Simplify. Omit, remove certain elements.

Take something away from your subject.

Think: What can be eliminated, reduced, disposed of? What rules can you break? How can you simplify, abstract, stylize or abbreviate?

Compress it and make it smaller.

Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplify, simplify!
Henry David Thoreau

Repeat a shape, color, form, image or idea.

Reiterate, echo, restate or duplicate your reference subject in some way.

Repetition helps hold things together. repeated elements give the "glue" that binds the separate pieces together.

Repeat colors, shapes, sizes, textures, contrast, direction etc.

Repetition of visual pieces (such as shapes or colors) makes a pattern.

Try synectic triggers in combination. What happens when you distort first and then repeat. What happens when you subtract first and then repeat?

Think: How can you control the factors of occurrence, repercussion, sequence or progression?

Bring things together. Connect, arrange, link, unify.

Bring things together.

Bring together dissimilar things to produce synergistic integrations.

Connect, arrange, link, unify, mix, merge, wed, rearrange.Combine ideas, materials and techniques.

Make new mental associations that others might not necessarily make.

Ask: What else can you connect to your subject?

Move your subject into a new situation, environment or context.

Adapt, transpose, relocate, dislocate.

Adapt the subject to a new and different frame of reference.

Move the subject out of its normal environment; transpose it to a different historical, social, geographical or political setting or time.

Adapt an engineering principle, design quality, or other special quality of your subject to another. (The structure of a bird's wing, for example, has served as a model for designing bridges).

Look at it from a different point of view.

Extend, expand, or otherwise develop your reference subject.

Augment it, supplement, advance or annex it.Can your idea be better developed by adding more or different

Make larger, more complex, more meaningful, more colorful.

Think: What else can be added to your idea,
image, object or material?

Overlap, place over, cover, overlay.

Superimpose dissimilar images or ideas.

Overlay elements to produce new images, ideas or meanings.

Combine sensory perceptions (sound/color etc.)

Superimpose different elements from different perspectives, disciplines or time periods on your subject.

What elements or images from different frames of reference can be combined in a single view?

Make your subject bigger or smaller.

Change proportion, relative size, ratio, dimensions or normal graduated series.

Compare two things visually by contrasting their relative size.

Show the change in scale itself by creating freeze frames of an object as it grows or shrinks (like the frames in a movie or animation).

Can you show metaphoric change by focusing in on the details of change? (For example, show a person's descent into old age by focusing on the wrinkles growing over time.)

Think: Is there a story I can tell about the changes as something grows or shrinks?

Exchange, switch or replace.

Can you relate two different things by substituting one for another?

What alternate or supplementary plan can be employed?

For example, try substituting a cat's eyes for a fish's eyes to suggest the idea "catfish".

Substitute means, literally, to "stand under" which can also help us to "understand".

Think: What other idea, image material or ingredient can you substitute for all or part of your subject?

Separate, set apart, crop, detach.

In composing a picture, use a viewfinder to crop the image or visual field selectively.

Use only a part of your subject.

"Crop" your ideas too with a "mental" viewfinder.

Think: What element can you detach to focus on?

Twist your subject out of its true shape, proportion or meaning.

Can you make it longer, wider, fatter, narrower?

How can you misshape your subject? Can you maintain or produce a unique metaphoric and aesthetic quality when you misshape it?

Think: What kind of actual or imagined distortions can you effect?

Can you melt it, burn it, crush it, spill somethiing on it, bury it, crack it, tear it or subject it to yet other tortures?

Think: Distort means, literally, to "twist" away from the normal or ordinary.

Separate, divide, split.

Take your subject or idea apart.

Dissect your subject. Chop it up or otherwise disassemble it.

What devices can you use to divide it into smaller increments
-- or to make it appear discontinuous?

Is there a story hidden in the pieces?

Think: Can you say something different by showing your subject in pieces than be showing it whole?