Expanding the paradigm: Bringing designerly perspectives into creativity scholarship

Designerly ways of knowing have significant untapped potential to inform creativity research. In this article, I draw upon in-depth interviews with expert design scholars to examine this connection. Thematic analysis reveals how design offers potential lenses on creativity that are not often taken up in dominant psychological discourses around creativity. I situate this by framing the need for design-based knowledge within creativity literature. The findings reflect a view of creativity involving perception, intuition, and ability to re-see the world; creativity as an action-orientated phenomenon; and a focus on the ethics of creativity in an increasingly technology-empowered society. In exploring scholarly definitions of and views about creativity, there are insights on how design offers distinctive viewpoints for paradigms around creativity.