Research

Over the course of my academic career, I’ve explored knowledge areas related to brand-building, design, and creativity. Here are some of the topics that have piqued my interest.

Creative Clarity

Capstone research completed for my Master of Arts in Design Management at SCAD. I designed a framework for idea generation rooted in creative flow. Studying the literature led me to create a new, practical model for creative professionals who are struggling in the ideation process, in other words: struggling at finding creative clarity.

The model is called CLEAR, and it involves 5 steps:

1. Concentrate: this stage has to do with finding focus through mindfulness, reaching flow, and breaking creative blocks. We avoid distractions, prepare and direct our attention to engage in the creative process.
2. Liberate: this stage is about engaging in ideation by exercising divergent thinking in the creative process. We let ideas flow unrestrictedly, without judging them. This phase is related to brainstorming.
3. Externalize: we record the concepts that emerge using idea visualization techniques. In other words, we externalize the ideas that have just been generated into visual models that can help us evaluate them and expand on them.
4. Abstract: this is where creative production happens. We use convergent thinking to abstract the best from our previous ideas and formulate them as creative solutions. In other words, we narrow down our initial list of ideas into an actionable set of solutions for the problem at hand. We explore how these solutions would come to life and summarize it in a physical document.
5. Rest: has to do with maintaining motivation, protecting creativity, and preventing burnout. We let our mind and body rest, while continuously engaging in positive affirmations that maintain our creative confidence and motivation at healthy, sustainable levels. We avoid activities, people, and places that suffocate our creativity.

Creative professionals face wicked problems, the “class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision-makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing.” (Buchanan, 1992).

Lean Branding

Research completed in support of Lean Branding, a book published by O’Reilly Media. The work gave way to a three-part conception of brand development: story, symbols, and strategy. This research resulted in a second title called Powering Content and also inspired the notion of a Brand System, distilled in this article I wrote for Smashing Magazine.

Nostalgic Branding

Doctoral dissertation completed for my Ph.D. in Psychology at Universidad del Norte, through a full scholarship from Colombia’s Ministry of Science. I explored the psychological triggers and outcomes of nostalgia in relation to brand building and symbolic consumption.