ABSTRACT
This article discusses the development and results of some Productive Thinking Stimulation Techniques (TEPP – from the Portuguese Técnicas de Estimulação do Pensamento Produtivo), which are being implemented by the authors at Lisbon School of Architecture since 2007, and exclusively at the Fashion Design Bachelor since 2013. To foster the students’ creative abilities, which serve as one of the main activities in a designers’ projectual activity, these pragmatic approaches to stimulate high creativity address creative cognition, divergent thinking techniques focused on analogical reasoning. They also seek to fortify the students with a personal and distinctive frame of references through self-knowledge iterations as well as the contact with leading professionals’ sources of inspiration. The students’ insights about the activities/exercises carried out, and the impact they had on their design processes provided a proper understanding of the importance of these pragmatic approaches. The achieved results also pointed out that there is a need to develop more activities that foster their ability to think, analyse and create afterwards. The use of ‘lateral thinking’ techniques, serendipity, analogical reasoning, among others, allow the strengthening of the upcoming designer’s creative abilities and increase their willingness to take chances in unexplored fields and themes.
