Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last

by David Edwards

Overview

Most things we create will not matter. This book is about creating things that do, from a master innovator who brings science and art together in his cutting edge labs.

Art and science are famous opposites. Contemporary innovation mostly keeps them far apart. But in this book, David Edwards—world-renowned inventor; Harvard professor of the practice of idea translation; creator of breathable insulin, edible food packaging, and digital scents—reveals that the secret to creating very new things of lasting benefit, including innovations we will need to sustain human life on the planet, lies in perceiving art and science as one.

Here Edwards shares how he discovered a way of creating that transcends disciplines and incorporates the principles of aesthetics. He introduces us to cutting-edge artists, musicians, architects, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, chefs, choreographers, and novelists (among others) and uncovers a three-step cycle they all share in creating things that durably matter. This creator cycle looks unlike what we associate with game-changing innovation today, and aligns the most expressive art and the most revolutionary science in a radical reimagining of how we live. David Edwards and the innovators he profiles belong to an emerging grassroots renaissance flourishing in special environments that we all can make in our schools, companies and homes.

Creating Things That Matter is a book for anyone wondering what tomorrow might be, and at last half believing that what they do can make a difference.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250230713
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	11/12/2019
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	13.50(w) x 19.00(h) x 5.30(d)

About the Author

David Edwards is a creator, writer, and educator. He teaches at Harvard University and is founder of Le Laboratoire in Paris, France, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work, which spans the arts and sciences, has been featured prominently in the international media, and is at the core of the international artscience movement. He lives with his wife and their three sons in Boston.

Edwards is the author of Creating Things That Matter.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Part I - The Aesthetics of Creating

1. Creating in a World That No Longer Exists 3

2. Creating in a World That Does Exist 33

Part II - The Creator’s Cycle

3. Ideation: What If I Don’t Even Have an Idea? 61

4. Experimentation: What Will I Do Now? 95

5. Exhibition: Minding the Ball 137

Part III - Making a Future We All Want

6. Grassroots Renaissance 181

7. The Fire of Renaissance 207

8. Culture, Change, and Hope 227

Illustration Credits 267

Acknowledgments 269

Editorial Reviews

"[Edwards] offers a new model for creating things that can be hopeful, helpful — and commercially viable."

—The New York Times Book Review

“David Edwards offers a compelling take on how people from different disciplines can come together to create things of lasting value. It will change for the better the way you think about innovation.”

—Cal Newport, author of Deep Work

“‘What if I don’t have an idea?’ the author’s student asked in a class that required originality. His answer: Don’t worry. We all have ideas. Some seem horrid, some brilliant, some stupid (which are often the best): who knows which ones work and which don’t? Just try them. Brilliant things come from people who simply try. Great things matter, making a difference to the world. Is there more to it? Sure, so read the book. It will inspire you, enabling you to create great wonderful things that matter. Things that are simple, profound, important, and beautiful to the mind. You can do it: Yes, you.”

—Don Norman, author of Design of Everyday Things

“In this fascinating study, Edwards, Harvard professor and inventor, explores an adventurous approach to creating new products and services . . . His work imparts an invigorating sense of discovery and of hope for a more innovative, compassionate, and collaborative future.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A stimulating book, to be read and pondered as one might a set of cards from Brian Eno.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“How can we adults explore our passions, and create expressions of our ideas, some of which may turn out to be breakthroughs that the rest of the world has been waiting for, via child-like, yet honed and mature intuition and mindful engagement? Unlike self-help books encouraging us to tap into our own inner Picasso or Einstein, Creating Things That Matter focuses on the larger structures and contexts—artistic or scientific, commercial or altruistic—which best support and encourage ideation, experimentation, and perhaps most importantly, production. Schools, businesses, nonprofits, governments, angel investors, makers . . . check it out!”

—Joshua Glenn, co-author of Unbored

“Skillfully weaving together both art and science, David Edwards gives us all permission to create in ways that yield meaningful innovation for the world and deep and playful satisfaction for ourselves.”

—Ellen Langer, author of Mindfulness

“If you want to understand creators and creativity in our time, this is the book for you.”

—Howard Gardner, author of Creating Minds

From the Publisher

[Edwards] offers a new model for creating things that can be hopeful, helpful—and commercially viable.

The New York Times Book Review - Deborah Needleman

06/04/2018
In this fascinating study, Edwards, a Harvard professor and inventor, explores an adventurous approach to creating new products and services, positing it as crucial to a challenging period when “our many inventions, from skyscrapers to polyester clothing,” are causing as many problems as they solve. He distinguishes “commercial” and “cultural” approaches to creation—respectively concerned with a short-term impact on others, and with gratifying oneself—from his preferred “aesthetic” approach, which expresses one’s personal sense of the world but can also leave a lasting impression on others. Edwards cites insights from students in his Harvard class, “How to Create Things & Have Them Matter,” and provides in-depth case study examples—a chef who “changed the trajectory of haute cuisine” and helped popularize it; a prolific patent holder and engineer who exhibits “aesthetic empathy” in his collaborations with others; the executive producer of the American Repertory Theater, whose populist reimaginings of Shakespeare provide an example of “getting people to do the unexpected, and to enjoy it.” Edwards also draws historical examples from the Italian Renaissance to help readers understand “the stream of innovation coming at us today.” His work imparts an invigorating sense of discovery and of hope for a more innovative, compassionate, and collaborative future. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-08-13

You can create for profit, or you can create for lasting beauty. It's not hard to see where designer and teacher Edwards (The Lab: Creativity and Culture, 2010, etc.) comes down on the matter in this thought-provoking treatise.

"What if I don't have an idea?" asked a young participant in a Harvard class taught by the author. It's a good question guaranteed to prime the pump—for, Edwards goes on to say, his problem is never not having an idea but perhaps having too many, without much triage of what divides good from bad. "Having a creative idea and working to realize it," he adds, "is about starting and carrying on a passionate conversation that kicks off with curiosity and accelerates with a team bound together by empathy." The sentiment seems a little fuzzy, but it gets to some central points—e.g., creativity is fueled by curiosity and moved along by a community. Advocating a path that draws in equal measure on art and science, the author discusses some celebrated creators and the environments in which their ideas have flowed, from the Catalan chef Ferran Adrià to artistic director Diane Paulus, whose revivals of Hair and Pippin have proven to be great hits and who works in "a form of contemporary theater that toggles between Broadway and a planetarium, a disco club and urban streets and alleys." In talking about creativity and furthering it, Edwards prefers suggestions to hard rules, though some working principles can be adduced. For example, agility is a desideratum, "an ability to think on one's feet and move quickly in concert with others," to come up with solutions to pressing problems that rely as much on intuition as on hard research. Some of the problems that the author identifies call out for fast solving, too, such as reforming a food production system that once fed the world but now seems to be running out of juice.

A stimulating book, to be read and pondered as one might a set of cards from Brian Eno.

Kirkus Reviews