The world of design is enmeshed with discourses concerning the application of linear and non-linear concepts, systems and methods. Both academics and practitioners have debated the values; use and location of both types of approach in design and the density of either type of system can be observed across diverse creative disciplines, sometimes fluctuating according to historical circumstances. Industrial design and engineering have long enjoyed the cohabitation of a problem space composed of a sophisticated mixture of linear and non-linear systems which narrate the breadth of thinking from the innate through to the ultra rationalist approach. The relationship of these systems illustrates the diversity of problem solving that in many ways is mirrored across the whole spectrum of art and design disciplines and maps the range of problem types from the definable through to the meta and the wicked.