Engineers are creative too

I was disappointed to see Times Higher Education associating itself with the tired old misconception about "traditionally non-creative industries such as engineering" ("Spanners in the art works", 14 August).

To me, the most creative achievement of the 20th century was designing and building Concorde, of course a great feat of engineering. Engineers are creative, but work within very strict (and unforgiving) rules.

Those who too often are given exclusive claim to the "creative" tag tend to work within loose rules, and hence present a greater illusion of creativity or originality. The paragraph might better have been entitled "Artistic applications of engineering" or similar - artistry being distinct from creativity.

Tim Wilmshurst, School of Technology, University of Derby.