Getting rid of Assumptions

Some people say the best designers are mad. They have outrageous ideas that will never work. Is this true? Or is it simply thinking outside the box and being different?
There are a number of ways in which to "break the rules"! Whatever your subject is, look at similes, metaphors to try and branch out and try and get that spark. These are different thinking strategies that will definately help to generate more ideas, yes, they will be more wacky and out there than your normal everyday ideas, if someone plays a word association game for example, take the word black, the first word you will say back is white. Keep going, say other words, Im going to say what is popping up in my huge brain associating with black.... Evil, Dark, Night, Stars, Badger. You get the idea, without taking the first idea, you get a wider range of ideas, fun ideas, strange ideas. Most of them won't work but you may get one idea that will make it.
An artist I like that uses this style is, Yuko Shimuzu.
She takes very known pieces of work, e.g The Great Wave. She incorporates different elements into the image which changes the meaning completely. Notions of Originality fits into this as well.

By changing the elements in the image, it reflects on the audience and changes the target audience.

It is different, a little disturbing but it works. If you break down her work methodology, you can see how she got to the idea by doing simple word associations, not going with the first ideas, think outside the box. Being different is very important. Unless she has very long hair in real life, then it isn't that impressive however, I am sure this isn't the case. She probably has no hair. Bald even. Who knows! None of the less, it works!