I just found an interesting poster at allposters.com. It reads: “Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” Do you believe that?

It certainly takes creativity to make something complicated seem simple — one would have to be very creative to explain rocket science to a 5-year-old. But I don’t think there’s anything commonplace about making something simple complicated. Who among us hasn’t bought a strand of beads that, despite some fabulous quality — a lovely hue, an inner glow, an interesting shape — are otherwise unremarkable? Yet we buy the beads because we know that the right combination of other beads and components will turn the simple into something beautifully complicated. And far from being commonplace, this act of creating jewelry from simple elements is challenging because we don’t want to over-design, that is, overcompensate for the simplicity of the beads. No matter how complicated the design, we want our work to look easy. Now that takes creativity!

How do you define creativity?