Shaking it up

Thinking outside the box

So much is made of “thinking out-of-the-box” that it is beginning to sound trite. And where is the line that differentiates out-of-the-box thinking from way-out-there thinking or out-in-left-field thinking? Does that really matter?

Sometimes the solution you end up with is perfect—maybe not for the problem you began with, but for something else. I guess what matters is the process by which you arrived at that particular solution. It’s what happens when we try to reach beyond ourselves. Sometimes it works out perfectly; most often it doesn’t or hasn’t gone far enough.
The great part about this is what you find along the way. It’s about the journey and how all those granules of bits of information have a way of congealing into something else. Maybe that’s what they mean by thinking outside what would be considered the norm. And how pedestrian ideas become new and fresh when they begin with disparate elements and are somehow given a twist that transforms them into something surprising and attention-getting.

I came across this video on the website of an interactive visionary named Brendan Dawes:
http://www.brendandawes.com/sketches/snowglobe/
…who reaches outside his already exceptional knowledge base to find innovative ways to push interface design to a different level.

By fusing two disparate things, Flash and a snow globe, he came up with an entirely new interface to communicate with the medium. Although he hasn’t yet found a practical use for this new interface, his exploration of this concept could lead to one. It clearly demonstrates how something new can result from thinking outside … well, you know what I mean.

Check out the website and start shaking things up in your world.