Creative Products

Historical and personal creativity
The product of "creativity" has typically been defined in one of two ways: either as something historically new (and relatively rare), such as scientific discoveries or great works of art; or as producing something new in a personal sense - an apparent innovation for the creator, regardless of whether others have made similar innovations, or whether others value the particular act of creation. In the former sense there are writers such as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi have defined creativity in terms of rare individuals who have been judged by others to have made significant creative, often domain-changing contributions (and as such, the level of creativity of an individual can vary over historical time as perceptions change), and Simonton, who has analysed the career trajectories of the creatively eminent in order to map patterns and predictors of creative productivity. In the latter sense, writers such as Ken Robinson, and Anna Craft have focussed on creativity in a general population, particularly with respect to education.
There are a variety of labels for the two sides of this dichotomy. Margaret Boden distinguishes between h-creativity (historical) and p-creativity (personal). Craft makes a similar distinction between "high" and "little c" creativity. while Craft cites Robinson referring to "high" and "democratic" creativity. Common also is the pairing of terms "Big C" and "Little C".
Kozbelt, Beghetto and Runco, use a little-c/Big-C model to review major theories of creativity This approach was first introduced by James C. Kaufman and Beghetto into a four C model: mini-c (transformative learning), which are "personally meaningful interpretations of experiences, actions and insights"; little-c (everyday problem solving and creative expression); Pro-C, exhibited by people who are professionally or vocationally creative but not eminent, and Big-C, reserved for those who are considered truly great in their field. This was to help distinguish more clearly between the amateur unapprenticed in the particular creative domain (e.g. the visual arts, astrophysics etc.), the professional who was domain-competent, and creative genius. The four-c model was also intended to help accommodate models and theories of creativity that stressed domain-competence as an essential component, and domain transformation as the highest mark of creativity; it also, they argued, made a useful framework for analysing creative processes in individuals.