© American Society for Engineering Education, 2016. The concept of group brainstorming for idea generation is widely used in business settings; in Ireland it remains underutilised as a pedagogical tool. This study investigated the potential use of individual creative brainstorming; brainsketching in education. A purposive sample was employed comprising of forty-eight students from three secondary (high) schools. The study investigation occurred using two design based tasks (norm and inventory). An intrinsic motivation inventory (IMI) analysed students' motivation for each design based task approach. Brainsketching successfully increased students originality levels of design ideas (r=0.414). In the context of intrinsic motivation, the data demonstrates increased interest/enjoyment (r=0.545), perceived competence (r=0.465) and perceived choice (r=0.063) when using the brainsketching inventory approach. The data suggests brainsketching increased students' levels of intrinsic motivation in the design-based problem solving activity. This indicated the utilisation of a strategic brainsketching approach for creative design based activities in education is conducive to creative idea generation.