Developing Creativity in a Polymathic Environment

This text focuses on the idea of the creative polymath (in reference to Professor Alan Male's proposal of the “Polymath Principle”) in relation to contemporary multidisciplinary practice in higher education and industry. It is argued that creative disciplines such as illustration are emerging from a long period of isolation, and that higher education is involved in a process of inventing and reinventing connections and relationships between these disciplines in rich and potentially unpredictable ways. This includes the fresh perception of the contemporary illustrator (and ergo illustration student) as an authorial, proactive, and creative force, whose critical faculties and visual fluency can be employed in a creative team to help solve existing and (as yet undefined) future-facing problems.

It is argued in the chapter that this phenomenon has emerged in higher education for illustration (and other creative disciplines) due to a number of interlinked factors. These factors include the historical model of the polymath from past to present, which is linked to the Californian “revolution” in digital technologies. A further factor is the national and international directives on the multidisciplinary future of higher education and its relationship with working practices in the creative industries. In addition, there is the factor of theories and definitions on the nature of creativity, which link to pedagogy for creativity. A final factor is the examination of evidence provided by interviews with contemporary, multidisciplinary, and illustration-oriented creative practitioners.

In conclusion, pathways are explored as to where this may lead in the future for the higher education illustration student, who, besides working within traditional illustration channels and outlets, may well work during their career as an animator, type designer, games designer, author, visual journalist, sculptor, textile designer, fine artist, creative in advertising, copywriter, web designer, business entrepreneur, art director for film and television, photographer, exhibition designer, higher education visiting lecturer, career academic, conference speaker…