In math, you can sometimes solve a problem through brute force, and that might be the best solution. But you might also get the opportunity to solve something elegantly: to play anything from a clever trick to a really outstanding maneuver that leverages the distinct properties of the problem itself. You can cancel out common factors sneakily hiding across a numerator and denominator; you can find a special property that actually identifies a triangle as isosceles.
To me, a designer’s job is to take the latter kind of opportunity as much as possible, and take it as far as you possibly can. If you try a few different approaches and meander into your material with curiosity, you’ll find all sorts of interesting possibilities: a motif that really resonates, an unexpected convergence of forms, a shockingly good hierarchy.
If you’re a design engineer, that problem space gets even more exciting because the frontier is so jagged: Has this kind of animation ever been executed this performantly? Have we ever leveraged sound or haptics or dynamic textures in this way? Sometimes, these tricks and special revelations can only become apparent when you’ve spent enough time in the weeds.