
Design, innovation and technology are used, abused and misused by security, everyday users and criminals alike.
This page sets out the relationship between design, innovation, creativity and technology. It also briefly raises the issue of the dark side of design.
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Design
Design is about creating desired products, places, procedures, services and systems by a focused, creative, iterative process which usually involves identifying and reconciling different requirements.
Examples are the Stop Thief chair by Jackie Piper and the Karrysafe Bag by Adam Thorpe.

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Innovation
Innovation is important both to tackle new problems, new methods of offending, and keep up with adaptive offenders in co-evolutionary arms races. It is even important when replicating existing security success stories in new contexts (Ekblom (2002b).
Milled edges stopped the crime of clipping silver from coins:


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Relation between creativity, innovation and design
The UK Cox Report on creativity in business (HM Treasury 2005: 2), defines the relationship between these key terms (bold added):
Creativity is the generation of new ideas – either new ways of looking at existing problems, or of seeing new opportunities, perhaps by exploiting emerging technologies or changes in markets.
Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. It is the process that carries them through to new products, new services, new ways of running the business or even new ways of doing business.
Design links creativity and innovation. It shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers. Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end.

Technology
Technology and engineering apply principles from science and practical experience to manipulate matter, energy, information, mathematics and logic to serve human ends (adapted from Arthur 2009).

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The dark side
Various writers cover the ‘dark side‘ of creativity, innovation, design and technology, where they are used in inappropriate, unfair or disproportionate ways. See for example Cropley et al. (2010) and (with a focus on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) Cozens and Love (2017).
