Expanding on Gardner’s Intelligences
Several months ago a graphic designer (in training) said to me, “But you’re not a visual thinker - we’re visual thinkers.” This was based on what? On the fact that I know how to write markup? Programming skills? So its something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I’m a strong believer that we make our own destiny and its all too easy to put yourself in a limited box (including visual thinkers boxes). And in a way what I think the person was referring to was very similar to Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
Howard Gardner identifed seven intelligences including linguistic, logical, spatial, musical, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal, and intra-personal. Later he found a number eight in the naturalist intelligence. Basically we possess a number of multiple intelligences and we each have a unique blend of these intelligences. Some people are famous for having a great intelligence in one area - such as the superior bodily kinaesthetic intelligence associated with a prima ballerina. But overall our multiple intelligences, at least in theory, are seen as working together and can be put to good use or bad. Hitler, a man of great interpersonal intelligence and charisma, chose a path of evil. Whereas Nelson Mandela has chosen a path of good.
So you can see where I’m coming from with this post - visual thinkers equals visual intelligence. Or would this come under spatial intelligence? The visual intelligence of graphic design and artistic endeavour? With the flip side being that as a designer you should be aware that your potential audience or user will also be of multiple intelligences. Some people may easily work out your obscure message while others are less intelligent in that regard. So you can see Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences is quite an interesting one.
Now we go further. How about emotional intelligence? Someone’s EQ (Emotional Quotient) is going to provide them with a more successful work career than their IQ (Intelligence Quotient). This is because a large part of business and the work environment involves empathy, emotional maturity and emotional labour. The four stages of emotional intelligence are self awareness, self management, social awareness and social management. Self awareness leads to self management and social awareness leads to relationship management.
While it is arguable under Gardner’s theory whether emotional intelligence is a real intelligence its worth considering. As individuals we bring many things to the table and not a single thing. The graphic designer that day was wrong - I am a visual thinker. I navigate my world visually, I admire and have a sense of proportion with an intuitive understanding of Gestalt Principles. I take photographs and do simple illustrations. I design web interfaces. But I am also an abstract thinker (a programmer), my relationship is strong (interpersonal intelligence) and I’ve grown to know myself and accept who I am over the years (intra-personal intelligence). I’m not a bad student (logical intelligence) and have strong ties to nature through animals (naturalist intelligence). I’m sure there are more.
If I weren’t a visual thinker, and if most people weren’t visual thinkers, then magazine cover design would be pointless. Graphic design would be at its knees. The whole point is that most people are visual thinkers and therefore graphic design is about marketing to us from that perspective. But if they meant I am a neanderthal in Illustrator then I see their point although that’s not what a visual thinker really means.
So my point of all this is don’t put yourself into a box. Be more than a visual thinker or an abstract thinker. Be whatever you want to be - learn to dance or sing or tickle fish in the wild streams of Scotland. And, most importantly, don’t forget that the people who use your designs aren’t as easily classified either.
