Fostering Creative Thinking and Ingenuity in Design Education: Curriculum Practices in the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology MFA Illustration Programme

Abstract

Against the backdrop of rapid changes in technology and the media environment, design education has increasingly emphasized creativity; however, creativity alone is no longer sufficient to meet the demands of contemporary design practice for the ability to solve complex problems. This paper distinguishes between the concepts of creativity and ingenuity: creativity focuses on generating novel and appropriate ideas, while ingenuity emphasizes the ability to construct viable solutions under constraints, with incomplete information, and in complex situations. Based on this dual perspective, this paper examines the curriculum of the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology MFA Illustration program. The curriculum comprises three interrelated domains: cultural cognition, material practice, and technological intervention. Cultural cognition lays the conceptual foundation for creative thinking through field research, the study of Chinese painting history, and cross‐cultural comparisons; material practice utilizes physical materials such as mineral pigments, fibers, and wood to transform abstract concepts into tactile forms through collage, weaving, and mixed‐media experiments; technological intervention utilizes AIGC systems (such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion) to expand generative possibilities through human‐machine collaboration, while achieving creative transformation through manual refinement and judgment. Research indicates that creativity and ingenuity together constitute the core dimensions of design competence. With AI becoming increasingly integrated into creative production, design education should not only cultivate students' divergent thinking but also develop their ability to make contextual judgments and solve problems within cultural, material, and technological constraints.