David Gauntlett

About Information and interests

Books Theories and practices

Videos Creativity and innovation

Projects Making and doing

Innovation Connecting and building

Hello! I am David Gauntlett. I am from the UK but since 2018 I am a Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Communication and Design, Ryerson University, Toronto. I run the Creativity Everything lab. I have worked with organisations such as the BBC, the British Library, S4C, and Tate. For 12 years I have collaborated with LEGO on creativity and play. The expanded second edition of Making is Connecting came out in May 2018.
This site contains information about my books, projects and events, and includes videos and a blog. You can see further information about me, and a complete list of publications. The complete list of blog posts is a quick route to various things. Or just click around the key projects overview 1995-2020. Please do ask me if you’d like to do something interesting.
Simple version: I’ve written or edited 13 books, including Making is Connecting (2011, second edition 2018) which has its own website. See the full books page for information on them.

Detailed version: I am the sole author of 7 books, plus second editions of 3 of those books; co-author of 1 book; and editor of 2 completely different editions of Web.Studies.

Selected books:

Making is Connecting 2nd edition

Making Media Studies

Creative Explorations
In 2008 I started making short YouTube videos about my research, and some versions of teaching or talks. You can view the better ones on the videos page or just see the whole lot on my YouTube channel.

Selected videos:

TEDx talk on platforms for creativity, 2016

Maker Faire Rome keynote, 2013

Disruptive innovation and online creativity
I have been involved in several projects with the LEGO Group, as well as collaborations with the BBC, S4C, Tate, and the British Library, amongst others. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has funded a number of my projects. See the projects page for more information.

Selected projects:

Collaborations with the LEGO Group

Collaboration with the BBC

Collaboration with S4C

Much of my work is about innovation, in different ways. The book Creative Explorations is about new creative research methods, and Making is Connecting presents a new way of thinking about digital media in a broader creative context. My work with the BBC, S4C, and in particular the LEGO Group, has focused on innovation in play, learning and creativity.

Selected items about innovation:

Disruptive innovation and online creativity

Art and design – and innovation

Tools for thinking [blog posts]

LEGO Cultures of Creativity report

Featured things See all

Creativity Everything #FreeSchool

Video: 2019
Power Plant talk

Video: December 2018
Artscape Launchpad collaboration

Project: 2018
Artisans, making, and digital culture

Video: September 2018
Moved to Toronto

Project: 2018
Making is Connecting Second Edition

Book: 2018
Creativity, agency, and media studies

Video: January 2018
No Working Title at Tate Exchange

Project: 2017
Victoria Ambassador of Creativity

Project: 2016
TEDx talk

Video: June 2016
Remaking media thinking

Video: February 2016
Making Media Studies

Book: 2015
LEGO workshop for PhD students

Project: 2014
Designing digital tools

Video: June 2014
Three conversations

Project: May 2014
Participation Culture, Creativity, and Social Change

Video: November 2008
On small steps (Maker Faire Rome extract)

Video: October 2013
Making is Connecting

Book: 2011
Maker Faire Rome, 2013

Video: October 2013
Interview on creativity and society

Video: October 2012

Sixteen Recent PostsSee all

Creativity is a thing you do
What we are talking about when we talk about creativity.
‘Your Creative Self’ workshop at Artscape Launchpad
And in a new team-up with Jodianne Beckford!
A Drawing A Day – June to pause, 2019
The last drawings before we went on a drawings pause.
The ‘dappled world’ and a more diverse perspective
A nicer way of looking.

Hours of ‘The Creative Process’ lecture videos
Lots of lectures drop at once, like on Netflix, except, lectures.
Research, teaching and everything all interconnected
It all fits together. It's all one thing.
Ways to kill creativity, no. 93: Turn it into a ‘discipline’
I worked out why I don't want to be in their bubble.
Seeking an art-school ethos for my classroom
On the proper form of a university course

A Drawing A Day – May to June 2019
More drawings.
Creativity Everything #FreeSchool exceeds all expectations
The #FreeSchool was a delightful and diverse success!
Origins of the #FreeSchool
Where did we nick this idea from?
Imagination as ideas, empathy and yearning
Is imagination the same as creativity?

Creativity Everything #FreeSchool announced
Two weeks of creative everything, open to everyone, running 21–31 May 2019.
A Drawing A Day – February to April 2019
More drawings.
Canada Research Chair priorities and plans
Establishing what to do and what not to do.
An Experimental Culture of All Kinds of Things Made by Everybody
This was going to be my next book, but then it wasn't.

Eight Featured Posts

Platforms for Creativity: Introduction
Explaining what I mean when I talk about 'platforms for creativity'.
The most important thing is making meaningful connections
On meaningful connections rather than frictionless content.
Open Access: Articles by me about everyday creativity, making, and digital media
Things by me that you can read for free.
De Chocoladefabriek Gouda – Making is Connecting in action
Reinventing the library, in an old chocolate factory.

Micro LEGO Serious Play: How small can a useful tool for thinking be?
Can you do LEGO Serious Play with just 37 pieces?
Six theses about making things in a digital world
A new article by me.
LEGO Cultures of Creativity report launched today
From my collaboration with the LEGO Foundation.
‘Making is Connecting’, Richard Sennett and my dad
From May 2011: after a Radio 4 programme.