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Reading Response || Feb. 3

What is Graphic Design?

The human population should do themselves a favor and read an article such as this. There seems to be a lack of awareness on what graphic design is and frankly, it’s just sad to see. 

Much of what I read in this article I knew prior to but it’s still astounding to me how many types of design there are and all the different forms, experiences, and purposes of communicating it can acquire.

What is Information Architecture?

If you’ve ever tried to use something and thought, “where am I supposed to go next?” or “this doesn’t make any sense,” you are encountering an issue with an information architecture.

I wasn’t aware of such a thing, nor whether if I even had heard of the term, would I have affiliated it with design per se.

We like to say that if you’re making things for others, you’re practicing information architecture.

Couldn’t this be considered across all design disciplines?

What is IxD?

After watching the video, a lot of broad and loose definitions were thrown around as to what industrial design is such as “the world you see everyday” and “to understand what the user needs or how to improve someones life” which sounds pretty spot on to what designers in general do. However, there was a man that explained industrial design is hard to describe due to it’s “ever-changing landscape.” He mentions that it’s expanded into much more than product design which makes sense as to why it’s hard to pinpoint a definite description since it now carries into a multitude of forms. 

Demystifying Usability: What is Design? (Yes, all 10 definitions!)

I really enjoyed this article because it brought a new perspectives into how to interpret what design is. Although this website looks horrific, its content was one of the best I’ve seen thus far. It provided well defined descriptions of 10 different types of design and elaborated what they’re used for. I love the way the author broke it up into Design for the Mind, Design for the Heart, Design for the Body, and Holistic Approaches/Methodologies with some “sanity checks” along the way. This article cleared up a lot of fog I was having from previous readings.

The Memphis Plenary

Now knowing what IA is, I’m unsure of how there’s any argument to if it is good or valuable? From my understanding of the previous readings regarding Information Architecture, it is used to review, concept and test initial functionality. It’s all the wireframes, layout, navigation and features for screen interactions which being well familiar with these practices as a web designer and developer, I don’t see how anyone could throw out such important steps of the process and come out with an efficient product.

The talk about neuromarketing was interesting to think about and he made a good point about how TV commercials went to the lengths of making brain-scanning apart of their process to find specific patterns of neural activity in users. They said back decades ago, they called this “mind control.” Although brain tracking our users seems a bit too invasive, I feel that designers still have a manipulating ability which brings design ethics to mind.  

What is Interaction Design?

This reading gave good lists of examples where we benefit from good interaction design and lists ways we can suffer from poor interaction. It continues on talking about the origin of the term “interaction design” which I found helpful to better understand what it is myself. 

"It wasn’t product design exactly, but they were de nitely designing products. Nor was it communication design, although they used some of that discipline’s tools as well. It wasn’t computer science either, although a lot of it had to do with computers and so ware.”

Why Does Interaction Design Matter?

Digital displays are everywhere, but all speak different languages.

This pull-quote automatically reminded me of Apple and why it has been so successful. I believe it’s not only due to their user interface design but the use of that interface design being carried throughout all Apple products. Once you’ve learned how to use one Apple product, you’ve then learned how to use them all. There’s one fairly large learning curb (if you’re not familiar with Apple’s interface) to cross but once you’ve crossed it, they’ve made it too easily accessible and efficient across all platforms that often times you may never go back to learning a whole new “language” again.

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Reading Response || Feb. 19

Design Council: What is Service Design? 

Hm, what is service design? If I’m being honest, I’m still not exactly sure. I feel like I didn’t fully understand the subject matter of this video article on what exactly service design entailed? I’ve always known as graphic design (before taking this Capstone course & learning the wide variety of design occupations there were) to be a service in itself so what would a service designer’s limitations be? Am I overthinking this? Does service design just simply emphasis on the quality of a user’s experience for that particular service it’s providing? 

This video article discussed a lot on how much of design is focusing on UX for digital since that’s where our world is headed. I think it’s incredible, and almost unbelievable, the wide variety of services now that are accessible right at our fingertips. So if I understand correctly, service design’s priority is utilizing these services to shape the best experience possible with as little effort and hassle it can?

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Reading Response || Jan. 29

4 Tips For Cultivating Design Leadership At Big Companies 

This was not the article to read first. I ended up rereading it maybe 4 times?

“When you are a part of a business solution, you build a staff that has an appreciation of the business context. It’s not separate from the business but is in the business.”

Design should be incorporated within the business from the ground up and many more companies & establishments are finally taking notice of this wise investment.

The Design Leadership Gap 

In response to my previous reading, I very much appreciate this article for establishing the grounds of what exactly design leadership entails and distinguishing confusion between leadership and management. 

Design Management – one who shapes business processes and decisions to effectively create things, whether that thing is a product, service or environment.

Design Leadership – one who drives innovation, inspires teams, create growth opportunities within organizations. 

The article pulled a list from Warren Bennis’ book On Becoming a Leader that really put it into simpler terms and recognized more of an undertone of what each one actually does. One important difference in design management versus traditional business management tactics is that design management requires you to still be a designer. You must still empathize for your users and understand their desires which therefore makes you learn how to manage your own emotions. 

Leadership is THE Strategic Issue 

If and when they do, they can become the indispensable people occupying chairs at the directors table. 

Farson made many great points in this article such as rather than endlessly trying to convince your CEO (or even client) of how designers see the world, the better strategy would be to look into their view of the world. A previous article I read, as I’m sure many others do, described designers as being “weird.” The way we view the world is weird and went into further explanation of how design cannot be taught. A CEO’s job is not to understand how designers see the world, but the way our clients, our users, our audience, our CEO’s is a huge part of what we do. 

Another valid point he made was bringing up how so many people never expected to be doing what they’re doing now as their career path which applies for people across all disciplines. So changing to a leadership role couldn’t be much different and more designers should be more open-minded to change in positions. 

I really appreciated the reference to leadership is like being a good host at a party which he goes on about what all that entails. What many designers don’t realize is that the more experiences you endure, the more experienced in leadership you will become because truth is, you’re more than likely to experience these situations regardless. 

David Sherman: Design Leadership 

There was a part where Sherman spoke about the difficulty of keeping your perspective when taking risks aka “fog of war.” There's a big deadline and so much to do that everyone is struggling to get it done and often times THAT is when bad decisions slip into the work you’re making where in the end you’re not happy with. A design leader needs to not only think about the deadline but be able to step outside of the stress from the deadline and evaluate if their team is making the right decisions. Every single one of my design professors has shown that leadership where many of us were struggling on making the right decisions and our professors pushed back the deadline because they were more concerned with having a quality end product. 

I’m currently running into a similar issue with designing my dads book that’s getting published in the fall. It’s been in the works for a while now so my parents are just eager to get it done, therefore, I’ve noticed they’re just settling on some of the choices presented to them by the publisher because they just want it to be done. 

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Reading Response || Apr. 16

Dangerous Ideas on Design Education

I appreciate that James Victore acknowledges the fact that you must have a life of your own and have your own experiences in order to succeed in the design world. I like where he states design cannot be “taught,” but rather that it can be “reminded” and I feel like I wasn’t reminded enough of that while in school. Many times I have tried explaining to my peers that being a design major is entirely different than studying something like accounting. As Victore puts it, “Design is not math. There are no right answers and very few wrong answers.” In a sense I think math is really neat in that way that there’s a recipe to follow in order to get the answer of that equation but that’s much too limiting to me – not to mention my brain just isn’t wired that way.   

When we see freedom in someone’s work, it frees us up; when we see intelligence in someone’s work, it makes us smarter; and when we see vulnerability in the work we feel closer, more human. 

I wish I had read this article sooner than my senior year of college because I feel like I didn’t incorporate enough of my own story into my work . . . I didn’t make it as relatable as maybe I could have.

State of Design: How Design Education Must Change 

This article and The Conflicting Rhetoric of Design Education article were basically saying the same things as far as integrating more of the understanding of how art and science, technology with people, theory, and practice as productively as possible. I think it would be interesting to take a course where you’re working on projects with students from mixed disciplines . . . If done right, it could better prepare us out in the real life workforce.

The Conflicting Rhetoric of Design Education

Kolko made a good point where he talked about a young designer applying to a UI group with a portfolio that demonstrates too narrow of other skills that aren’t as applicable to that specific job. A designer needs to learn a clear, general and broad process that can be applied to an array of design disciplines. 

To be a successful designer, you must understand what people want, what evokes them, what triggers their emotions, and so on but how can one know if they don’t know how ones’ mind works or acts? This is where I agree with Kolko on that we should bring more cognitive psychology into a designers educational requirements. We must step back and gain a larger understanding of human behavior. Design is much more than craft, building, and beauty.

Design Professionalism: Design Education 

Education is not something you’re given, but something you must steal. It’s not something you get, but something you pursue. Constantly. 

I couldn’t agree more with his statement and his argument to never stop learning. I love learning new things whether it’s design related or not. I use to tell people I would stay in school awhile longer if I could just to take some extra classes on things I was interested in but truth is, a lot of the time you don’t need to stay in school to learn about or how to do something. However, being a visual and tactile-kinesthetic learner, I obtain a better understanding from the guidance of someone who knows what they’re talking about rather than just throwing myself right into whatever it is I’m wanting to learn. 

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Reading Response || Apr. 2

This is what I have learned

I thoroughly enjoyed this article because much of it didn’t directly talk about design but offered genuine advice on living your life which in return does overall affect your work as a designer. He shared great insight on all the points he made but I feel they all play into the foundation of how you live changes your brain. I believe that the way you live your life whether that’s if you choose to allow toxic people in your life, choose to lie or tell the truth, or choose to be open-minded ultimately revolve around who you are as a person. The way you choose to live your life will always reflect in your work. This too also reminded me of a quote that I’ve always tried reminding myself ‘If you can change your mind, you can change your life’ I believe both statements go hand in hand just as all the lessons Glaser learned play apart in one another. It all comes full circle.

Ethics can’t be a side hustle

Many of these articles that discuss design ethics automatically bring Brian Williams to my mind. News anchors are monumental figures whose level of trust is essential to the credibility of the networks’ reporting and I think the same goes for designers as well.  This article is synonymous with someone binge eating two pizzas and thinking that if they add a salad onto the end of it then it’ll make the overall decision a healthy one. It doesn’t do anything to correct the hypocrisy & blatant disregard for doing what’s right, but simply helps alleviate the guilt on their conscious. 

Ethics of Design

“The ethical framework that the individual applies is influenced by external forces” brings back the points what Milton Glaser had stated. 

I appreciated the way this article presented these ad campaigns that explored the different areas of unethical practices such as manipulation, corruption, dishonesty, misrepresentation, and exploitation. As a designer and a consumer, I can’t stand to be deceived and I imagine other designers don’t either, so it’s hard for me to understand why they choose to be the deceitful. Too much of the world seems to come down to two things: money and being on top. 

P.S. – I was rather disappointed when I couldn’t find Ernst Bettler’s P.H. Nazi poster series >:|

Should Designers Take Responsibility for the Ethics of Their Clients?

I hope to never be put into a situation where I’m contemplating the brand or company I’m representing is right or wrong. Maybe this is coming from watching the OJ vs. The People series on Netflix (highly recommended btw) awhile back but I feel like criminal lawyers are faced with this often. Are they representing someone who actually did pursue a horrific crime and if so, what are the consequences if they win their case and allow a guilty man to walk free? The same applies to a designer; they are still responsible.  

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Reading Response || Apr. 9

So all of these readings were beneficial to me in one way or another but I wanted to talk about Paula Scher’s article the most because so many personal experiences came to mind while I was reading.

Paula Scher on Why and When it’s Worth it to Work for Free

In this article, Paula Scher explains & lists the misconceptions of working pro bono and why it’s beneficial in most cases. Many in the design community feel that it working for free is unorthodox, however, Scher expresses the opposite. She states that she would rather work pro bono with full control rather than getting a fat check to agree to terms she’s not comfortable with which brings us to the whole idea of design ethics. 

The work I’ve been doing for class usually gives me a lot of control which is nice to hold the reins but if you simply don’t know where you wanna go, how much of that control is actually helpful? Thinking about this reminds me of a discussion we had in Kofi’s visual communications class around the idea that being given more parameters evokes more creativity. I’m someone who struggles to make decisions when the choices are endless. The more parameters I have, the better I seem to work because it’s easier for me to work around those limitations than to decide what those limitations are going to be especially in situations where there are no limitations at all. For example, our final in my infographics class was entirely free-ranged. We could do anything we wanted, on anything we wanted. I ended up choosing something I wasn’t hardly interested in and ended up being the worst topic to choose from because of the information & research itself being constantly contradicting. In these type of situations, I tend to fail.  

Perhaps I’m saying this as a typical unexperienced, not-even-out-of-college designer but as of now, I’m okay with someone else being in control for now as long as I feel it doesn’t weaken my work. I know before where there has been parameters on projects, I have bent some of the rules being given and argued against it because I felt that if I did it this way, it would overall better strengthen my work.

I took a look at Jessica Hische’s infographic Should I Work For Free? & it brought a lot to mind and one of them being a current project I’m working on. My dad is getting a book published and the publisher hired me to design it all from the cover to every page of the book. Being my father, I wanted to design the cover myself & didn’t even think about getting paid to do it. When I spoke to the publisher, he said something along the lines of “If you can, I want you to design the interior as well. Is $400 okay with you?” Me being an amateur and previously wanting to design the cover for free, I was giddy with joy to be getting $400 out of this gig. Later I’m told, $400 is a rip off which is upsetting considering I’m now realizing how hard it is to design an entire book. However, since this is my dad’s book and with me being a designer, I wouldn’t want anyone else to do it. Also just because I’m not being paid the equation of a well-developed, more experienced designer might be, it’s not going to keep me from doing my best work. This being my future profession, I need to be paid fairly just as any other job but I’m not even out of college yet. I believe you should & need to work your way up and establish yourself first. Like Scher said, the work I’m doing now will attract paid work down the road. 

sidenote– I’m glad she clarified what spec work was because I hadn’t heard of the term beforehand & of course I read Grace Oris’ article first.

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Video Response || Mar. 26

WVU Creative Arts Center is always inviting artists to come & share their story. These videos immediately made me think of the empowering lecture I attended with Bill Strickland. A man from inner-city Pennsylvania who is now nationally recognized as a visionary leader for delivering educational and cultural opportunities that actually promote innovation and creativity. In his lecture he talked about how big of an impact & influence our environment can have to our lives just as these videos share & recognize these same views.

Bill Strickland’s philosophy is the way to empower people is empowering their atmosphere with art, light, music and a staff that recognizes everyones inner potential no matter what you’ve done or where you come from. He founded the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild to bring arts education and mentorship to inner city youth in his neighborhood. It serves students by offering courses in ceramics, design, digital and photography studios. 

He showed us a photo of almost 15 kids who all had a criminal record, wasn’t going to school and saw no hope in a future. Every single one of them had graduated from his program & was attempted into college. This simple philosophy of designing an atmosphere where people actually want to stay to learn & engage, a place a where they see hope. 

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Reading Response || Mar. 19

Coroflot 

I appreciated under design job specialities the "awesomeness" option. haha

Design Census 

First, I didn’t realize Design Census was a collaboration of AIGA & Google for open source data about designers, for designers. This site, among any other links you’ve sent us has been added to my Bookmarks Design Resources folder (: I found it pretty inspiring & intriguing to view some these creative infographics of different statistics about designers. It started making me want to think of a more clever way to show my design landscape. 

SIDE NOTE // nice web design & although this may be irrelevant for the class, it’s given me ideas of ways to show my documented work other than just sending a url to my website to potential jobs via internet (what I’m struggling with currently).

Shh! Don’t Tell Them There’s No Magic In Design Thinking

This article was basically about how non-designers still don’t grasp what designers really do and always have done. They had to be given a new term to even recognize the practice of problem solving. There was a good point where he said in Home Depot you’ll find a section of the store called the Design Center, where they sell paint and decorative knickknacks to complete your projects. This is a perfect example in our society of ways that mislead our world into thinking design is only about making things pretty. 

Design Thinking is a shortcut for a new way for non-designers to approach design.

The Stone Soup example was an interesting metaphor for this “new” term design thinking. Used as a “new” term was a tool/device to reframe non-designers thinking of what designers really do and bring the entire organization together to collaboratively solve big problems. It’s still a bit unsettling that these do indeed think this is a new way of thinking. 

Design Professionalism: Career Path - Starting With an Agency

I’m really grateful you assigned this reading because I’ve been struggling on figuring out what to do for my future once I graduate. I have had a long-term relationship with someone who now lives in Nicaragua owning and operating a surf resort. My life goal is to travel & freelance and as of now my plans are to move to Nicaragua shortly after graduation & start my own business freelancing (very similar to Abbey Estep, former student of yours, who now runs Wayfarer Design Studio as her full-time job). 

At this particular moment in my life, it’s terrifying to think of throwing myself into something I know I’m not adequately ready for such as starting my own business fresh out of college. However, Abbey seems to be doing just fine with it and that’s the only thing giving me hope right now. Her business seems to be doing great, she keeps up with daily social media posts & writing on her blog, etc. but this scares the shit out of me. I am someone who needs a lot guidance and part of this is lack of confidence in the work I’ve produced and the process in which gets me there. I feel that I don’t really have an sufficient enough process to run my own business and I agree entirely everything this reading has mentioned. 

One point that I haven’t thought about was gaining quality feedback from critiques on my work. 

Part of the benefit of working in an agency is the opportunity to receive critique of your design work. In order for you to grow as a designer, you must become comfortable with having your work evaluated in consequential situations. This is true partly so that you can learn from the greater skill and helpful insights of more experienced designers and partly so that you can become practiced at supporting your decisions in a critical context.

Although I would lack “professionalism” as I’m starting out, the best part of this risky move is that I’ve be living at a surf resort where people from all over the world are coming to. In fact, Christian (the bf) was having a convo with the Canadians that were staying at his resort. One of them was a designer who works for a 3rd party company and gave them a lead on me. The Canadian designer emailed his boss & now I have the opportunity to show his boss my work. However, I haven’t done so yet because it’s not that clear to me what this person does & I’ve been taught that employment is a professional relationship and only fools go into such things blindly. I’m unsure how to even go about this considering I can’t do much research on his company and I don’t want to show that I’m that much of an amateur designer. 

But all in all, I’m excited for this opportunity and all the people I will meet (hopefully some potential clients) and I guess I will learn as I go. 

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Reading Responses || Mar. 12

A Golden Age of Design

It has been apparent that the lines between design, business & technology are getting blurrier as we step into our future. This article discusses how design has gone seamlessly hand in hand with ideas themselves & its functionality. I firmly believe in that design has generated profit because I am a recipient of that theory since before I can remember. Unconsciously I have always been attracted to “higher quality” package design.. I always just said I had rich taste. Design has & forever will play the key time in every decision I ever make. It’s important for one to be conscious of this & embrace that it has become apart of our daily lives.

The Rapidly Disappearing Business of Design 

As I was reading this article, I realized that I've been searching for work under corporations/businesses that seemed appealing to me rather than design firms. I have always thought about how cool it'd be to get a job with this company or that business.. one with inspiring design work already. I just saw myself running under my favorite company or something but regrettably enough, I never considered how big of an advantage it'd be to join an actual design firm. The variety of work & experience I would get with a firm seems much more challenging but would allow me to grow as a designer in more directions than one. 

A UX Legend on the Much-Rumored Death of the Design Firm 

I took a lot from this article & I would like to add to my statement from the previous reading "working for a firm would overall enable me to grow as a designer in more directions than one," it would also broaden my knowledge base & gain a better impartial perspective. Working within one business is so singular based that designers lose too much of an outsider scope which inevitably weakens their work and may not be as beneficial as corporations may think. As a designer I feel that the more you're in touch with the outside world, the better designer you will be so having outside interests other than design is rather crucial for having a big interest in design. 

If you gain efficiency while losing the outside perspective, you gain nothing. If you save money while suppressing the motivation to tell unpleasant truths inside your company, what have you gained? Saving money on designers isn’t a good deal if you subject those designers to the same cultural forces that prevent your other practitioners from thinking outside the corporate box.

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Reading Responses || Jan. 22

Design Professionalism 

So this reading was rather difficult for me to read & stay focused. It went so far in depth into defining what design professionalism is that it lost me more than once. However, I believe that it is necessary to go to the core of the definition starting with knowing exactly what professionalism is and acknowledging all of the fundamentals of a profession to know the true value & purpose of a design professional. To genuinely interpret something, one must consider all possible views of information. 

A professional is seldom caught off-balance. The discipline for deliberate preparation and the understanding that comes with it allow that even when something unexpected or unfamiliar is introduced, a professional can quickly understand its basis and easily extrapolate the appropriate tactic, strategy, or process for ethically and successfully resolving issues.

While reading the distinctions between a professional and those who are not, I started to self-evaluate. Although it should be needless to say in this point of my life, I do not qualify as a professional within my field. With more experience and challenges I face, the more I hope to reach that goal.

Design Intervention

Although you didn’t ask us to rate the readings of preference, I just wanted to state that this was my favorite (: In the text, it said ‘while aesthetic appeal is vitally important in many design contexts, it is not, in fact, an essential or defining element.’ THIS I must learn and I must learn soon. I am a perfectionist, OCD when it comes to my work (not the inside of my car or apartment) but everyone who has worked with me such as professors and classmates know I stress over every detail no matter how minor it is. That includes the way the designs look aesthetically which is a setback for me in this field because I value & focus too much on what it looks like rather than the research & informational elements that’s essential to fulfill and convey the right message. 

In divergent thinking, a great number of possibilities are considered, while in convergent thinking, the possibilities are whittled down to one or a few.

This tends to happen twice: first, many ways of defining the design problem are considered before being narrowed down. A brief can then be written and many solutions considered, then narrowed down to deliver a final design.

This was another take away and became very helpful as I’m starting an educational campaign around the idea of helping make change instead of giving change (to panhandlers) for the Downtown Task Force of Morgantown. The essay goes onto breaking down divergent & convergent thinking and being that I have never worked on a campaign before, I haven’t really known where to start. They’ve asked for campaign ideas that would be about distribution of the message as much as being a clever visual to get people downtown to participate but if there are better ways to communicate that visual then we as designers must plan accordingly. This sounds naive & rather silly but I never have thought about designers actually orchestrating & coordinating actual environments or even services. This reading gave me an insight on a way to be even more effective on this campaign if end users are also part of the conversation, so everyone has a clear picture of what we are working towards.

Defining Design 

I don’t mean to judge but as a web designer, I must say this webpage is awful in more ways than one. The navigation is confusing due to lack of hierarchy, not to mention it’s just plain hideous and the information it offers doesn’t seem to be much better. That being said, I do like the idea of how they give an “Old & New” to comparing to how design was defined years ago and how it’s designed today. HOWEVER, I don’t really commend them on the choices they made that “defines” design. I think design can be so involved that perhaps one single definition doesn’t suit. Many complex words have multiple definitions within them, I believe this is one of those words. 

Last semester I was told to write a manifesto on what I understand design to be & I feel that I owe you my true thought out definition of design. This was my outcome:

Design is essential. 

We are surrounded by design. The individual can be unconsciously inspired to make decisions regarding their daily interactions with the world in which they find themselves. They are motivated in their selections of everything from what they wear to what they will eat. They do this without thought. It is not interpretive, it is intuitive. 

Design is the careful arrangement of visual communication. It is problem solving to the very core of its existence. Design can ruthlessly demand a person’s attention or simply plant a seed of thought. It is more than possessing the ability to pair the right colors, it is observation and iteration. 

Design has specific goals. We depend on design to direct our decisions. We consume it willingly, for better or for worse. It surrounds you, it envelopes you, on a daily basis. It dictates your choices and mine. 

Design will always be essential.