Introduction

Creativity is vital for navigating the ever-more complicated and unexpected dynamics of modern living (Kaufman et al., 2022). It is also viewed as an indicator of learning efficacy, making it crucial to education. Although it's been acknowledged for a while, creativity can sometimes be overlooked in the educational context (Kaufman et al., 2022). Recently, there has been an effort to prioritize creativity in teaching, with educational institutions worldwide encouraging more creative approaches over conventional methods (Han & Abdrahim, 2023). The creative process is an iterative series of steps that facilitate continuous development of one's potential. There are several creativity models, such as Wallas' four-stage model, which starts with preparation and ends with validation (Botella et al., 2018: 2). Botella et al. (2011) proposed a more detailed creativity model regarding art creation, including preparation, concentration, incubation, ideation, illumination, verification, planning, implementation, and finally verification. Other models considered recipients as a part of the creative process, such as Cropley and Cropley (2012), as they incorporated communicating novel ideas to recipients and receiving their feedback as main stages for creativity in general. Bruford (2015) suggested four stages of creativity in the music field, including communication and evaluation by the recipients. Botella et al. (2018) also considered communication a main stage in the creativity process; however, it was described in the educational context as presenting ideas to instructors.

Communication is a vital part of creativity, as the outcome needs to be created and communicated to the public; this is what gives the whole creative experience its significance and value (Bruford, 2015). According to Miller et al. (2023), communicating creative ideas to an audience is crucial for creativity and needs to be prioritized in the educational context to prepare students for their future profession. However, evaluating communication methodologies can be challenging. Both creating and receiving the outcome are intensively emotional processes, and designs are like artworks that only exist in unique experiences for creators and recipients (Dewey, 1958). Therefore, studying the creative process, especially in design-related fields, needs to include a deep understanding of both creators' and recipients' experiences and the nature of communication delivered by the creative outcome.

The majority of the studies in the art and design fields proposed creativity models and discussed them theoretically or through interviewing the students regarding their creation process. Creativity models need to be applied in the field to confirm their validity. Thus, modeling the creative process in the art and design fields could assist lecturers in designing their courses more efficiently (Botella et al., 2018). According to Journeaux and Mottram (2015), there have been noticeable gaps between creativity theories and their application in the design-related education fields.

This study proposes a seven-stage framework for creativity in the textile design field in an educational context. It addresses the gap between theory and application by applying the proposed model to the printed furnishing textiles course at Damietta University in Egypt. This model provides an integrative vision as it covers the main pillars of the creative process: creators, recipients, and creation. It emphasizes communication as a significant stage of the creative process, focusing on understanding the nature of communication between recipients and creators through their creation. The proposed creativity framework is based mainly on providing the students with a unique experience. They can learn how to think creatively by drawing inspiration from unconventional sources to present their ideas authentically and impact their recipients and field, as creative inspiration sources play a major role in shaping the students' experiences and influencing recipients' emotions (Mandour, 2022). The study focuses on unique aspects of the national Egyptian heritage as the inspiration source for designing printed furnishing textiles. Zhang and Gao (2022) demonstrated that inspiring textile designs from national heritage is an influencing and future development path that links culture and history to our modern world. This study adopted exhibitions as the ideal method for communicating design ideas and enhancing interaction between students and recipients. According to Zhelnina and Tereshchenko (2021), exhibitions positively influence students' creative abilities and assist in conveying their emotions, ideas, and thoughts to their recipients. The current study includes an exhibition questionnaire for recipients to evaluate the students' creative outputs and support their engagement within the creative process. Additionally, the study involves a questionnaire for the students to reveal the challenges and examining the efficiency of the applied creativity framework.

The main pillars of the creative process

Creativity is defined as "the occurrence of a new and valid composition" (Bellini, 2024: 36). It involves the ability to explore unconventional paths. Therefore, the creative process aligns with design thinking in expressing ''a special case of problem-solving'' (Bellini, 2024: 83). The design process aims mainly at achieving aesthetic considerations and the satisfaction of recipients (Soonsan, 2017: 259). Novelty and uniqueness have recently become major requirements for any design idea (Mandour, 2022). Thus, the design thinking process requires a high degree of creativity (Bonnardel et al., 2018).

Creativity is often described as "a human potential" (Bellini, 2024: 8). Design thinking emerges from the creators' imagination, envisioning something they have not previously experienced. The creator communicates his or her experiences by interacting with the medium. As a result, any creative design gains its value through the skill and unique experience of its creator. The experiences of the creators and their connections with their works were the subject of several studies. Piirto (2009) discussed the in-domain creators' attitudes and inspiration sources during their creation process. Botell et al. (2013) revealed the various stages and main factors of the creative process from the creators' perceptions. The influencing factors of the creator-material interaction throughout the creative process were covered by Darwish (2016). Botell et al. (2018) determined the nature and specific course of the creative process based on the creators' experiences.

The design process depends mainly on considering and satisfying recipients; the creative process is only completed by the recipients' recognition as well. The designer can shape his/her emotions into their work to convey their experiences to the recipients. Recipients play a significant role as the creator envisions their reaction during creation, even if the creative output has not been displayed yet (Bellini, 2024). Both recipients and creators are partners in the creative process, and what defines creativity is the ability of the creator to elicit a response in the recipient as the creator's experience reacts with the recipient's (Dasgupta, 2019). Setai et al. (2019) demonstrated that, through creation, the creator invites the recipient to perceive reality differently by offering their perceptions. To facilitate this communication, creators need to be sensitive, able to see both beneath and beyond the surface, and capable of conveying their visions in original, innovative, and skillful ways (Bellini, 2024). It was also stated that the physical presence of the creator may impact the recipients' interaction with the creative output (Bell, 2014). In general, new ideas are only acknowledged as creative when accepted and legitimized in a certain field (Cattani & Ferriani, 2008). The essential role of recipients in the creative process has been articulated in several studies. Cattani and Ferriani (2008) discussed that creative output cannot be manifested without the support and recognition of the recipients. According to Devitt et al. (2003), the recipients' interaction with creative outputs can be categorized as recognizing, responding to, and acting meaningfully. Bell (2014) explored the role of media in crossing boundaries and activating interactions between creators and recipients. Csikszentmihalyi and Nakamura (2014) proposed that the creative process involves three components: the creative individual, the symbolic domain, and the social field. The symbolic domain is typically expressed through the act of creation, and the social field is comprised of the people who acknowledge and assess the creative output. The creative process cannot be studied in isolation from the creators and recipients, as the creation forms a dynamic interaction between both of them and their experiences. Therefore, creators, creation, and recipients, as the three main pillars of creativity, need to be studied integratively and go from theory to practice in the design thinking process.

Creativity and design thinking models

Creativity is often interpreted through various components or stages (Calonico, 2016). The creative process involves a series of ideas and actions that result in novel and appropriate creations. Most creativity models are based on data from interviews and observations (Botella et al., 2018). In 1926, Graham Wallas proposed the first creativity model consisting of four phases: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The preparation phase involves defining the problem; incubation includes the time taken by creators away from their creation to develop their ideas; illumination refers to the emergence of creative ideas; and verification determines the applicability of the novel ideas to solve the problem (Calonico, 2016). Another four-phase creativity model was suggested by Mac & Ward (2002) which includes conception, ideation, implementation, and evaluation. Conception defines the main concept, ideation structures the creative idea, implementation transforms the idea into a physical entity, and the final stage involves evaluating the creative output by the creators. Mumford et al. outlined a more complex series of steps in 1991, including idea generation, information encoding, category search, definition of best-fitting categories, assessment, implementation, and monitoring (Bonnardel et al., 2018).

The design thinking models also consist of several phases, typically ranging from 3 to 7, which align with the stages of the creativity models. The main stages in design thinking models are preparation, ideation, prototyping, and testing. In design thinking models, preparation involves defining, researching, understanding, and observing the situation or problem before generating creative design ideas. Prototyping refers to visualizing the generated ideas, and testing involves the final evaluation of the implemented ideas. Most design thinking approaches conclude with a test phase, which, along with the prototype phase, corresponds to the verification and evaluation steps in the creative process models. Geissdoerfer et al. suggested a six-stage design thinking model: understanding, observation, defining, ideation, prototyping, and testing. The McCarthy model, to some extent, considered recipients by adding delivery as a final step of the design thinking process (Waidelich et al., 2018). Also, another creativity model proposed by Runco (1997) added communication as a main stage before the final verification of the creative output. Howard et al. (2008) proposed a model for creative engineering design based on three key stages: analysis, generation, and evaluation. They argued that communication involves a less formal way of sharing and evaluating ideas and is more related to design processes, so their creativity model ended with the evaluation step. Cropley and Cropley (2012) suggested a more detailed seven-phase creativity model, including preparation, activation, generation, illumination, verification, communication, and validation. This model is consistent with Wallas's model in the preparation, illumination, and verification stages. According to this model, the illumination stage does not occur suddenly after a period of incubation but requires more engagement with the problem through the activation stage and the development of several solutions in the generation stage. After illumination and verification, communication and validation represent the other essential end that completes the creative process. The creative output needs to be communicated to the public and judged for validation. Through successful communication, the creator brings the creation to the notice of the recipients, who then validate it as relevant, novel, and beneficial. Thus, the communication stage represents the meeting point for creators, creation, and recipients, making it a significant stage in modeling creative and design thinking processes.

Creativity in the educational context

Creativity is not just an opportunity; it is also a necessity in education (Chemi et al., 2017). It represents a key to responding to technological advancement and achieving sustainability by creatively dissolving old assumptions and creating novel ideas (Glassman & Opengart, 2016; Ince et al., 2024). The objective of design education is to unleash students' creative potential and produce new products in the intellectual and cultural domains (Kilicaslan & Ziyrek, 2012). Activities that enhance students' creative behaviors should be incorporated into the design education process, besides encouraging the students to follow unconventional paths. According to Gero et al. (2019), research on how to prepare students for creative design has become a crucial concern in the field of design education.

In art and design education, modeling and applying the creative process are essential to promoting students' design thinking and creative abilities. Loveless et al. (2006) argued that modeling creativity should encompass a variety of interactions between different educational activities and practices, as they have a broad impact on communities. Activating creativity in design education involves providing students with frameworks to guide their progression from an unclear problem or situation to a specific, tested solution (Klapwijk, 2017). These frameworks require involving activities that stimulate the creative process; for instance, ''search, consult, visualize, think, explore, compose, review, and disseminate,'' which are Shneiderman's eight actions that assist the creative process (Kalantari et al., 2020). Encouraging creativity in higher education requires guiding the students to become more independent, which is reflected in their ability to articulate their own ideas, come up with multiple solutions, and select the optimal one (Daskova et al., 2020). Also, emotions play a crucial part in learning and fostering creativity as they are part of the students' identity, influencing what they learn and how they think and reflect on their creations. Therefore, actively incorporating and balancing emotions throughout the creative process is essential for provoking creativity in the education process (Chemi et al., 2017). Evoking positive emotions like wholeness and curiosity increases students' learning potential and their ability to generate unusual, adaptable, and creative ideas (Chemi, 2017). Interaction is essential for developing creativity, including communication between students, lecturers, and the audience. Integrating exhibitions within educational strategies is beneficial for sharing creative experiences and communication between students and lecturers from different disciplines (Ahn & Ohn, 2024). Additionally, evaluating the creativity process aids in recognizing students' activities and guides the educational strategies that support the students' capacity for creativity (Long et al., 2022). However, empirical studies related to evaluation are relatively insufficient (Watts, 2023). Appropriate evaluation requires devoting time and energy to ensure a suitable communication strategy to encourage audience engagement with the creative output (Ball et al., 2021). According to Glassman and Opengart (2016), fostering creativity in an educational context needs to be fully applied in practice. This study offers an opportunity to develop creativity in the educational context by applying an integrative creativity framework and emphasizing the significance of communication and evaluation for creativity in education.

Communication as a key factor in the creative process

The completion of the creative process depends on the active engagement of both public and expert audiences (Phillips & Gant, 2021). Pivovarov and Nikiforova (2016) stated that a novel and significant product should not only be implicitly referred to as creative. They emphasized that the creative process is incomplete without communication, which is necessary for the output to be recognized as creative. Creativity is attributed and gains credibility through acknowledgment by experts in the field. Therefore, creativity is not the product of single individuals; it is a phenomenon that is established through the interaction between creators and recipients (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). However, according to Bonnardel et al. (2018), based on their findings from interviews and questionnaires with professional designers regarding creative design stages, the majority of designers did not recognize communication as a stage of the creative process. Also, when considering its application in the educational context, Mareque and De Prada (2023) discussed that improving communication in higher education lacks proper attention. They highlighted that students' creative potential might be limited by the absence of opportunities to foster and improve communication skills. Vocal and Borong (2022) pointed out that, despite the significance of improving students' communication abilities for effective education, it has consistently been seen as a challenge for instructors. It requires a high level of flexibility and adaptability according to the requirements of each curriculum (Al-Omari, 2020). Furthermore, developing creativity involves training the students to communicate, exchange ideas, and carry on discussions as part of the education process (Smieskova, 2017). In design thinking, critique occurs where involvement is activated through questioning and continuous investigation in design. Formulating a set of questions and conducting methodical analysis and reflection are two ways to stimulate critical thinking (von Mengersen, 2017). Instructors should raise questions, encourage the students to respond, analyze, reflect, and provide them with the appropriate space to express their ideas and give their colleagues and themselves critiques and feedback. This will help the students engage in discussions about each other's perspectives and ideas, promoting their communicative and creative abilities (Hopfenbeck et al., 2022). Reflective forms of communication, including critique, should be frequent, cyclical, formative, and integral to every level of the design thinking process to progress toward dialogic modes of design production and evaluation (von Mengersen, 2017). These communication forms will also help students improve their ability to articulate their ideas to a larger audience, as creative output needs to be "manifested publicly" (Cropley & Cropley, 2012). Additionally, it is recommended to incorporate various communication activities outside the classroom (Mareque & De Prada, 2023). Exhibitions outside the classroom represent an ideal opportunity to communicate and evaluate the students' creative output. Both the communication and evaluation processes are closely associated. Just as the evaluation process requires the recipients' interactive engagement with the creative output, communication involves evaluation as recipients pass their reactions and judgment back to the creators (Ball et al., 2021; Cropley & Cropley, 2012). The clarity of the transferred message and providing a space for free and open dialogue are essential to ensuring the efficiency of both communication and evaluation processes (Ball et al., 2021).

Creativity occurs when creators use specific symbols to develop novel and valuable creations, which are recognized as such by experts in the field (Pivovarov & Nikiforova, 2016). The creative worth of an idea or product is determined by its impact on the recipients who encounter it (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). The communication process is affected by the interpretations, perspectives, and impressions of recipients. Therefore, the content of the creation has a significant impact on the efficiency of the communication process. In the design field, symbols and signs that designers associate with their creations shape how the recipients perceive them, serving as the foundation for communication between creators and recipients (Setai et al., 2019). Designers can employ symbols rooted in collective experiences to convey specific meanings and evoke desired emotions in recipients. Communication through symbols and signs offers a creative opportunity that allows creators to overcome the constraints of time and space. This opportunity demands that creators reimagine and arrange these symbols to reveal innovative ways to convey their ideas (Setai et al., 2019). Designers must consider visual elements such as symbols, fonts, and motifs to effectively convey their messages within a well-designed structure aligned with the culture of the target audience (Yudhanto et al., 2023).

National cultural symbols in particular play a significant role in enhancing attraction, influencing recipients, bridging the gap between them and creators, and preserving traditional cultures. According to Huang and Lu (2021), cultural symbols can help create unique designs by visually conveying meaning through shapes and leaving a deeper impression on recipients. It is important to modify and reimagine symbols and motifs in line with design principles. They should be organized based on the concepts of abstraction, decomposition, and reconstruction, emphasizing their cultural meanings and aesthetic values. When integrating them into design, it is crucial to avoid mere representation, understand their aesthetic values, and creatively reshape them to appeal to recipients, as the improper use of national cultural symbols may lead to adverse effects (Jing, 2020).

Creative sources of inspiration in textile design

Sources of inspiration are a main aspect of the design creation process in general and in textile design in particular (Petre et al., 2006). They include all deliberate or unconscious applications of existing items and surroundings in creating design ideas. The degree of creativity in inspiration depends on designers' ability to select and adjust inspiration sources for their designs, as they can either activate or constrain the creation of ideas (Laamanen, 2016, 19).

In art and design education, sources of inspiration serve multiple functions, including context definition and triggering the idea creation process. Students need to engage with the source of inspiration to manifest their identity and skills and convey moods, memories, and emotions through their designs (Eckert & Stacey, 2000). Selecting an effective source of inspiration and seeing its potential is a crucial step in the design process, as the designers' creativity is frequently manifested in their capacity to imagine how a source of inspiration may be utilized in a new context (Eckert & Stacey, 2003). The lecturer's responsibility is to define an unconventional source of inspiration and guide the students to see the source differently to reveal its beauty.

In the textile design field, anything visual may be used as a source of inspiration (Eckert & Stacey, 2003). However, satisfying the user is a significant factor in selecting specific sources of inspiration throughout the design process (Eckert & Stacey, 2003). Additionally, sources of inspiration play a role in contextualizing design concepts and linking them to specific identities and historical eras (Petre et al., 2006).

The cultural and national heritage represent a rich source of design ideas in all fields. Wang et al. (2013) discussed the positive emotional impact of culture-inspired designs and the main guidelines for drawing inspiration from different forms of culture. The positive impact of cultural heritage-inspired design depends on creativity in selecting unconventional inspiration sources. In textile design, many studies focus on uncommon and creative cultural heritage sources of inspiration. Soonsan (2017) inspired a textile design from the melody of a royal song. Al-Mutairi et al. (2021) depended on Saudi heritage architectural symbols as a source of inspiration in textile design.

The Egyptian national and cultural heritage, in particular, is an ideal source of inspiration for the textile designer. Previous studies in the field of textile design have depended on various inspiration sources from Egyptian heritage, such as ancient Egyptian wall paintings (El-Nahas, 2020) and popular Nubian heritage (Ata & Mahmoud, 2019).

Exhibiting and communicating textile design ideas

Designers from different fields need to exhibit their work to the public to communicate their ideas to others (Eckert & Stacey, 2000). In design education, exhibitions are effective approaches to promoting creativity through communicating and expressing interpretations regarding creative outputs (Ahn & Ohn, 2024). When organizing exhibitions, it is important to involve attendees and encourage them to express their emotions, interpretations, and ideas. For example, Ahn and Ohn (2024) noted that exhibitions at the Gyeongin National University of Education in South Korea facilitated collaboration and curricular integration, allowing attendees to interact and share insights and experiences related to the exhibits. Martin and Hokanson (2022) discussed the role of exhibitions as informal learning activities, describing the strategies used in an academic exhibition at the Goldstein Museum of Design that incorporated games and voting to engage visitors in a unique educational experience. However, these exhibitions did not include tools for collecting data to evaluate the enhancement of creativity throughout the exhibition projects. Creative production needs to be validated collectively by peers and audiences, including experts. This validation requires a space for communication and active engagement where attendees can critique the exhibits, and their feedback can significantly impact the creative process. In this context, exhibitions serve as learning environments, as feedback maximizes potential, enhances understanding of strengths and areas for development, and determines the best course of action to improve performance (Obilor, 2019). Winter (2018) emphasized that feedback should be integrated as an essential component of exhibitions. Also, there is a need for simple methods to collect feedback from visitors without burdening them to enhance exhibitions, increase their inclusivity, and heighten their educational role. Besides, formative evaluations, critiques, discussions, and exhibitions of creative outputs by peers and instructors contribute to preparing students for new exhibitions and discussions with larger audiences. Organized exhibitions make students feel more responsible and enhance their abilities to engage in discussions regarding their work, allowing them to grow intellectually through unforgettable experiences (Eralievich et al., 2020).

Products are designed not only to meet functional and aesthetic requirements but also to elicit positive emotions that make them more appealing to users (Wang et al., 2013). Emotional values are essential in communicating with customers and convincing them to buy a specific product. Demirbilek and Sener (2003) stated that products with emotional characteristics develop a stronger connection with recipients from different backgrounds. To establish such a connection, designers need to draw inspiration from a creative source that is linked to the user's memories, experiences, and identity (Norman, 2004). The careful choice of colors, motifs, and other design elements leads to a well-designed product that can enhance visual communication and evoke emotions, fostering a strong emotional bond between recipients and products (Vaidya & Kalita, 2021). For instance, using visual metaphors in design is a common technique for conveying specific messages and impacting recipients' emotions (Ouf, 2019). Additionally, evoking recipients' nostalgic feelings is a common communication strategy in the design process, as it satisfies their emotional needs and provokes their memories of the past and sense of identity, which develops a connection between the design and the recipient (Zahra & Mandour, 2022). Communicating and inspiring recipients with new ideas can generate positive emotions such as delight and surprise, which in turn can enhance their involvement and loyalty to the product (Bottger, 2017). Recipients or potential customers are more likely to be drawn to products that can evoke positive emotions (Vaidya & Kalita, 2021).

Communication is crucial in the creative process as recipients need to be actively involved in the creative process (Guseynova, 2012). The way designers present their ideas can impact recipients' experience and involvement in the design process (Roberts, 2014). Therefore, it is essential for designers to exhibit and explain their ideas effectively. Furthermore, creative outputs need to be evaluated by domain specialists and appreciated by others, making communication with recipients an integral component of the creative process. In design education, students should have the skills to present their ideas and their source of inspiration. Including exhibitions within the learning process in the textile design field positively impacts students' confidence as they promote their abilities to communicate with recipients (Lam, 2020). Students in the textile design field need to learn how to interpret and communicate their creative ideas to others (Bann, 2020).

Considering the importance of recipients in the creative process of textile design, I emphasized the significance of exhibition and communication with recipients as part of the printed furnishing textile design course at the Faculty of Applied Arts, Damietta University. To help my students develop these skills, I encouraged them to organize an exhibition at the end of the course. This allowed them to exhibit their design ideas and practice communicating with recipients as potential customers.

Methodology

The nature of the printed furnishing textile design course

This is a mandatory course for third-year students in the Textile Printing Program at Damietta University's Faculty of Applied Arts. The course's primary aim is to analyze the diverse sources of Egyptian national heritage arts to draw inspiration from them to create design ideas for printed furnishing textiles. This study was conducted during the second semester of the academic year 2021–2022. The course ran for eight hours per week at the faculty. Mostly, the focus of this course was directed at specific sides of Egyptian heritage, like Pharaonic, Islamic, and Coptic arts, as primary sources of inspiration for students to develop their design ideas. However, since the design of printed furnishings requires a certain level of creativity to meet the changing demands of customers and at the same time conform to their identity, I depended on different forms of Egyptian heritage, like Egyptian folklore, postage stamps and currency, and popular television programs, and theater plays from the early twentieth century as creative sources of inspiration in teaching this course. These forms are living aspects of the Egyptian national heritage that considered a major component of the Egyptian people's emotional, intellectual, and spiritual formation. Therefore, they are considered a rich and innovative source of inspiration that can influence recipients and develop connections with them.

Participants

All third-year students from Damietta University's Department of Textile Printing participated in this study. There were fourteen students, ranging in age from 21 to 25, who were all registered in the printed furnishing textile design course.

The final exhibition of the course outcomes was open to the public, including all students from different majors, faculty members, and visitors from outside the faculty.

The proposed creativity framework

This paper presents a qualitative study by proposing and applying a seven-stage framework for creativity in design courses, including all stages from the beginning of the creative process to the evaluation of the final products. This framework operates as an iterative cycle rather than a linear process, allowing students to move back and forth through the stages until the final evaluation. I applied the proposed framework with my students in teaching the printed furnishing textile course throughout a fourteen-week duration at the Faculty of Applied Arts, Damietta University, as follows:

The first stage: identification

In the creative design thinking process, the initial step is to define the situation and determine the primary goal of the entire process (Peng, 2022). I instructed my students that the primary objective was to generate distinctive design concepts for printed furnishing textiles inspired by the creative aspects of Egyptian heritage. The ultimate goal was to express the Egyptian identity uniquely and create a positive impact on the recipients through the designs.

The second stage: gathering information and analysis

Collecting and categorizing information is crucial to preparation for the creative process. At this stage, designers could develop a better understanding of the inspiration source, build their knowledge, and organize their thoughts (Mougenot et al., 2007). I guided my students to understand the general frame of the national Egyptian heritage first, and then we brainstormed relatively recent and uncommonly used aspects in the textile design field that could evoke the recipients' nostalgic emotions. After collecting information about Egyptian heritage's unique components, we analyzed and divided them into categories as follows:

  • Traditional proverbs represent an essential component of the Egyptian heritage, which expresses the Egyptian customs, beliefs, and experiences that reflect the prevailing way of thinking and common sense of the Egyptian people.

  • Aspects of folklore that bear the features of the Egyptian identity, besides folk tales that convey the culture that Egyptians have passed down through generations.

  • Forms of Egyptian cultural heritage that are represented in Egyptian postage stamps, ancient currencies, TV shows and songs provide unique cultural diversity and aesthetic values.

The third stage: ideas generation

Generating ideas is the essence and one of the most complicated stages of the creative process (Herring et al., 2009). Design ideas are generated to provide an appropriate solution for the defined situation (Waidelich et al., 2018). In the course, our focus was on exploring aesthetics and modifying motifs from Egyptian national heritage. We discussed the potential and applicability of these motifs in furnishing textile design. We reimagined them while maintaining their unique characteristics, making them more interactive and engaging for the audience. The challenging part of this stage is establishing relationships between these various ranges of motifs that appear separate or divergent at first glance and linking them into harmonious and consistent structures.

The fourth stage: refinement

The refinement stage is a crucial step in the creative process, after idea generation and selection. It ensures the originality and feasibility of ideas (Baruah et al., 2021). After sketching many design ideas, we began to select the most novel ideas, refine them, and add details. Our goal was to create a furnishing textile design that is authentic, unconventional, and appealing to consumers at the same time. Figures 1, 2, 3 exhibit samples of the students' refined design ideas. In Fig. 1a, b and c, students combined literal and visual representations of traditional proverbs. We selected proverbs that evoke nostalgic feelings and are consistent with the idea of drawing inspiration from the past. In Fig. 2, the students were able to express aspects of Egyptian folklore like ''Big Night Operetta" in Fig. 2a, the popular water seller's neighborhood in Fig. 2b, and traditional Sufism in Fig. 2c. Figure 3a display design ideas that are inspired by Egyptian stamps and currencies from different periods. In Fig. 3b, the student drew inspiration from popular characters from a classic Egyptian theater play. Figure 3c exhibits a design idea that mainly involves a famous Egyptian singer ''Abdel Halim Hafez'' arranged with music motifs to form a unique expressive composition. All design ideas express unique forms of national and cultural Egyptian heritage that are part of each Egyptian's identity, memories, and emotions.

Fig. 1
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Samples of the students' refined design ideas inspired by traditional Egyptian proverbs. Students' names: Rodina Attia, Nadeen Elhnawy, Aya Mohamedeen

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Fig. 2
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Samples of the students' refined design ideas inspired by various aspects of Egyptian folklore. Students' names: Amro Gaber, Shaza Mourad, Rodina Attia

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Fig. 3
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Samples of the students' refined design ideas inspired by Egyptian postage stamps, theater plays, and songs. Students' names: Esraa Abd-Elshafy, Nadeen Elhnawy, Aya Mohamedeen

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The fifth stage: verification and implementation

In order to turn creative ideas into actual products, it's important to test and verify their feasibility. This involves examining the ideas' pros and cons and creating mock-ups and sketches to visualize how they would look when materialized. In the field of design, mock-ups are particularly useful for testing ideas before production, as they allow designers to identify any issues and make necessary modifications (Lu et al., 2022: 1).

After finishing the design ideas, we relied on digital mock-ups to test the consistency of the ideas for furnishing fabrics. Figure 4 shows students' digital mock-ups of their design ideas as printed furnishing textiles. This step allowed us to discover any drawbacks to the ideas and make the necessary changes to create more unique and attractive printed furnishing textiles. Then, we selected the textile materials and printing techniques to materialize the design ideas into an actual entity. The students transformed their creative design ideas into printed furnishing products like cushions, table covers, etc., using the sublimation printing technique. This stage of the course was conducted during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth weeks of the semester.

Fig. 4
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Samples of the students' digital mock-ups of their design ideas as printed furnishing textiles

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The sixth stage: communication

Many creativity models stop at the implementation stage, but models like Cropley's add a communication stage, as it is essential to display and communicate the creative product or idea to others (Cropley & Urban, 2000). An essential issue in the design process is that designers frequently neglect the recipients' emotions and experiences (Lu et al., 2022). Designers need to consider the recipient's reaction during the design process. Understanding the recipient's needs and involving them in the design process can help bridge the gap between designers and their customers (Wang et al., 2020). Creativity requires communicating ideas to recipients; therefore, lecturers need to prioritize communication in their teaching strategies (Miller et al., 2023). Additionally, the communication stage is essential before evaluation, as the recipient needs to understand the ideas before determining their quality and value (Yang et al., 2023). I prepared the students for this stage from the beginning of the course. Throughout the course, they practiced interpreting and communicating their thoughts to me and their colleagues. During the sessions, students were used to expressing their designs, critiquing each other's work, and participating in formative evaluations and discussions. According to von Mengersen (2017), critique is considered necessary for enabling students to develop a self-critical culture, position themselves within professional practice, and establish value systems in the art and design fields. These activities were crucial for building their confidence and preparing them to communicate their ideas and receive evaluations from experts in the field.

To encourage the students to present their work and communicate their ideas to a larger audience, we organized an exhibition titled "Nostalgia" during the thirteenth week of the course. The exhibition showcased all the course outcomes. We held the exhibition during the fourteenth week of the course at the exhibition hall of the faculty. About 210 people attended the exhibition, including students from all disciplines, lecturers, and specialist professors from all design fields. The students were present to discuss their designs and see the visitors' impressions. Recipients interacted with the exhibits and engaged in the creative process, as presented in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5
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Sides of the recipients' interaction and engagement in the Nostalgia exhibition

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The seventh stage: evaluation

The evaluation process is considered a main stage in creativity models. However, recent experimental studies have focused mainly on the idea-generation stage (Palmon et al., 2022). Both evaluation and generation are associated with the production of creative design ideas. It is frequently argued that the creativity process involves iterative cycles of generation and evaluation (Cox et al., 2022). Evaluating the creative output can lead to improvements in performance (McIntosh et al., 2021). Formative evaluations throughout the creativity stages improve the quality of the design ideas and prepare the students for the final evaluation. The evaluation process during exhibitions enables the identification of any problems with the exhibits through the visitors' feedback, which could lead to more refinement and continuous improvement of the creative ideas/products. Therefore, exhibition questionnaires represent effective tools for evaluating the quality of the exhibits and identifying potential weaknesses (Hudec, 2004). New insights gained from the evaluation can be applied in the subsequent design cycle iteration to enhance constant design improvement (Herring et al., 2009).

Creative output should be both useful and novel. Novelty is related to the originality, and uniqueness of the ideas, while usefulness is associated with the appropriateness and feasibility of the ideas (Cox et al., 2022). Therefore, evaluating what is considered novel and useful is a central component of the creativity process. The evaluation process is also influenced by the recipients' emotional state, where positive emotions lead to higher engagement and appreciation of creative ideas (Mastria et al., 2019). Also, the primary component influencing a product's survival and success is sales. Creative product appeal promotes its performance and sales, as it is a main factor that affects customers' evaluation (Mu et al., 2022). Therefore, the evaluation process should consider novelty, usefulness, emotional impact, and appeal in assessing creative products. The ''Nostalgia'' exhibition offered the ideal opportunity to evaluate the course's outcomes and promote communication by considering recipients' perspectives and emotions. I designed a survey for the exhibition visitors to evaluate students' creative outputs and enhance the recipients' interaction with the exhibits. Thus, the visitors were filling out the questionnaire while interacting with exhibits, as shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6
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Sides of the recipients' interaction and evaluation of the exhibits

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The design of the exhibition questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed to be precise and specific to ensure that visitors could respond to the items accurately. It aimed to evaluate the students' creative outcomes in terms of novelty, emotional impact, appeal, and utility. It included five closed-ended items and one open-ended item, each was designed to achieve a particular objective, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 The structure and main objectives of the exhibition questionnaire
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All the questionnaire items were designed to fit neatly on one page considering the time factor and to encourage more responses. The questionnaire forms were distributed to visitors by the students upon joining the exhibition and collected before leaving.

At the end of the course, I asked the students to fill out an online questionnaire.

The structure of the students' questionnaire

The students' questionnaire aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the applied framework and to reveal their emotions and perspectives throughout the course. The questionnaire was entirely optional, and the students were not obliged to reveal their names to promote openness in the process and respect their choices. The questionnaire consisted of closed-ended and open-ended items, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 The structure of the students' questionnaire
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Results and discussion

The exhibition questionnaire

The number of attendees who responded to all of the exhibition items was 168. The questionnaire aimed to evaluate the uniqueness, emotional impact, attractiveness, and utility of the students' creative outputs. The initial assessment of the first item aimed to understand the recipients' overall insights and prepare them for engaging and communicating with the exhibits. On a scale of 1–5, about 93.5% of the recipients gave the exhibits a 5, while 6% selected a 4. The results of the general evaluation validate the positive impact of the Nostalgia exhibition and the successful interaction between them and the exhibits. Hudec (2004) demonstrated that evaluating exhibitions determines the effectiveness of communication and conveying the exhibits' message. Therefore, the visitors' positive evaluation indicates the successful interaction between them and the exhibited designs and the significance of the exhibits. According to Jagtap (2019), a design idea is considered novel when it differs from other existing ideas. To evaluate novelty, a comparison between new ideas and already-existing ones is necessary, and experienced designers should be included in the process, as they possess sufficient knowledge regarding existing ideas for comparison. Thus, specialized professors and designers in the textiles field were invited to the exhibition to give an accurate evaluation regarding the students' ideas. Almost all of the exhibition visitors, including experts in academia and the textile design field, agreed that the exhibits presented novel visions of Egyptian heritage in the textile design field. These results confirmed the novelty of the students' design ideas. Additionally, the vast majority of the visitors—about 99%—felt nostalgic during the exhibition and agreed that the exhibits evoked their emotions and memories. The third item of the questionnaire was attributed to evaluating the emotional impact of the exhibits by investigating the visitors' nostalgic experiences during the exhibition. According to Tseng and Ho (2011), the efficiency of any design idea or product is attributed to evoking recipients' emotions and memories. The level of emotional impact that is provoked in the recipient indicates creativity (Halliwell & Helme, 2022). Thus, the previous results indicate the creativity of the students' designs through their positive influence in conveying nostalgic feelings to the visitors. In evaluating creative ideas, utility is attributed to the value and appropriateness of the ideas. The evaluation of utility depends on the context of the ideas. In the design field, utility is a primary goal associated with functionality, which depends on the recipients' perspectives of the idea's capacity to fulfill their requirements (Han et al., 2021). Thus, digital mock-ups and implemented products were included in the exhibition for the visitors to evaluate the utility and feasibility of the ideas as printed furnishing products. The fourth item of the questionnaire considered the appropriateness of the exhibited ideas for furnishing products as a standard for assessing utility and, consequently, evaluating the students' creative outcomes. Approximately 99.4% of the visitors agreed that the exhibited ideas and products were consistent with the requirements of printed furnishing textiles, which reflects the utility and creativity of the exhibits. The product's creativity is linked to its appeal and purchaseability (Valgeirsdottir et al., 2015). The final closed-ended question on the questionnaire examined the visitors' tendency to purchase the exhibits to evaluate their appealing qualities. In that context, almost all of the visitors desired to purchase the displayed products, demonstrating the high levels of creativity and appeal of the exhibits. The purpose of the questionnaire's open-ended item was to encourage more interaction with the exhibits. It also aids in eliciting more detailed feedback from the visitors, conveying their opinions and emotions in their own words to understand their responses to the closed-ended questions, and even providing more dimensions for evaluating creative outputs. The visitors' perspectives regarding exhibits in their responses to the last open-ended item in the questionnaire, as shown in Table 3, like ‘extraordinary’, ‘brand-new ideas’, and ‘fresh view of Egyptian heritage', confirm the exhibits' novelty. Some visitors were experts in the textile design field, and the majority were students in different design fields who were heavily exposed to various forms of the national Egyptian heritage. Thus, their responses confirm the novelty of the inspiration source and the exhibits, and consequently, their creativity, as many recent studies have discussed that novelty is even more significant than utility when evaluating creativity (Cox et al., 2022: 1). Responses such as ‘perfectly implemented’, ‘valuable products’, ‘I hope to have them’, and ‘consistent products’ reflect the utility of the novel ideas as printed furnishing textiles. Fulfilling utility was as challenging as achieving novelty during the course, as it was essential to adapt novel ideas to the concept of furnishing products. According to Valgeirsdottir et al. (2015), when evaluating creative ideas, recipients prioritize novelty, while when evaluating creative products, they emphasize utility. This conclusion is consistent with the present study, as the exhibition visitors consider utility more in their perspectives regarding the exhibited products. The positive emotional impact of the exhibits was also evident, with visitors describing them as ‘nostalgic’, ‘nostalgia evoking’, ‘imaginative and inspiring’, and ‘diverse and cheerful’. Bottger et al. (2017) discussed that inspiring recipients with new creative ideas may promote their positive emotions, loyalty, and engagement with the products. Emotions are key in attracting and persuading recipients and motivating their interaction with products (Casais & Pereira, 2021; Josephine & Fadilah, 2021). Thus, the recipients sensed the whole nostalgic theme of the exhibition, which evoked their imagination and inspiration and enhanced their communication with the exhibits. Perspectives like ‘attractive and practical’, ‘beyond greatness', 'special', ‘impressive and creative’, and ‘I admire these products’ support that the ideas and products on display appeal to the visitors in light of all of their unique, aesthetic, emotional, and utility qualities. They also indicate the recipients' satisfaction regarding the exhibits' characteristics. A product's quality is determined by its capacity to satisfy and meet the needs of its customers (Vaidya & Kalita, 2021). Additionally, views like ‘worthy and unexpected’, ‘unusual and wild’, ‘unconventional yet appropriate’, and 'striking and authentic’ refer to the surprise factor, which is considered an important component of creativity according to several studies (Cox et al., 2022). According to Han et al. (2021), surprise is usually described as the defiance of expectations and is frequently used synonymously with the term unexpected. In terms of creative design, it is seen as a major factor because it stimulates recipients' interest and curiosity. Some studies considered surprising as a degree or an indication of novelty (Zheng & Miller, 2021). Other studies mentioned surprising as a separate aspect of creativity besides novelty and utility (Han et al., 2021). Even Acar et al. (2017) argued that surprising ought to rank second in terms of creativity, just after novelty, as it is more essential than utility. The surprise in this study is associated with novelty. Novel ideas and products are more likely to be unconventional, unexpected, and even wild, as the recipients describe. Also, the surprise factor is related to the applicability of the unconventional ideas, as the exhibition visitors did not expect that it was possible to apply these ideas as appropriate, unique printed furnishings products. The perspectives of recipients in the open-ended item were consistent with their responses to the closed-ended questions and provided deeper insights into visitors' perceptions and emotions regarding the exhibited ideas and products. The visitors' responses confirm the creativity of the exhibits regarding their novelty, utility, emotional impacts, and appeal characteristics. They also reveal the role of the surprise factor as a main component of design creativity and how it is relevant to both the novelty and utility of the exhibits. The exhibition questionnaire not only contributed to the evaluation process but also enhanced the visitors' engagement with the exhibits, as displayed in Fig. 6.

Table 3 Samples of the visitor's responses to the last open-ended item in the questionnaire
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The students' questionnaire

The students' questionnaire aims to evaluate how effectively the course's creative framework worked while eliciting their thoughts and feelings about it. The number of responses to the questionnaire was eleven. Students' responses to the closed-ended questionnaire items from 1 to 10 are shown in Fig. 7. The responses to the open-ended items are shown in Table 4.

Fig. 7
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The percentage of the students' responses to the closed-ended questionnaire items

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Table 4 The responses to the open-ended items in the students' questionnaire
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The overall point of the questionnaire is to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed creativity framework in teaching the printed furnishing textiles course and get insight into the attitudes and opinions of the students by investigating each stage's impact on them. Regarding the identification stage, we discussed the primary goal of the course in the first session so that they could be prepared for the next steps. As shown in Fig. 7, the students' responses to the first question show that they could identify the goal of the creative process at the beginning of the semester, they were aware of the course objectives. The identification stage has a major impact on the effectiveness of the following phases of the creative process (Vizioli & Kaminski, 2017). Collecting data is essential to gaining a better understanding and categorizing inspiration sources (Mougenot et al., 2007). In the educational context, not paying sufficient attention to the information-gathering stage could negatively affect the creativity process and the final output (Munro, 2004: 7). Therefore, I gave collecting and analyzing data the highest priority at the beginning of the course, as it will directly influence the subsequent stages. One of the common challenges that face creators is the ability to organize and categorize the collected data from various resources (Li et al., 2022). However, during this course, the majority of the students, about 91%, did not face difficulties in analyzing and categorizing the resources of national Egyptian heritage, and they mainly used the internet, books, and old magazines to collect their data and motifs. We had discussion sessions to organize and categorize their thoughts and ensure that they were on the right track, and overcome any challenges in analyzing their various collected motifs and images. Nevertheless, 9% of the students reported feeling challenged at this stage. This was probably because they were unfamiliar with this aspect of the national Egyptian heritage before the course. It is a rich source of inspiration that is also complicated, including interference between its various components. Therefore, categorizing its elements may be challenging for some students. The idea generation stage requires converting the inspiration source into new, consistent design ideas. One of the main challenges in this process is avoiding functional fixedness, surpassing conventions and established rules, and eliminating familiar thinking habits (Munro, 2004). Although all the students were Egyptians and were in their third year at one of the most significant Egyptian faculties in the art field, they had not been exposed to this side of the national Egyptian heritage in an educational context before this course. Thus, about 27.3% of the students experienced challenges in generating creative ideas for printed furnishing textiles based on the national Egyptian heritage. Exploring the creative potentials of this side of the national Egyptian heritage was new for the students and uncommonly used in the textile printing field. They had no standards or fixed patterns to follow. Therefore, they needed to think uniquely and establish relationships between various motifs to create new ideas consistent with the furnishing textile design concept. To achieve this, students needed to thoroughly explore and create numerous sketches. For many students, this is why the idea-generating stage proved to be challenging. Gradually, most students became more able to adjust to this unusual concept and integrate it into the area of textile design. The majority of the students' responses (around 90%) show that they could express their unfamiliar ideas for furnishing textile design, which indicates their ability to think differently and eliminate functional fixedness. However, some students' feeling of pressure at this stage may be due to the time factor. This has been reported in several studies, like Bann (2020), which discussed that finding the required time to generate creative ideas could be one of the biggest challenges in textile design. We were committed to a timetable during the course, yet providing the students with more time for this stage would have reduced the pressure and limited its difficulty. To determine the impact of introducing students to this aspect of their national Egyptian heritage and whether or not they could feel the same emotions that they conveyed to the recipient, the questionnaire examined the students' development of nostalgic feelings during the idea generation stage. Additionally, emotions have a major role in the ideation stage as they motivate creativity and involvement in the design processes (Sas & Zhang, 2010). The designer's emotions influence how the product is generated, implemented, and perceived (Biagioli et al., 2018). The students' responses indicate that they all experienced nostalgia while generating design ideas during the course. Their deep exploration of the national Egyptian heritage and engagement in revealing its aesthetic values triggered their nostalgic emotions. According to Ye et al. (2013), exposing individuals to nostalgic experiences positively affects creativity, and triggering nostalgia in the educational environment could enhance the students' performances and creativity. An essential element of the creative process is emotional creativity, in which both the capacity to experience and communicate specific and authentic emotions are linked (Zamar & Abad-Segura, 2021). Also, a major component of the design quality is determined by conveying the designer's emotions to recipients (Kim et al., 2012). Based on the feedback from the exhibition questionnaire, visitors felt nostalgic emotions during the exhibition, which indicates that the students were successful in conveying their emotions through their designs. Regarding the refinement stage, the sixth item of the questionnaire evaluates its influence on improving the students' design ideas. During the course, after generating and selecting the ideas, students refined their ideas multiple times, adding authentic details and personal touches with each refinement. The lecturer's role at this stage was to offer perspectives, generally guide students towards the best path for developing their ideas, and give them the space to refine them in their own unique way. The majority of the students' responses (around 91%) showed that continuous refining enabled them to develop their ideas into unique forms. These results align with the Baruah et al. (2021) study, as they stated that continuous refinement of the selected ideas enables a deeper look into the idea from a different perspective, offering insights that would not have been obvious without it, which would lead to more creative and novel ideas.

According to the study, most of the students were able to validate their design ideas as printed textiles using digital mock-ups, demonstrating the effectiveness of digital mock-ups in verifying design ideas as printed furnishing textiles. The digital mockups were a time and effort-saving method that enabled the students to verify the ideas' applicability as printed furnishing products and discover any drawbacks before implementation. However, around 45.4% of the students faced challenges implementing their design ideas for printed furnishing products such as curtains and upholstery fabrics. These products were relatively difficult and expensive to implement in their final form. Also, the time and space factors were not on our side, and these products required time and a relatively larger exhibition hall to be coordinated and installed properly before the final exhibition. To overcome this issue, the implementation of these products was limited to maquettes, along with digital mock-ups. Nevertheless, other products such as cushions and table covers were implemented successfully. Communication is a crucial stage of the creative process, as the creative ideas need to be well communicated to recipients to receive an effective evaluation (Cropley & Urban, 2000). According to Miller et al. (2023), communicating ideas to an audience is an integral component of creativity. Therefore, communicating effectively is considered a primary prerequisite for students in the educational context. Integrating discussion within the educational process contributes to improving the students' communication skills (Khambayat, 2017). Show-and-tell sessions, where students and instructors come together to discuss design ideas development and engage in a dialogic critique through analysis and constructive feedback, are considered to be formative evaluation opportunities that promote design thinking (von Mengersen, 2017). Therefore, I encouraged my students to articulate and discuss their design ideas throughout the course sessions to enhance their confidence and develop their communication skills. Thus, all students' responses indicate that they constantly discussed their ideas with their colleagues and instructors during the course. Over time, they were able to articulate their visions more clearly and confidently, which helped them communicate their design ideas to the exhibition visitors. The open-ended items were structured to gain more insights into the students' experiences and emotions during the course. The first open-ended item focuses on understanding the impact of the various stages of the applied framework on the students, as each student describes the strongest emotions he/she experienced. The students' emotions throughout the creative process, as they described, such as ‘feeling nostalgic’, ‘longing for the past’, ‘I desired to live in these times', confirm that they experienced nostalgic emotions in creating their ideas and products inspired by the national Egyptian heritage. These responses are consistent with the fifth closed-ended item in the questionnaire, illustrating the depth of their nostalgic feelings during the process and how they imagined their designs as mediums to reflect their emotions. The recipients of their designs experienced similar emotions, as demonstrated previously, proving the applied framework's efficiency in enhancing the students' emotional creativity. Other responses in Table 4 include the positive impact of the applied framework on enhancing inspiration, enthusiasm, curiosity, and determination. Positive status and emotions are usually connected to creative activities, as they both influence and are affected by each other. Langley (2018) stated that positive emotions could foster more creativity, while Tan et al. (2021) discussed the positive impacts of creative activities on individual well-being. Students' descriptions of their emotions throughout the applied framework are categorized as follows: The response ‘I felt unique and productive’ is more related to the later stages of the creative process after ideation and implementation. On the other hand, responses such as 'felt inspired by these forms of Egyptian heritage' and 'enthusiastic to express the history of these old days' were more related to the idea generation phase. ‘I was curious to search for new aspects of cultural Egyptian heritage’ is more likely to occur after the identification stage. This finding supports the study conducted by Kenett et al. (2023), as they suggested that curiosity plays a vital role in motivating the creative process, especially during its initial phases. In this study, various positive emotions were triggered by the different stages of the applied framework. Investigating the students' emotions regarding the exhibition is particularly essential to understanding the impact of applying the communication stage in the educational context. According to responses in Table 4, the communication stage, represented in the Nostalgia exhibition, triggered a wider range of positive emotions. Activities like exhibitions, when included in the educational system, can contribute to developing students' confidence, awareness of their abilities, and sense of value and appreciation (Lam, 2020). Consequently, responses such as ‘I was proud of my designs and products’, ‘I felt valued’, ‘gained more confidence’ were obtained. Boamah and Asante (2021) noted that students can engage in constructive dialogue with their audience through exhibitions, as the exhibits mirror the students' perceptions. In higher education, holding exhibitions enhances students' educational experiences and emotions and engages them in creative activities (Zhelnina & Tereshchenko, 2021). Thus, responses like ‘happy to be a part of this exhibition’, ‘involved and satisfied’, and ‘enjoyed the whole experience’ reflect the positive impact of the exhibition on the students' emotions, as they felt more actively involved in the creative process. These positive influences were formed as the students participated in organizing the Nostalgia exhibition, were able to communicate their ideas, received appreciation from the recipients, including experts in the field, and felt the value of their creative ideas. The last item of the questionnaire aimed to reveal the most significant aspect of creative printed furnishing textile design from students' perceptions. This item's primary goal is to reveal more dimensions of creativity and explore the impact of the proposed framework, especially the communication stage, on the students' perspectives on creativity in the textile design field. Many of the responses refer to novelty and usefulness and the balance between them as main aspects of creativity, such as ‘uniqueness’, ‘both aesthetic values and appropriateness’, and ‘consistency between novelty and function’. This outcome is in line with the findings of the Mangion and Riebel (2023) study, which highlighted novelty and utility as primary aspects of creativity from students' perspectives. Responses like ‘going outside the norm in an appealing way’, ‘boldness’, and ‘unexpectedly transforming the unusual into the familiar’ point to the surprise element as a key component of the creative printed furnishing textile design. These responses emerged as the nostalgia concept and the applied aspects of the national Egyptian heritage were totally unexpected in the furnishing textiles field, yet the recipients found them appealing during the exhibition. The surprise factor was repeatedly mentioned by the exhibition visitors to describe the exhibits. Thus, the recipients' interactions with the creative ideas affect the creators' perceptions of the whole creative process. On the other hand, this compatibility between both creators' and recipients' opinions confirms the role of surprise as a main aspect of creativity in this study. Other responses considered influencing recipients as the primary aspect of creativity in printed furnishing textiles, such as ‘making a strong impression’, ‘influencing’, and ‘to be well presented’. These responses prioritize the recipients as a major component of the creative process. A few studies considered recipients as a main part of the creative process; however, prioritizing recipients as a main aspect of the creative process was uncommon in the studies that covered students' perspectives regarding creativity. This conclusion reflects the influence of the applied framework, which actively applies the communication stage, on the students' perspectives on creativity. The students' questionnaire reflects their journey and challenges through the proposed framework, especially at the idea generation stage. The responses also demonstrate the emotional influence of the different stages of the creativity framework, like curiosity, determination, and enthusiasm, until the communication stage, which made the students feel more fulfilled, confident, and involved.

The study highlighted activating creativity in the educational context by guiding the students through a planned framework from identification to the final evaluation. In creative design fields, lecturers should guide the students through an organized process (Laamanen, 2012). This framework included selecting, exploring, discussing, and communicating uncommon inspiration sources in the textile design field. According to Ince et al. (2024), creativity can be nurtured through observation, exploration, reflection, and interaction in the educational environment. Mothiram (2019) stated that a process-based or activity-based curriculum that engages students in novel and unpredictable methods of interaction and learning is the most effective approach to nurturing creativity in education. Also, the study involved fostering the students' creativity by evoking positive emotions throughout the applied framework and encouraging them to discuss their ideas to promote their abilities to communicate and interact with a larger audience. The proposed framework presents an integrative approach that considers the three main elements of the creative process: creators, creations, and recipients. It highlights exhibitions as an opportunity to develop creativity in the educational context through communicating and evaluating the students' creative outputs. Consequently, the framework included an exhibition to communicate the students' ideas to recipients as well as an exhibition questionnaire to assess the students' creative ideas and products. There was also a questionnaire for the students to evaluate the effectiveness of the framework. Applying the proposed framework results in involving both creators and recipients and activating their role in the creative process, triggering the creators' emotions, and developing their emotional creativity by enhancing their ability to communicate these emotions to recipients. The recipients' interaction during the Nostalgia exhibition demonstrated that novelty is more considered when evaluating creative ideas, while utility is considered more when evaluating creative products. The study also highlights the significance of influencing recipients and surprise, in addition to novelty and utility, as key aspects of creativity in the arts and design fields. The recipients' interactions influenced the students' views on creativity. The applied framework facilitated constant interaction between creators, their creations, and recipients, with each one influencing and reflecting the other.

Limitations and implications

The main limitation of this study was the small size of the sample. Only fourteen third-year students were enrolled in the textile printing department at Damietta University during the academic year 2021–2022. The textile printing program only accepts a limited number of students each year because of the nature of the arts and design study and the available resources represented by the number of lecturers and equipped halls and studios at the Department of Textile Printing. Sample size is one of the essential factors that impact the research results. According to several studies, a larger sample size is necessary to increase the findings' applicability and make better inferences (Memon et al., 2020). On the other hand, in many contexts, small sample sizes often produce more accurate results because they can be processed more carefully (Hamlin, 2017; Indrayan & Mishra, 2021). The sample sizes are also associated with the research methodologies, as quantitative methodologies require a larger sample size and qualitative methodologies usually focus on small sample sizes (Ahrens & Zaščerinska, 2014). The current study proposes a novel integrative framework for creativity that involves several stages and is applied for the first time in the educational context. Thus, the small sample size enabled closer observation and follow-up of the development of students’ experiences throughout the semester considering available resources. However, the proposed framework could be reapplied with greater resources in future teaching practices.

The study findings reveal the students' whole journey through the suggested framework, the creative potential they have developed, and the challenges we overcame to establish the application of the seven-stage creativity framework in the design education field. Enhancing the students' creative abilities and considering their experiences are primary requirements in design thinking and design education (Mandour, 2024). Furthermore, the proposed integrative creativity framework emphasizes communication as a key stage that could advance the educational process, particularly in the domains of the design. Miller et al. (2023) discussed that communication is one of the main components for attaining growth in the educational context. This framework offers the potential to enhance the students' capacity to communicate their emotions to their recipients, which presents a novel vision to promote creativity and developments in design education and to qualify the students for their future careers as professional artists and designers. Enhancing students' communication abilities has been shown to beneficially affect learning objectives and shape students' experiences across all education fields (Damayanti et al., 2019). Halliwell and Helme (2022) stated that teaching design students how to provoke a specific emotion in the recipients or users could lead to more development in the design education field. According to Bakhtiyarovna (2023), communication is the most significant creative resource in higher education in the design field, as it plays a vital role in developing students intellectually and preparing them as future designers. The proposed framework presents an integrative, applicable vision in which the three main pillars of the creative process—creators, creation, and recipients—are actively involved, contributing to eliminating the gap between theory and application, fostering creativity, and promoting developments in the art and design education fields. Further studies will be needed to expand the proposed framework to different design fields and the larger population.