Are there valid guidelines to design squeak and creak sounds produced by metal objects?
Sound Design is a creative pursuit. Consequently the way to progress in Sound Design is to learn the common techniques involved, such as:
- Sound Recording
- Editing
- Layering
- Pitch and Tone manipulation
- Audio Processing
- Mixing
- etc.
Once you are familiar with these techniques, begin to experiment with particular sounds and see what you come up with.
There are no other guidelines than this.
A violin bow on a cymbal can make some cool squeaky/creaky sounds.
Using a piezo disc taped to the cymbal as a transducer can help make it more metallic sounding than using a microphone, but either way is fun.
If you don't care about scratching the cymbal you can also experiment with scraping metal objects against it. Hardened metal (like a good screwdriver tip) can be nice and creaky.
I'm sure there are other ways, too..