Design Creativity, Technical Execution and Aesthetic Appeal: A Cat with Caveats (Part 2)

Abstract

This study explores to what extent technical execution and aesthetic appeal may be related to assessments of graphic design creativity. Eight professional graphic designers, using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), rated thirty-two artworks for a creative typographical task. The artwork was created by novices who has no experience of graphic design, through to professional graphic designers with 35 years of full-time experience. Building on previous studies, written instructions to judges emphasised artwork be rated on creativity only (without considering technical execution and aesthetic appeal), and this “creativity only” feature was verbally re-emphasised to judges by the researcher. Inter-rater agreement for creativity was a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92; considerably higher than in previous studies. This finding has implications that may extend to other areas of design and relate to the use of the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) as a measure of design creativity more broadly.