What I have Learned So Far: A Partial Manifesto

As with any learning experience, along my path as a design student I have picked up some wisdom, from both industry professionals and real-life experiences alike. The following is the beginning of a far from complete manifesto.

1.     If you don’t find some degree of enjoyment in it, you’re probably doing the wrong thing. Everyone has certain things about jobs that they dislike, but if you feel no enjoyment or passion whatsoever in what you’re doing, try to explore new areas to find something that really inspires you.

2.     Take a lot of walks. Walking semi-aimlessly allows for time to think, reflect, and perceive the world around you. It’s a good way to spot new advertising campaigns or become inspired by something you find interesting.

3.     Be honest with yourself. If you know you’ll want to procrastinate on a project, make it a priority. If you know you’re settling on a design that is “meh”, push harder. Knowing when you can do better and setting goals to do so is the key to great accomplishments.

4.     Seek knowledge and inspiration. To be well rounded as a designer, you should have a variety of interests and experiences to inspire your ideas. These things don’t just find you by chance, you have to go out looking for them and trying new things.

5.     You can’t always be safe. In design and in life alike, sometimes you have to take risks. Sometimes risks are vital to gaining the knowledge and inspiration mentioned previously, and trying things that haven’t been done before is key to creating unique design.

6.     Always listen to advice. Listening to it doesn’t mean you have to take it, but you should never decline or miss an opportunity to receive advice. You never know when you might learn something that will change your life.

7.     Work in many different mediums. You don’t have to be good at it or even use it particularly for design, but everyone should break away from the sketchpad or the computer and create something with their hands. Creating things organically is cathartic and can inspire design projects.

8.     If you’re getting frustrated, get away for a while. When I feel like I’ve hit a dead end with a concept or design problem or my ideas are marred by stressful thoughts, I find it’s crucial to get away from whatever is bothering you, even if it’s just for a little while. When you return to the problem, you will face it with more strength and a clearer mind.

9.     A manifesto is never complete. There will always be new life lessons and wisdom passed on to you, and it is our choice to recognize and interpret these things in a way that will be useful and expanding.

Four Contemporary Designers

So far this semester we have looked at four contemporary designers: Marion Bantjes, Bruce Mau, Stefan Bucher and Stefan Sagmeister. The success of these designers can partially be attributed to come of the qualities they possess in common, and incorporating these qualities into everyday life would be beneficial to any student designer. One things I noticed is that they all derive inspiration from places outside of the computer screen. Many design students think that "finding inspiration" means looking at different websites and taking notes of design they like, but many successful designers draw inspiration from anywhere but a computer screen, such as Stefan Sagmeister's belief in taking sabbaticals in order to travel, or Marion Bantjes being inspired by old Christmas cards. All four of these designers had a frm belief that in order to attain real inspiration, one must remove themselves from the desk and go explore the real world, try to see things in a different way.
Another quality these four designers share is the tendency to avoid "safe" design while also designing for the sake of design. Many of the pieces we viewed by these designers were something they did because they truly wanted to. Even though these projects might have been used or inspired something else later that made them money, these projects began as designing for the sake of design, not for money. In fact some of them openly condemned designing purely to make money, insinuating that it leads to cold, uninspired design and ultimately an unhappy existence.
The final thing I noticed as being prevalent among these four designers was a written or mental manifesto or list of rules. It seems to me that learning from mistakes and documenting it, as well as laying out some ground rules based on firm beliefs leads one to understand their design process, their personal style and ultimately themselves on a higher level. Once you are more understanding of these things, you will have a better idea of what makes you work better, where you need to improve and what you are good at. This level of understanding is what I believes leads these designers to go above and beyond what is expected and into the realm of what is surprising when it comes to design.
I think a lot of design students see the design process as more of a structured, mechanical process because of the necessary time restrictions and limited resources. Learning about how successful designers such as these four work makes us understand that design should be experienced and explored as opposed to studied and emulated, that design is an organic entity, not a sterile practice.

A letter to Stefan Bücher

Dear Stefan Bücher,
Our class watched a video presentation of your conference talk, Make | Think and until I viewed it I am sorry to say I was unfamiliar with you as a designer, although I had seen your work with the daily monsters. I had seen them around and admired them, but knew nothing of the process which is in itself extremely interesting.
I found there were many things in your talk I was able to relate to as a student designer, such as your observation that ideas start out fun and supportive but become less so as the process begins. I find this all the time with myself, but unlike you I seldom possess that other voice inside my head that tells me it would be too hard and can't be done. Though this may sound great, I feel it hinders me as a student designer because quite often my ideas and determination outweigh my resources and abilities. Often this leads to a great idea that is very poorly executed, and being visual as all designers are, this leads to my originally great idea not being successfully communicated at all.
I very much identify with your idea of working as a balance of feeding and working the conscious mind while also allowing time for the unconscious mind to bring forth revelations, and generally I try to balance research and downtime in order to come up with an idea that is new and surprising. When it comes to approaching the execution, however, I envy your seemingly carefree approach. I tend to approach design analytically as if there is a problem to be solved every time, and my work would likely benefit from a less stringent approach.
All in all, I felt your presentation on your work and personal design style thoroughly informed me about you, but also brought me to realizations about my own personal working style and how I could improve upon it. It's always good to get a designer's perspective, and the ideas expressed really opened my eyes.

Regards,
Kristin French

Current Advertising Campaign Critique

A recent ad campaign that has been extended beyond where most television spots are expected to is the "Walk-In Fridge" campaign for Heineken. The original spot appeared on television and viral video in 2009 and showed a group of women squeaking with joy over a walk-in closet full of shoes, but they stop when they realize they are being drowned out by their husbands who are downstairs yelling excitedly over a walk-in fridge lined with bottles of Heineken. The viral video got millions of views and the television ad was long-running. It also won a silver award in the 2009 Cannes Lions awards in the film category. In 2010 they continued the campaign with guerilla advertising in Amsterdam, which featured giant boxes labelled "walk-in fridge" beside dumpsters and being carried around by young men. This blurred the line between fiction and reality for the T.V. spot, and this trend continued with an actual walk-in fridge being installed by Heineken at a beer festival, where they allowed groups of friends to enter it and shoot their own viral video spoofing the original.
    The target market for these ads is males aged 21-35 who love beer and have a healthy social life. This is obvious as that is the target market for the majority of beer ad campaigns, but also because that is the type of person cast in the commercial and likely the same type of people participated in the viral video spoof campaign at the beer festival.
    A current cultural theme reflected in this commercial is the Western glorification of materialism reflected in shows such as Sex in the City. The commercial is basically pointing out that men can get excited over frivolous material things the same way women can, even if those frivolous things are very different from one another. It also reflects the recent trend of frat-like groups of grown men, or "bro-hood", which reflects manly qualities in banding together to do something as a group. This quality is strongly reflected in the campaign's latest T.V. spot, in which a group of friends work together to build a walk-in fridge, ending in hilarious results.
    What I see in this ad campaign is a cultural shift away from the idea that men should be independently strong and do things by themselves, moving into more of a brotherhood mentality similar to fraternities where grown men work together to accomplish goals, as trivial as they may be. I also see a shift in advertising that is moving away from the typical beer commercial that usually involves dancing women, a booming voiceover and beer being poured into a tall glass. Commercials such as this one and the Dos Equis campaign display a movement towards a storyline and subtext in beer commercials.

My Weekly Media Use

Two weeks ago our class was asked to track our individual media usage over one week and create and information graphic to represent it. My media use results didn't surprise me very much, except for my excessive text messaging. It really showed me the difference between having unlimited texting and paying 15 cents per text like I used to.
     I chose to split my media up into categories and group similar media in order to make it easier to draw quick comparisons. The pie charts all express the media categories that were tracking usage by hours, and the green blocks underneath most of the pie graphs give statistics on the media we were asked to track by frequency rather than hours. Each statistic is underneath a category it relates to, which adds more depth to the information than just the pie charts.

Design Is...

Design is the application of elements such as colour, balance and hierarchy to objects all around us in order to make them usable and understandable. It is concerned with conveying use or meaning to people in a clear and concise manner and being understood by those that the design is meant to target. Something visually appealing isn't necessarily designed if it doesn't serve a purpose. A design must entice people to interact with it, but it must also accomplish a main goal; form follows function.

My Design Process

When I receive a new project, the first thing I do is read the specifications carefully a few times to memorize them. After that I usually think about the project for some time, jotting down notes and sketches for anything that comes to me right away and performing research. Once I've exhausted my ideas, I'll step away from the project and do something I enjoy or work on another project to let new inspiration come to me. If I get inspired, I'll add to my previous notes.
Once I choose a direction, I draw a rough layout before moving on to digital applications. I apply my notes and sketches to the program I'm using, and execute my idea. Usually during this time, my design will change based on my skills and opinions along the way.
When I feel my design is finished, I'll leave it for a day and come back to look at it after I've had a while to stop thinking about it. This is usually when I'll spot a mistake or something I'd like to make a last minute change on because I haven't been staring at it for hours. Although my process may not be entirely time efficient, I find it is how I do my best work.