Experience Design

http://www.kstoolkit.org/Storytelling

An open question was left at a former post : Reading Facts. which I wish to revisit. When knowledge is not valued over its ability to be fast or slow what does is become? The issue with fast or slow knowledge rests on the delivery form factor, ie through computation (kindle, ipad internet) or not. The ability for the message to be lost due to the form factor it becomes delivered through has change dramatically due to technology in the past 10 years. Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message” This statement has become widely accepted when discussing media theory especially print material. We are acutely aware of how content delivery changes between tabloid news, newspaper news, and news Television, and that is only taking into account a line of similar content. As content types diversify the ability of the medium to affect the message is compounded. There is a lively debate in academia as to how new media devices are affecting education and to that extent society. The level of pervasiveness within technologies like the internet, smart phones, computation and the like are having on sectors of society across all economic positions remains a huge challenge from both a standard of living access point but also a society & educated populace stand point. Because of that, education is on the head of the technology spear. The ubiquitous nature of information technologies has forced the systems of education to reevaluate their methodologies for better or worse. However I believe there is a massive gaping hole in the collective thinking process of education when it comes to communication technologies. Ubiquitous computation is seen as a barrier to teaching methodologies due to the nature and speed at which computational devices alter and change and access of content especially the content that is attempting to be taught through the teacher. The 19th century education model still dominates a vast majority of theory of education system especially k-9.

I don’t teach in k-9 but I would imagine it would be super difficult to dish out lessons, mandated curriculum and dated textbooks when a majority of that content can be accessed, parsed and delivered at the touch of a mouse. I am not saying that the speed of the information age is a bad thing, I can only imagine how it throws a wrench in to the teaching methodologies of countless classrooms. Similarly I am not suggesting that there should be a free fore all on the Internets access and ubiquitous nature. Many have discussed the difficult bind to which education is in and me rambling on about it is not really the point especially when there are writers & educators like Sr. Ken Robinson. But education has to find a what to establish what it means to be educated in our modern times.  Is this going to be based on the old model of memorization and specialization or will it me more the ability to ask the right question and be endlessly curious with the ability to use technology to not only find the answer but contribute back to how the questions are asked?

I do believe that the ubiquitous nature and speed of our current technology has had a profound impact on our ability to tell stories. It is arguable that we have more stories then ever before and I would agree with that, however, it is purely an outcome of access not quality. The saying quality over quantity has never been more appropriate than when speaking about the internet and the amount of content that is added to it knowledge bank daily (to which I am adding with this blog). Therefore I believe that a fundamental piece that is missing in education is truly great storytelling skills, conceptual thinking and lateral thinking methodologies and subsequent devices to assist those skills. The ubiquitous catch all nature of computers is, in my opinion, having a detrimental impact on thinking out side the computer and impacting the skills of students, designers, teachers, and businesses.

I recently took place with the generosity of the AIGA Los Angeles Organization in the Student Portfolio day as a reviewer. Although I did not review hundreds of portfolios, one thing that I was immensely disappointed in was the lack of storytelling when in came to presenting visual ideas and solutions. Students seemed to have a prescribed set of things in their somewhat unimpressive collections of work. It made me sit back and think about what it is that a designer does? In the 5 portfolios I looked at it felt as if I was looking at a predetermined script. It went something like this. 1 to 2 logos with 1 of those logos as a letterhead business card etc, 1 to 3 print posters (just the solutions no context), 1 to 4 ad campaigns (non of them a systems of ads just a single advertisement),  1 to 3 editorial spreads (no context), 1 package (a cd jewel case, no context), and 2 to 3 misc illustrations, photographs, or typography pieces (again no context).  Each having between 12 and 15 pieces. Only one person had even the hint of digital competency with an overwhelmingly simple html site but I gave her some slack because she was only a sophomore as USC and I appreciated the gusto to get evaluated at such a early stage in her schooling. However the predicted procedural nature of the portfolios made me stand back for a second and say wait? Is this really how education views the role of designers? Has the system of curriculum’s and dated industrial needs reflected so poorly on the skill sets of designers? Can we as visual professionals be so quickly summed up.  My frustration with the lack of story telling lead me to be quite harsh on my last review of the day. I told my student. “Yes you have the required 15 pieces of work that has some how been determined this makes you a designer, however I know nothing about you! You have not told me a single story or lead me along any thinking path that has convinced me that your visual solutions are the correct ones.” I followed it up with “a logo and business card are the baseline of designer however if you can not tell me a story or show me that you have a making and thinking methodology then I really don’t care about your work. Period.  I want to know if you draw, how many images you collected how many versions you did, why you chose to do this the question you asked the things you were looking at and thinking about when you made it.  If I was going to hire you which I am not, I would want you. Not a prescribed set of 5 to 8 baseline skills, yes they are necessary but not unteachable in industry. If I were you I would find a way to let your portfolio be a mirror of your passion and your ability to think and think as a designer not the curriculum of your design education”  After going a bit of a rant I said I was sorry for being overly harsh but without it all the work becomes useless to which he disappointingly agreed.

After all the reviews were over the reviewers and educators gathered as a recap of the day. During the discussion a number of  reviewers shared the same frustration with a lack of personality and passion and storytelling in their students work. I am convinced that this lack of story telling is based in the narrow minded approach most educational systems are equating to design. Design rather than a thinking approach is a determined set of skills. However the collection of design professionals siting in the room were disgusted with the lack of understanding of what industry is looking for out of our design education systems. It seemed to me the design education systems were looking to teach predetermined skills where industry was looking for creative visual thinkers. Somewhere there is a missing element in the teaching of skills to designers. I believe that skill is storytelling. Design is not making a logo, the logo is the culmination of visual problem solving that requires a huge set of skills including design research, anthropology, biology, visual taxonomy, system thinking, business, drawing, computer skills, history etc etc.

“Design is that area of human experience, skill and knowledge which is concerned with man’s ability to mould his environment to suit his material and spiritual needs.” _archer, B

This lack of story telling could be a vision problem of education to design or it could be something more systemic as I had mentioned at the beginning of this post. Regardless of the root of misbegotten storytelling,  I think that until we as educators, designers, professionals, and thinkers articulate the importance of media specific storytelling methodologies and start charting changes in the education delivery systems to meet these new changes, our society will start to see the growing effects and missed opportunities from not teaching and learning from profound stories and storytelling processes.

http://designspiration.net/image/40370/

( I wish I would have had this quote to give to the students I reviewed because passion will always trounce innate talent -

Picasso said ” inspiration does exist, but it must find you working” )

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

http://www.storynet.org/conference/index.html
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Living Magazine Cover & Spread – Outside Magazine from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

A line needs to be drawn in the sand for the values of static media. The expectation and belief that that dynamic content is the wave of the future needs to be reconsidered. Motion pictures are great incredible informative and interesting and have changed the way we see and respond to the world, but do we want every bit of content the we engage with to be moving or worse reactive. Media content has variety and in my opinion more value should be placed on the ability of somethings to be still and other things to move.

The expectation that readers of Outside will want to want motion images assumes that the current model of photography is incomplete to the user and what is the answer, a screen. A world of screens is not one that I hope will exist.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

As technologies become more and more pervasive, print media companies are starting to jump on the bandwagon that a screen is a “better” way to experience their content. With the techno world buzzing about the possibilities of tablet computers from Apple, Microsoft, and  prototype Joojoo

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/07/apples-1-2-billion-tablet-computer/

JooJoo Hands On Demo from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

, media providers rather then improving or increasing content awareness are opting for the screen. The demo of the Sports Illustrated magazine on a tablet is a interesting view into the possibilities of their future content. Complete with page turning sounds and multi-touch options the demo shows some potential in eliminating the magazine. I mean why would I buy print when I can get it on a screen? Soon enough we will never have old used magazines that can be rummaged through at our uncles “the sport nuts” house.

The introduction of the iPhone has truely had immense impact on the acceptance of interacting with the screen. I just see the thinking of “You know what is better than an iPhone, A bigger iPhone!” faulty. The iPhone functionality and pervasiveness is seen in the Joojoo demo utilizing similar learned interactions from the existing phone. Technology is iterative and for innovation to exist predecessors have to come before, I am having a hard time coping with the innovation of phones replacing the innovations that print has made since the invention of the printing press.

The experience of print material on a screen starts to include video options and some level of costume interactions which is what makes interaction with screen objects effective and engaging but is that functionality worth the tangible interaction with printed paper. Interactions with the tablet are all learned and idiosyncratic rather than the free form and intuitive interactions with the pages of a magazine. The ease of getting to page 22 in a magazine is much different than the action to do that same thing on a tablet. Especially a magazine like SI where a users is less inclined to read from front to back (unless we are talking about the swim suit issue of course) Regardless the SI interactive has some interesting potential but in my opinion will never become a replacement for the greatest bathroom reading since the Victoria Secret Catalog (unless it can become waterproof.)  I just don’t see a tablet computer replacing the magazine rack in the bathroom no matter how interactive and engaging it is.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

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The thesis direction that I am exploring builds on the ideas of The New Ecology of Things (http://www.newecologyofthings.net/). The methodology is attempting to pull from a number of different influences that over the next year will shape and inform the ideas that are being explored.

3 Main bounding areas have immerged

1.) Tangible Systems : the notion that products, artifacts, areas of attachment to media and content are enhanced by the physicality and tactility of the item.

2. ) Narrative / Storytelling : Design has a rich background in conveying messages in narrative form. As interaction and multimedia becomes involved narrative mediums, the ability of an artist / designer to tell a story about the content becomes more relevant in a dynamic world of branding and systems design.

3.) Circuits : The ability to build and make functioning technologies that push at the ideas of interaction with tangible, physical connections to data, content, and design.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Multimedia: media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactive content forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia

Multimedia has become a popularized notion for aspect of what designers make. The nomenclature for our craft exists in the many rather then the specific. A designer who applies their craft to a variety of mediums may it be print and animation, photography and interaction, etc etc. could be considered a multimedia designer. The ability for a designer to call themselves multimedia was a distinguishing aspect at one time, this distinction has now become less relevant in a world of ubiquitous computing and homogenized tools for design and media making. A designers ability to use the tools, not the it is not important, becomes background chatter in the face of design thinking, methodology, and creative problem solving. Multimedia has then been wrapped up in design and the distinction of the new role of designer is left open. The question is: what is a designer when everyone knows how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Quark, AfterEffects, Final Cut, etc?

Ubiquitous computing and the rise of the personal computer has dropped the level of entry for design so low that anyone who can buy a computer and software can say they  are designers.  The creation of the distention of a multimedia designer was to emphasize the ability to perform on multiple platforms of making. The new designer has to be able to move beyond the aspects of designs current roles and place their thinking and process in new and innovative aspects. Designer as curator?, Designer as futurist?, Designer as hybrid-maker? Designer as Creative? Designer as Systems thinker? maybe there isn’t a distinction yet but if multimedia designers continue to see their value as the tools they can access and use they will relegate their role to the spit and polish of industry rather then the innovator of new forms of media and design.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook