Physical Tools for Creativity with Textile Materials

This paper seeks to develop a better understanding of how physical objects can stimulate creativity, studying the case of textile material samples employed to inspire textile designers to use new responsive materials and technologies in their designs. I show: 1) how physical objects can act both as triggers for idea generation and as solution proposals in a design process; 2) how the correlation between the developed idea and the relevant inspirational material can be of different kinds and 3) how the complexity and level of generic character of material samples influence their inspirational qualities. I finish with a brief presentation of an ongoing project investigating how architects can be inspired to use textile materials.