不論是藝術創造或設計均講求創意，然而創意的產出需尋求開發的方法，而過去90年代以來之西方實務界或教育界多以「視文字爲插畫、圖像元素(type as illustration)」作爲有關文字設計創意開發的主張，本文藉由觀察這個設計現象，反思我們普遍性認知「漢字具圖像或表意傾向」的意涵爲何？即其對藝術與設計在創意的開發上有何關聯性的問題。爲能具體化問題，筆者進而將思考點放在漢字源出的造字方法思維的探究上進行。這篇文章是針對假借造字所作的嘗試性探討^1。研究過程運用相關文字學資料輔以符號學與解構理論做申論，提出和進行闡述假借方法中可能隱藏有「呈現與不呈現」以及「相似性」符號特性的思維運用，並將研究發現導入設計與創作的可能性，以藝術家、設計師作品和筆者的實驗做討論與說明。本研究目的除了闡明人們對漢字具圖像或表意傾向的這層認知，實可更具體轉化運用在藝術與設計之創意開發上，同時也證實文化可能爲創意者所用，這不僅包括能從文化傳統圖像之視覺元素中抽取，文化裡的知識文本也可經由閱讀詮釋、轉化成爲創意產出的源頭與方法。而本文對六書中「假借」的思維特徵與視覺化運用的經驗與結果，亦可對現有文獻在有關造字方法六書挪用到設計之際時，對假借方法特性之轉用，能再盡詳述補充之貢獻。

Creativity is paramount whether in artistic creation or in design. However, the birth of creativity requires methods of development. Since the 1990s, the communities of practice or education in the West have mostly embraced "type as illustration or visual element" as the principle for creative development in terms of typographic design. Through observing this design phenomenon, this essay contemplates on the meanings behind our pervasive perception of "Chinese characters tend to be iconic or ideographic"? That is, the question of how it's related to the creative development of arts and design. To highlight the question, the author furthermore focuses this investigation on the thinking patterns behind the methods of word coinage of Chinese characters. This essay engages in assumptive investigation of the "Chia Chieh" method of word coinage. Throughout the investigation, it utilizes related informations from philology and supplements them with semiotics and deconstruction theories as the bases for argument. It proposes and elaborates that there might potentially be the thinking patterns of "presentative and non-presentative" and "similarity" semiotic characteristics behind the "Chia Chieh" method. It then takes that research finding into the possibility of design and artistic creation by discussing and explaining the works of artists and designers and the experiment of the author. Apart from the purpose of elucidating on people's perception of "Chinese characters tend to be iconographic or ideographic," this research can in fact be tangibly applied to the creative development of arts and design, which proves at the same time that cultures can be used by artistic workers. Not only does it mean that creative ideas can be culled from the visual elements of the cultural tradition's icons, but also that the intellectual text in the culture can be read, interpreted and then transformed into sources and methods of creativity. In terms of the thinking characteristics and the experience and result of visualization application of "Chia Chieh" in Liu Shu, this essay also contributes to deeper discussion in existing literatures with its investigation of how the characteristics of the "Chia Chieh" method as a word coinage method in Liu Shu can be transformed into a method of design.