Inspiration is the primary element of good design. Designers, however, also risk not being able to find inspiration. Novice designers commonly find themselves to be depressed during the conceptual design phase when they fail to find inspiration and the information to be creative. Accordingly, under the graphic design parameter, we have developed the ‘Analytic Composition Method (ACM)’ to guide novice designers in gradually breaking through their usual modes of thinking to construct their own methods of composition. This method provides a variety of creative modes for the design field. Three stages are presented in this study. A design method is first constructed based on the results of a pretest and the existing composition methods of graphical design. We then apply the design method to three iterations of graphic design instruction. Lastly, we conduct an expert interview to evaluate the usefulness of this method. The following are the results obtained. 1. Most of the participants tested sought inspiration visually; they usually began their design process from image data and do not use the data beyond imagery. 2. The results of teaching activities show that using this method as a tool for graphic design enables various sources of inspiration to generate different modes of thinking and creative expression. 3. Our method could potentially be used for basic composition training and project design execution. However, the application of this method may vary with different design objectives.

Creativity is important and constitutes a part of competitiveness in all walks of life. In the case of designers’ visual images, creativity is vital. Based on the perspective of visual design, visual image thinking has always been a widely used thinking mode in the field of design. Regarding whether or not other sensory stimuli can also provide a source of inspiration for designers, many studies have pointed out that different sources of inspiration can create different thinking patterns and even affect the behavior of a designer. Therefore, this study explores whether or not different sensory stimuli have an impact on the thinking of a designer, which in turn allows the designer to spark different inspirations. Here, we explore the relationships between creativity and vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In this study, novice designers are required to use their creativity to design their works. Through the execution of design tasks, works are produced in two stages. First of all, a scenic spot is decided as the main theme, while the data of the field are collected through observation and experience. Next, the five senses are used to feel the stimulation delivered by the field when located in the field. Last but not least, the five stimuli are transformed into abstract visual pictures. Different sensory stimuli do affect the thinking of a designer and inspire different types of works. A multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) forecasting method is also used to establish a method for evaluating creative designs. By making a comparison between the students and the experts, the results of the creative thinking test show that different sensory stimuli do affect the thinking of a designer and inspire different types of works.

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