The Idea Factory — Great ideas are hard to find. Drawing makes it a lot easier. And fun. How? In a creative process drawing can play four different roles. Let’s say, we want to come up with ideas for a new flower pot. 1. Study: Fill your mind

No idea? — The basic recipe for good ideas is really simple: Just create a lot of options and then pick the best one.

Are we cut off from the outer world, trapped alone in our personal experience? In 1979 the psychologist J.J. Gibson wrote a famous book with a different view — and it can change the way we see the world. Read the full story 👉 here. Please note: Medium will NOT show you stories of the authors you follow. Please follow me on 👉 substack instead!

If we want to understand what a picture is, then we must look at the difference between perception and imagination. 1. Perception If you asked me to make a drawing of the plant on my balcony, I could go look and make something like this:

Designers share a problem with politicians and business consultants: nobody knows what they are actually doing. I can shed some light on what designers do. They shape our daily environment. How? They make things. Things like products, communication or systems that meet our needs and offer meaning. Designers make these things understandable, useful, and beautiful. They introduce new ideas into our daily lives.

Whenever I tell someone that I have studied Philosophy, the first question is always the same: „Why would you do that?“ Because it’s incredibly useful! Philosophy is a highly practical craft — the craft of thinking. Here are five useful things that I have learned from studying Philosophy: Read the full story 👉 here. Please note: Medium will NOT show you stories of the authors you follow. Please follow me on 👉 substack instead!

Some people claim that there is no truth. According to these sceptics everybody is stuck in their own personal perspective. Nobody can ever know anything for sure. Then again dogmatists believe in only one set of beliefs, which must not be questioned at all. Everybody must believe the same things, whether they are true or not.

Confucius 孔夫子, one of the great Chinese thinkers, was known to always carefully straighten his mat before he sat down. Why? Virtue — from inside to outside Living in a time of political turmoil Confucius wondered how to create a better society. His answer was that we do not need an elaborate system of rules. What we need is people — and in particular leaders — with a good character. Instead of telling others what to do…

Navigate life with this ancient Chinese book — How can we live in a world that is constantly changing? The Yijing 易經 or “Book of Change” is one of China’s oldest books and a corner stone of Chinese philosophy. It tells us how to understand change, how to find out what kind of change we are in right now, and how to deal with it. It is also very…