Response to Writer's Toolbox:

"Maps are points of departure for deeper investigations". Concept maps, brainstorming, brain writing, free writing, and word lists are used to help get ideas out on paper. They help to reveal the concept of the objects design, and what it is used for. While creating these maps we start with one main word in the center, the word of our object, and then branch off similar words of relation or functions of that object. Soon a person has a whole spider web full of words to play with and concepts to go off of. I remember doing this type of thing in elementary school as a way to get our minds flowing about a certain topic that we had to write about. Since I've been doing this for so long, it all seems too easy now. By using these word maps it helps to generate ideas a lot quicker than a person would think. The words that are written down also help to create ideas of what we might want an object to look like or how we want it to function. Using these maps helps a lot. "Free writing helps bring hidden ideas into the visible world". Writing also helps to generate ideas and helps lead to more ideas. I never knew or realized how much all these exercises really worked and how they made it so easy to come up with ideas and to transform them into new ones. I like that we use these techniques in our design process because they really do work. not only as and individual, but it helps others generate ideas and helps the group as a whole create one or even more amazing ideas for design.