when, as an everyday citizen, you have something public you'd like to say, don't you think you ought to be able to say it without fear?
a pause and a resume
it's been five months without a post and that is a complicated story but suffice it to say that the new programme is back with a new website, new host, and will be making incremental site updates including a portfolio. so welcome back, dear readers. i missed you.
new video from free range studio
being present
there i sat, staring this complete stranger straight in the eyes, my right hand on his left shoulder and his right hand on my left shoulder, for 30 seconds. it may have been the longest 30 seconds of my life.
no meaningful community can be sustained (let alone flourish) without radical new commitment to the art of people sharing time to talk
- tony brock
a former instructor of mine while in grad school at ncsu, tony constantly questions how we should be educating our students and what constitutes "education". he also questions -- rightly -- what we value as educators and how that reflects/informs our lives more holistically. (re-read quote for reference)
be eager for transformation, not control
- me
is it conceited to quote myself? i thought it was rather good, so why not?
tim brown on design thinking
"tim brown urges designers to think big" is the title of this TED talk, and of course it contains a lot of great ideas concerning the kinds of questions we are asking about how design can help people, the value of rapid prototyping, and the value of what our "priesthood of design" is currently making.
authenticity in design processes and relationships
i'm headed to raleigh, north carolina today to attend and do a workshop at ncsu's biennial graduate symposium. this year's title is "design, community and the rhetoric of authenticity". elliott earls, brenda laurel, jon sueda are all speaking, so it should be stimulating. my workshop is during a series of one-hour sessions, so hopefully a few people will choose to come to mine. below is the abstract for what i'm doing.
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design relationships and processes for agency
this workshop begins from the premise that design processes and working relationships are two key factors contributing to the authenticity of design activity and artifacts. through small group brainstorming, discussion, diagramming and process-mapping, this workshop will examine the following:
A) a range of possible relationships between those involved in the design process, primarily designer, client, and audience. relational factors such as social proximity, hierarchy and others will be evaluated.
B) strategies for inclusive design processes throughout all stages of a project. various process models/strategies for research, organization, form-making, and other process phases will be developed, visualized, and discussed.
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i have discovered several things over the past semester, months, year(s) that led to the premise. a recurring theme in the work i was making, seeing others make, and mentoring through teaching was that the closer a designer works with the client and audience, the more authentic, interesting, and engaging the end result is. another thing i've noticed, which is nothing new by any means, is how engaging and empowering it is to involve people in the actual creative process. this ranges from customizing your vans online to the crowdsourcing of those evil "design me a logo for ten bucks" websites (a misuse of crowdsourcing in my opinion), to meritocratic sites like threadless. there are lots of great ways to create new and unusual processes where people are empowered to contributed and be creative, and i hope through this workshop to begin uncovering some new ideas for how that can happen. we'll see what we can do in an hour...
art as business
why is it that creatives in general, and artists in particular, are always encouraged to "get serious" with their careers by treating it as a business? why is business a more legitimate concern in our society, indeed in our entire world, than artmaking and creative activity? where, in the evolution of humankind, did we go wrong with all the emphasis on economic standing through acquisition of material goods as an indicator of success? i think everyone knows that is a hollow pursuit, resulting in no true contentment or peace. in fact it does the opposite. but the evidence is all around us in the creative realm -- classes, tools, and advisors abound for helping us get more business-like with our art-making concerns. as if that is some indicator of how serious we are about our passions.
what if the opposite were true? what if creative output were the driving force and all the money/material were relegated to the status of "necessary evil"? what would this poor world look like if everyone were encouraged to pursue their passion with creative zeal (and why does that question sound so idealistically crazy)? what if business got serious by getting creative? perhaps they do, to some extent. perhaps that's where we're headed, albeit slowly, as people like daniel pink and richard florida help business realize the value of creativity. but it ultimately is in service of economy, as i cynically see it anyway.
i don't pretend that any of this thinking is anything more than me thinking out loud, but i take the questions as serious provocations. worth putting out there into the ether of the internets, anyway.
the sale of rebellion is tantamount to heresy
i recently saw a lecture in which a large design studio showcased a huge range of research and design solutions for converse and "all stars" in particular. it is probably just my personal background and beliefs clouding my judgement, but the more i watched this presentation, the more i because nauseous about the careful scrutiny and subsequent commodification of alternative/youth/creative/rebellious culture. being in the punk/hardcore scene for many years showed me clearly the difference between authentic expressions of an alternative view of society/culture and inauthentic/prepackaged ones. this typically happens in the form that this design studio engaged in -- understand the audience, design some campaign featuring your "solution" that embodies the correct brand attributes which mirror the audience's attitudes, attach it to your product, and sell those attributes/product back to the audience. not cool at all.
now as i said before, it may just be my own sensitivity to this issue and others don't find fault with it. in an attempt at objectivity, i asked my wife -- a long-time chuck taylor wearer -- why she repeatedly chose to purchase those shoes.she mentioned first the associations with her youth, which involved punk rock, skateboarding, etc. next she mentioned (correctly) that the shoes have an association with counterculture and she identifies with that, so she continues to signify her cultural associations by wearing those shoes.
that's all fine and dandy and i don't have a problem with any of those reasons. i guess it's when the company decides to actively push that angle in trying to sell more shoes that it becomes problematic. the imagery and video i saw in the presentation included a canvas bag with "revolution" stencilled in red on it, guys skateboarding, people playing music shows, raw rock 'n' roll soundtracks, etc, etc.
what i think is amusing about the studio's "understanding" of the audience, as thorough as it is, is that anyone that is serious about nearly any of the subjects they tried to associate themselves with, would have a huge problem with the product. any serious skater, except maybe an old school dude, would never skate in chucks these days. anyone serious about social/political activism or revolution would be unlikely to wear chucks because nike owns them, they are not sustainably made, they don't pay their workers a living wage, etc. but maybe that superficial understanding of "rebellion" is exactly what appeals to converse's target market -- those who think they are being rebellious by wearing a particular brand of anything.
so what do you think? why do you wear chucks? why not? what do you think of their association with counterculture, whether propagated by culture itself or by designers, marketers and the corporation? is the sale of rebellion tatamount to heresy?