The effort of listening to, researching, and rendering Christmas songs paid off. The Great Map of Christmas Songs was chosen for the DSVC 2011 Dallas Show and wound up winning a Bronze Medal. It’s an honor to win in a event that is seen as one of the premier design competitions in the region.
Also exciting was the fact that one of my professors, Alex Egner, won two gold medals for his fantastic work.
With the conclusion of the spring semester I’m officially one third of the way through my MFA coursework. This semester could easily be considered the “teaching” semester: all of my classes had something to do with pedagogy, which focused my thinking and my work on one topic. I enjoyed the ability to hone in on one main area of study; however, semester two’s out-of-class lessons were a little more broad in nature, like:
So here’s what I learned in the second semester:
Our class outline.
At the outset of my academic career at UNT I looked through the coursework and thought the word “pedagogy” was a bunch of fancy gibberish. I mean, why not just say “teaching” and be done with it? I learned from experience that there is no better word as there’s a lot more to teaching than just teaching.
Design Pedagogy should be a required course for anyone aspiring to teach in higher education. This course required my classmates and I to examine all of the skills a student should posses by the time they graduate from an undergraduate design program. We created stacks and stacks of cards with individual bits of knowledge scribbled on them that we felt were essential knowledge (here’s the proof on Flickr). This start, and the following process of sorting through our “ideal” requirements based on time constraints, were the seeds for all of the work that followed. Our group spent the semester developing classes, curriculum, reviews, assignments, syllabi, grade sheets, critiques, and any other minutiae that goes into creating an entire sequence of classes that make up a design program. Essentially, we concepted, developed, and implemented a design program, from scratch. The fact that I loved the process—that it felt more like fun than work, further cemented the fact that I was made to be an educator. Talk about confirmation!
The experience demonstrated the amount of planning and care that goes into shaping future graphic designers. It’s an important but daunting task. The semester also highlighted the sobering fact that there’s so much to teach and so little time. This is only exacerbated by the fact that legislatures are beginning to limit the number of hours that can be required for degrees (a Bachelor of Fine Arts in this case) in an effort to get students through college faster and cheaper. My experience revealed this: one cannot hope to build in all of the conceptual repetition, process practice, skills knowledge, cultural awareness, historical research, technological prowess and business acumen required of a practicing designer into a design program. It would take forever! So, you do your best to create curriculum that teaches what the student needs most, and you build into them the awareness of the areas where they need to grow and you encourage that hunger for growing themselves after they graduate.
For me, it confirmed my thoughts on the core of an excellent design education: to teach concept, not software skills.
Learning how to teach is just as important as learning what you’re teaching.
Classes were held in the UNT Design Research Center on Elm Street in Downtown Dallas.
Academia is a strange land. The customs are foreign, the history is maligned, the purpose is debated, the governance is peculiar, the language is esoteric, and the culture is unlike anything in the rest of the world of employment. University Citizenship and Tenure in Design was created to help graduates navigate within academia’s borders and, like Design Pedagogy, I believe the information presented in it was invaluable. To dare emulate Mr. T, I pity the fools who go into higher education and don’t have the benefit of the map of academia this class renders.
Much of this course was dedicated to self-examination. I formulated my Design Philosophy and my Teaching Philosophy, then researched and evaluated schools and departments that aligned with my personal beliefs and aspirations. The class was also tasked with examining design departments on not just their reputations, but also their geographic locations, histories, budgets, politics, and structure. I even interviewed faculty at a few schools, which rendered valuable answers that offered “boots on the ground” stories of what it is like to work in such places. Adding a rare layer of transparency to the study of academia, no topic was off-topic with my professor: our class discussed salaries, raises, sexual harassment, interviewing, firing, personal clashes, benefits, sabbaticals, among other topics, all through the lens of experience.
But there was also a great deal of study of the academy in general. I learned about the history of higher education, the reasons for tenure and we discussed its future. Through reading and discussing George Dennis O’Brien’s All the Essential Half-Truths about Higher Education, I was exposed to the foundations of the academy (and to the cracks in that same foundation) and as a result, have a better understanding of the university’s place in our society and also of the place of the educators within the academy.
In all, the experience was eye-opening and course-adjusting. I feel I have a much clearer view of what to expect outside of the classroom, thanks to this class.
Accepting a job offer to teach is a holistic decision: teaching in higher education is more like a marriage than a job.
Discussing modern art on one of our class outings, this one to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
I hadn’t taken an art history course in 13 years before this semester. I was bracing for what I remembered of my art history survey courses: slides, dates, titles, and regurgitation. But instead I got theory, discussion, interaction, and relevant application. Art history has changed a lot, and I like it.
The topics in this course change regularly and spring 2011′s content was focused on the relationship between Modernism and Modernity. I’ll let you explore more on the topic (as I could write thousands of words on it) but in a nutshell, modernity is the cultural condition where constant innovation and progress (often through technology) become a primary driving force in thought, practice, and in beliefs. Modernism (a la Modern Art) is generally considered to be the art that was produced somewhere between 1900 and the 1960s that reacted to and reflected the condition of modernity. One overarching theme in the class for me was that when one considers the generally accepted definition of Modernity, there is a pretty good argument that can be posed that we are still in Modern times, despite the claim that the art being created today is Postmodern.
For our semester-long assignment the class divvied up movements and periods of Modernism and was tasked with creating a week’s worth of curriculum to teach that content as part of an undergraduate art history class on Modernism and Modernity. Over the course of the semesterI explored the art of the 19030s and 1940s in America in the process of developing curriculum to teach the period. Through the experience my perspective of the period was broadened: I began to examine the art as a representation of the history, the culture, and as not just the personal voice of the artist, but as an expression of the nation and what was taking place in the pre-World War II period. I had never looked at art this way before. In fact, it challenged me to consider why we study history, which spawned a blog post of the same name that I posted a few months ago. The class challenged me that the study of art is not limited to just formal art, but must include the culture, politics, economics, attitudes and general history of the period where that art was created. For me, it elevated art to where it should be: a force of reporting and expression that is a key component of the identity of the culture (not just fine arts culture).
All of this was facilitated through the exercise of the creation of curriculum. I believe the saying goes something like: if you want to really learn something, teach it. This approach worked for me through this class and it filled me with ideas and attitudes on the period that I had never before considered.
The advance of technology affects everything.
I’m ready for the summer, but not ready to let go of learning. I am wrapping up work on one research project for KERA, am starting work on another research project at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth with other Grad Students and my professors, will be writing papers to submit for conferences and publications, and will be taking a class in the last summer session which will wrap up my required study in Anthropology.
It seems Depeche Mode said it best: I just can’t get enough, I just can’t get enough…
In 1984 I visited Disney’s EPCOT Center in Florida and was introduced to my design future. I was awed by its elegant visual identity and efficient way-finding system. I was inspired by the theme park’s vision that a better future could emerge from creativity, innovation, and effort. And I left believing that I could help make that future happen. I doubt many other nine year-olds adopted these themes in the way that I did in 1984, but from my EPCOT Center experience I discovered what has remained the driving force that informs my design philosophy: through design, I can make a difference.
I believe design exists to serve people and to make their daily lives better. It can make abstract concepts easier to grasp, and can reveal deeper, unexpected meanings from simple ideas. With design, communication that would be otherwise confusing or dull can make sense or even add beauty into one’s interaction. In so many ways, design enhances and clarifies the way people interact with their worlds. It is my passion to be part of making those connections by adding clarity to the world around me through my work.
The genesis of my design process always starts at the end, with the receiver/user. Whether it’s work for business or for the public sector, designers should understand the people and environments where the solution will be used. This user-centered approach is most common in interactive and industrial design, but it shouldn’t stop there. Foreknowledge of cultural, political, and historic climates informs successful design concepts, content, and aesthetics drastically, across all disciplines of design. As designers, our work can be most effective in serving the people for whom we design when we design with the end in mind.
It seems EPCOT Center in 1984 was a pivotal moment in my life… and I thought I was on vacation. But I am thankful for its message that the future and the well-being of people is in all of our collective hands. Designers have a large part in that work, and my passion is to shape the future with the people living there in mind. To quote the theme song from the EPCOT Center pavilion, Horizons: “If we can dream it, we can do it.”
Last week, when discussing how to teach Modern Art, Modernism, and Modernity in an Art History course, our class discussed the challenges of teaching art history and what aspects of the discipline are worth exploring. The core question was: how do we teach art history? When driving into work today I explored the reasons for why it’s important to study history at all.
New ideas and concepts are built on the foundation of knowledge. Whether you read it in a book, made a mistake and then suffered for it, or you went line dancing and met a girl who dug your chili and the way you scoot, you gained knowledge (and I would argue, the equally important experience). All of these pile up inside you as raw material. You have a base of knowledge and experience from which you can pull.
Every idea you come up with today is only as good as the content you have inside you to pull from. Metaphors, building designs, accounting, love letters, breakthroughs in understanding the human genome, logo design: they all have to come from somewhere. You may have a muse, but they’re just a catalyst. If you don’t have raw material in you to pull from, then you will be found out as the person in class who didn’t read the material. Worse still, you won’t come up with anything good.
Pick your history, any history. Ancient history, recent history, the endless episodes of Friends you watched, yesterday: it’s all history. So, by banking the histories inside you, by learning the stories of others, mistakes that have been made, the cultural movements and pivotal moments (a.k.a. Friends, again), one has raw material to pull from to understand the world around them and also to pull from when creating something new. Intellectually, you’ll have frame of reference, culturally you’ll be on the inside of all of the inside jokes. And yes, they were on a break (last Friends reference).
My study in anthropology has challenged me that there is no one, truly perceivable history. We as humans tell the stories, but they are all from our own perspectives. Dr. Veteto, a professor in anthropology at the University of North Texas and an expert in ethnoecology and biodiversity presented the concept very clearly. If there are multiple accounts from multiple people, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle of all of those perceptions. Because everyone has their own spin, it requires looking at concepts from those multiple viewpoints in discovering just where the truth lies. It requires a study of history from multiple perspectives in order to make up your own mind on what actually happened.
The more study of history one does, the more voices add into the conversation, and the more accurate your own perception will be. History’s use here, is to serve as a body of knowledge to pull from in understanding the voices and perceptions of others while also creating new things today. Thanks to Bernard of Chartres and then Isaac Newton, the idea of “standing on the shoulders of giants” exists. If we are to attain any lofty idea, we must elevate. What better way to gain understanding than to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and have written their stories? In the case for amassing raw material in an effort to better understand and elevate, history is better than a step stool.
Have you ever wanted to see the future? Well, it’s already happened. In the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, Solomon writes one idea over and over and over and over again (it’s a little annoying actually) but he gets his point across: there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s all happened before. So let’s test this: recession, poverty, the end to once-incurable diseases, skinny jeans, war, the popularity of frozen yogurt, they’ve all happened over and over again. So if we look at history through the lens of Solomon’s wise writings, then history is bound to come back again. The Propellerheads had it right “It’s all just a little bit of history repeating.”
If history repeats, then the study of history can arguably be the study of the future. Ideally (a la Back to the Future) we can prevent what has happened before by making choices today to subvert the cycle. We as a race aren’t great at not repeating our mistakes, but ideally, if we understand history and the circumstances that led to the events in the past, we can make choices now that will redirect circumstances toward a more desired result.
But what about technologies that are emerging today that have never been seen before. Does that destroy my future is the past idea? Mobile computing, wireless technologies and communications networks are more complex and inventive today than ever before. But at the time of their creations, the telephone, television, and radio were all technologies that were just as game-changing and inventive. While the technologies are different, the study of the effects of these technologies on the culture is the more important and relevant study. The technologies may be radically different, but we can examine their effects just the same way and that leads to a valuable history that can be applied to the future. By studying the past ramifications of invention, we can better anticipate the future impacts of current technological advances. That goes for any study of history, even if your study applies applies to oranges and apples, they still make a similar splash when they are dropped in a bucket of water,
Understanding, exploring, and examining the past reveals the motivations, challenges, and potential outcomes for the future. When one has a base of knowledge of history, then they can better anticipate the future. Stick that in your crystal ball and smoke it.
Too often, the study of history is wasted on students because they labor through the process without hope for application. Creativity is still a mystery, and in that mystery is the fact that one never knows from where the one will pull concepts when making ideas or connections. So, while students are studying the escalation of the cold war, learning about labor unions in and around the steel industry, and examining what brought about the discontinuation of the use of cabooses on trains, they have no idea how (or if) they’ll use the information in the future. My experience shows that a third of it will be used for sure, just which third? (My money is on the caboose.) The challenge for students is for them to have faith that what they are learning will add up to something valuable. Not an easy thing for high school students or even college undergraduates. But of you’re reading this, trust me, It’ll pay off.
In all of this, learning history has value, but only because the study of history has modern applications. As I examine my teaching philosophy while gearing up to become an educator, the same theme rises to the top: how does the information I am teaching impact students in a way where they can use it today? I’m constantly asking myself how I can integrate historical experience to add relevance to a concept or emphasis to an idea. In doing this, I pull from my knowledge of history every day. As educators we must find ways to create value in the study of history for our students. History shows it’s worth it.
My first semester of study at the University of North Texas pursuing an MFA in Design was full of discovered perspectives, aha moments, and a renewal of my passion for learning. While this all came at a cost (tuition, sleep and gas) there’s no reason to make you, dear reader, pay the same fee. In the interest of sharing knowledge, here’s what I learned in Fall 2010:
When I was an undergrad at Texas Tech, they didn’t offer History of Communication Design and because of that, I now know that I was done a great disservice. The study of design history is an invaluable exercise. By exploring the roots of our practice, I better understand why I design the way I do and am far more aware of the design decisions of those before me, helping me to make more well-rounded decisions in planning my work. “Filling the tank” with images of design work from around the world and exploring the problem solving processes that went into the creation of those artifacts reminds me why I love being a designer. The class left me aware, energized, and humbled. Simultaneously.
How to correctly say Jan Tschichold and László Moholy-Nagy (not “Tish-hold” or “Nagg-ee”).
I chomped at the bit to get started with my teaching internship experience. I’ve had a passion for being an educator for as long as I can remember and this was my chance to play with “live ammo.” The first thing I learned was, with as much enthusiasm as I may have had, I was worn out at the end of each class after helping conduct 19 critiques over two hours, three times a week, never having time to stop or to slow down. I also discovered the difference between good critique and art direction. While I’m used to looking over designers’ work to offer comments on what needs to be changed or to direct a color change, viewing student work and then offering critique that allows the student to use their own decision making skills to improve the piece is not the same. Inside, you know what should be done, but you can’t say it. You must remain an educator, allowing the student to find the best solution, only using your comments to help them find it. The “behind the scenes” experience forever altered my perception of design education.
Even when students themselves aren’t thinking of their futures, the faculty is actively discussing what kind of success they’ll have (and in every case, pulling for every student to excel).
My interdisciplinary focus area is anthropology and this course was my first work in the department. The experience was enlightening. In design, we are taught to consider the end user, to ask questions in better understanding who they are in an effort to produce a relevant product. Informal study of culture is very helpful, but ethnographic methods of interviewing, observing, and recording go way beyond what I learned in undergrad design. By practicing the methods used by social scientists, I understand the value of being an effective observer and question-asker in completely understanding the people I’m studying, and in discovering the solutions for the problems that affect those people. Anthropology has it right: thorough investigation of those being studied renders a great amount of knowledge that then can be translated into successful design solutions.
When conducting your study you must see through the eyes of a child, assume nothing.
Doubling up on my Anthropology study, I also took a specific class on Design Anthropology. This class was a combination of designer and anthropologists, which made for a unique mix of expertise and attitudes. Here, we used the techniques of interviewing and observation to gather information for a project whose solution would require a design component. The exercise was an enlightening look at how designers and anthropologists work together (or are one in the same) in solving problems with solutions that are more relevant and successful because of the research time spent. I discovered Don Norman’s writings in this class and was challenged how design education must raise its awareness of the importance of usability and of the end user. While we may be experts at creating design artifacts, we must be more effective information gatherers on the front end to inform the creation of those designs.
Anthropologists would do well to move their research more quickly in the interest of uncovering a solution. Designers would do well to spend more time studying the culture and not moving ahead to solving the problem right away.
Typographer and Illustrator Jessica Hische addresses the age-old question with a fun one-page site that’s entirely CSS and HTML. More and more, CSS is opening up opportunities for designers to use the technology to render most if not all of their visual styling, all with stunning results.
Through her work, Hische showcases what CSS and HTML5 can do by showcasing them in their natively. What she wound up with was fast-loading funny. Check it at: shouldiworkforfree.com
For the December issue of Chatter Magazine, I was called on to design the “funny” part of the issue and it sparked an idea that quickly became the most fun thing I’ve ever designed. I embarked on an information design piece that would geographically map Christmas songs. The truth is, I actually know all of these songs and I’m not sure if I should be proud of that or not. Nevertheless, Here’s the result.
Download the PDF
Merry Christmas!
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
-Oren Arnold
Last month, my son’s school held a health fair, and as I walked around the school I saw small posters that the students had designed to announce the event. Here are some of my favorite works by these young designers.
Pretty good advice: "Be good friends. Bleeve in God. Live with a healthy heart. Stop for a healthy snack." Oh, and come to the 1st grade booth.
Even young designers using the computer still need proofers.
An early designer falling in love with the stamp tool. I like how their copy includes the plea: "please come."
The designer uses checks and "x" marks for good and bad foods. But the best part is the "have a good day" and strawberry dingbats flanking "Thank You." This poster actually employs some hierarchy.
Now those are some hairy, healthy legs. Large illustration grabs attention and minimal text. And a happy face.
Very straightforward. Maybe the designer had been studying Ogilvy's ads.
Apparently bad hearts are black and split in half. The poster doesn't succeed in telling the viewer about the Health Fair, but it does frighten the viewer into walking more.
If you don't start you won't want more. There's wisdom there.
Looking through the posters I was reminded that I’ve been a designer all my life, and it started with making signs like these. I hope some of these students will grow to love the profession and will continue to use their work for good. They’ve had a nice head start.
Today is Blog Action Day, and the topic this year is water. I have to admit, as a designer, I had to figure out exactly what to write about that would be directly related to the global crisis surrounding the lack of clean drinking water for millions around the world. I’m aware of many effective organizations who are drilling for wells, promoting awareness, and researching new methods of improving water supplies. Water Is Basic is one of these organizations. They’re working to drill wells in places like Sudan and are making a difference in people’s daily lives. But awareness of these organizations still didn’t help me with what to write.
This was all on Wednesday, and Wednesdays are my longest days of classes at the University of North Texas. I arrive at 7:30 in the morning and my last class ends at 9 p.m. All that time on campus without a break means I get pretty thirsty.
Eureka!
While on campus, I have started bringing a water bottle with me to fill up instead of buying bottled water. It saves plastic, means I’m always supplied, and is a heckuva lot cheaper. But what makes carrying my bottle around work is that at UNT, almost every water fountain has a spigot that serves up filtered water. Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t noticed these spigots, but now I’m hooked. It’s a simple feature that can make a huge difference.
Last I checked, plastic isn’t gathered from plants or harvested in fields. It’s made, used, and then tossed into a landfill (or hopefully recycled). Still, recycling requires money, time, and processing. By not even using the bottle in the first place and bringing your own you can cut back on plastic and still get the water you need. As a student, I’m trying to drink more water because I know I can’t think when my brain is crusty. The simple water fountain spigots make it easy to “pour my own.”
My charge would be for students to cut back on their plastic consumption while getting the water they need. Contact your University or College or school and request that they make water easier to dispense into personal water bottles and reduce pollution in the process. There’s no reason why consuming one precious resource should ruin so many others.
