Designing as an Activist

I have used the Double Diamond a creative process was developed by the British Design Council in 2005. The Double Diamond process was developed internally to unite and visualise creative processes from a wide variety of fields.

The process is a visualisation of a creative process, or a design activity, that can be undertaken across a series of week or a sprint - sometime 10 days or 5 days. It is used by both artists and designers and companies like Apple, Lego and Google.

It allows the ‘producer’ - the artist or designer, to engage in a ‘Discocery Phase - the first dimanond and a ‘Design Phase’ the second diamaond. Each diamonf is in two stages consisitng of a divergenet and convergent set of creative activties. 

The Discovery Phase features a divergent phase of problem or challenge definistion where the scope of the work is outlined and research activities are undertaken that encorages exploration.

The second stage of this phase then follows wehre there is a convergence process to focus in insights, understanding and a specfic set of challenges of problems or  ‘hypothesis’. 

The second Diamond is concerned with ideation and developing alternatives and exploring. The third stage is divergent again and is  generative process of diververgent thinking where a series of alternative ideas are generated rapidly in an exercise of exploration. 

Finally in the fourth stage the prodcuer adopts convergent thiking again to focus on on the final delvierables.This is the prodcution stage and can be used to produce and delvier final consepts, graphic work or 3D pieces or an installation or product. 

The Double Diamand is a highly adaptable creative process that is used by both artists and designers as well as groups, collaborators and teams.