In today’s information explosion era, the creation and manipulation of knowledge have become more favoured than its memorisation, especially when learning reaches a higher level. It has become more important for design students, who are supposed to perform higher order thinking and possess creative ability, to generate new ideas. However, not all design students can access their creativity on the first day of their design study. How best to nurture creativity among design students thus becomes an important issue. The aim of the paper is to provide direction for teachers and researchers in facilitating creativity and developing students’ creative thinking. The limitations of current creative thinking development are identified through a case study of Hong Kong. It is found that the limitations include teachers’ high expectations about the appropriateness, novelty and accomplishment of the artefacts made by students. Teachers’ perceptions on the illumination approach of achieving creativity, the innate ability of creativity and the teacher-initiated classroom for cultivating creativity also affect creativity cultivation. A framework which is constituted by six necessary shifts is then proposed to address these limitations so that creativity and its thought processes can be nurtured and developed among students.