorites. We also put a lot of thought into the transitions to make it easy for users to focus and find their way.
These tools are meant to provide inspiration – they’re certainly not rules set in stone. To ensure that the tools can evolve along with the creative people using them, we’re planning to add new features that will allow users to create and/or modify cards to suit their needs.
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