
Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

From the Publisher. IDEO founder and Stanford d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and the author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation, have written a powerful and compelling book on unleashing the creativity that lies within each and every one of us.
Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.
David Kelley is one of the founders of IDEO and of the Stanford d.school (note the small “d,” using Silicon Valley-style informality for what is officially the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design). His brother Tom Kelley is an IDEO partner and the author of the best-selling book The Art of Innovation. The brothers’ new book builds on the idea of innovation, America’s favorite business value these days, and is wrapped in the concept of “design thinking.”
The book looks like one of those business books for sale in airport shops, with big type, lots of pull quotes in large type, and bullet points. This is unfortunate, because it is more profound than that and packed with important ideas. “Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the ‘creative types,’” the authors argue. Their idea is to show that everyone can and must be creative—by which they mean everyone also can and must be innovative and, yes, can and must be designers.
Creative Confidence is full of useful techniques for analysis and research (and indeed indoctrination) taken from IDEO’s practice to bolster this claim. Many of IDEO’s famous techniques involve groups. They are also good politics for designers, who must persuade employees of companies they are doing something important to have their work implemented.
Some of the Kelleys’ advice provides the commendable function of demystifying creativity. For instance, one page shows a box of tips on how to look at customers of clients—hang around, like a fly on the wall, talk to longtime employees like a receptionist, experiment with customer service. There is the suggestion of what the Kelleys call a “bug list,” to chart defects in a situation or product. The brothers also address the problem of getting people to draw who don’t normally do so, with a series of exercises and a suggested stick figure vocabulary.
Another of the Kelleys’ key points is the need to celebrate failure. One case of repeated failure they cite is that of Ankit Gupta, who developed the iPhone app Pulse while still a student. The story demonstrates the importance of iteration: the designer spent days working on the app in café on University Ave in Palo Alto, taking suggestions from other cafe customers. “1 learned that creativity is always hindsight,” says Ankit. “It's not about just coming up with the one genius idea that solves the problem, but trying and failing at a hundred other solutions before arriving at the best one.” The story suggests one of the many ways the word “creativity” itself needs a redefinition—or is that redesign?
Like design thinking or innovation—both overused terms—creativity as a word may be a problem. Creativity suggests imagination, whole visions, and worlds. But many of the situations and solutions described in the book are closer to cleverness than creativity. The point may be that the innovative and creative are often not so brilliant or aesthetic. Many of the suggested creativity exercises end up turning a situation sideways to look at it from a new perspective.
The book’s voice slips from “we” to those of individual brothers in a slightly strange way. The pair wrote the book when David Kelley was fighting for his life against cancer, we are told in first few pages—jarringly, since the news comes amid the book’s upbeat, even jaunty graphics. Perhaps this is why it appears at times to be a summary of life lessons as much as a book on design. But that could be the point, since the argument of Creative Confidence is redefining creativity.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 25, 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- The Creative Interviewer: Debbie Millman on Why Design Matters
- Le Corbusier: A Legacy in Books
- Eugene Feldman, Co-Editor, and Co-Designer of The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn
- The Illustrated Book in Italy, 1918–1945
- Louis Kahn: A Memoir
Recent Articles


