When the tool shapes the mind

“Design is about the mind, not the software”. That’s one thing I said very often earlier on my journey as a design leader.

While that remains true, it is dangerously incomplete. What I often left out, mostly out of my limited experience, was how much the mind benefits from the tool.

However, over the years, I’ve observed that the designers with more depth and range with the software also turned out to be more creative and boundless with their expressions.

The correlation? Possibilities. The more you can make happen, the more possibilities you can imagine and attempt.

A possible takeaway is to go beyond the ‘brilliant mind’ comfort zone of your field and get proficient with the technical tools. An even smarter approach might be to spend that time getting familiar with the emerging tools powered by AI, which promise to make more happen, potentially stretching our minds endlessly.

Creativity is, after all, about data points colliding in our brains. The more we have seen, and can try, the more new combinations we can come up with, and try out.