Creativity - what is creativity?

Creativity is the use of ones imagination, inventivness, and resourcefulness to create original ideas usually in the production of art. Creativity is not something that can be taught in schools or in higher education for that matter, it is entirely driven by one persons ideas and and their desire to create something unique and imaginitive.

But does something creative have to be an original idea? Something that no one else has thought of before you? Looking at my own designs and ideas I wonder if there is someone else in the world who has had exactly the same idea before me and been more successful with it. Does that mean my idea lacks purpose? I think my clock character design is really cool and I'm really pleased with it but I keep thinking its such a simple idea that there must be at least one person out there who has had exactly the same idea. And if thats the case does it mean i wasn't creative enough when i came to design it? My organic character design on the other hand is far more original and incorporates many different ideas from my own unique research, and therefore it is unlikely that someone else has already designed it. When looking at both designs though I think they are both equally good even though one could be argued is more creative than the other.

So how important is creativity if a good design can be made by basing it on other peoples ideas? If I was asked to design a mobile phone I would be basing my design on ideas already in existence. I suppose some art requires more creativity than others, but an exceptional piece of art that commands attention and recognition needs to be creative and highly original. But how does this apply to different areas of the creative industries? How important is creativity when designing art for video games?