Design Sparks is an AI-based web-app developed by The National Centre for Creativity enabled by AI (CebAI) that uses well-established creative problem solving techniques alongside AI to generate design ideas.

Users can input design problems or ideas into the app by typing, pasting a link, or uploading a PDF. The AI generates sparks, or design ideas, which users can save and browse through for later use.

Users can focus their idea generation by clicking on extracted topics, ask the AI to generate more ideas based on a specific spark, or adjust topic settings to analyze rare, common, or random themes.

Circular design will be a key pillar for more sustainable economies in the future. Design Sparks supports your creative thinking to generate ideas around preventing waste and pollution and creating durable, reusable, repairable and recyclable products.

A new set of sparks which direct the AI to generate ideas for more circular designs was launched at the Design for Planet Festival 2023, developed alongside experts from the Design Council and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

To try out this feature in Design Sparks simply go to theme settings, select the circular design option and click save.

The app allows users to choose a creative problem-solving technique to generate sparks based on.Design Sparks distinguishes itself from chatbots like ChatGPT with its interactive creativity prompts, curated knowledge, and insights components.

The web-app was developed to increase workforce creativity and improve productivity, competitiveness, and critical thinking. It was funded by Research England, with contributions from City, University of London, and over 20 industrial partners to the value of £7.6m.

The project is designed to be self-funding through licensing and consultancy services after the grant ends in 2024. Design Sparks is a valuable tool for service, product, UX/UI designers, and stakeholders to bounce around ideas, explore new perspectives, and possibilities.