01 exploring the archives
I’ve noticed a trend to take existing philosophies or systems from established traditions and superimpose them onto an area of design. For example, how the principles of Feng Sui could be applied to graphic design. This is congruent with the reading I’ve been doing so far about the process of fabricating the ‘original’. That new ideas largely come from making connections between existing materials.
I’ve been thinking about my topic/area for a long time now, and kept coming back to this concept of connection. In order for my thesis to carry any weight, it needs to build on the credible, and proven. If I can identify an issue/ problem, and suggest strategies to address that problem using concepts already proven effective, and demonstrate how that implementation would successfully address the identified issue…
. . .
I Less Than Three You or I <3 U:
Examining Personal Communications in the Digital Age
Dianne Marie Blevins
abstract:
Contemporary visual communicators should find it alarming that tremendous advances are taking place within the realm of personal communications with little to no response from our discipline. Immediacy, also known as social presence, and emotion in our interpersonal communications have shifted into a landscape that promotes brevity over quality. This is a tremendous disservice to our personal relationships and to us as human beings. We are supporting an environment where we now cater to technology; we adjust our language to fit pre-determined, human-designed interfaces. Technology should adjust to our needs, not the other way around. The future generations will learn from us, and we are responsible for setting up the communication landscapes they will inherit.
I was immediately draw to this work because of the interesting word play in the title, and because I had begun a rather extensive research project last term looking at texting and social media. I did not find the connections I was looking for in my research but did find something much more, which I’ve already briefly recounted.
Dianne explores an important issue, and I see my budding subject sharing similar concerns. While Dianne is concerned with limiting communications by being forced to use a limited digital vocabulary, I see my concerned focused on the changes to cognition our technology is manifesting – in a sense similar to being forced to use limited communication tools that can potentially erode or stunt our capacities. We are in a period of transition – new technologies continue to emerge and there hasn’t been enough time to assess the effects (though there are rumblings already, every thing from intellect, to mental health, to emotional development, to migraines and brain tumors).
If history serves as an example, even if all the current suspicions about the dark sides of technology are proven, we either won’t care, or may care but it will be too late to turn back.
Applying the Montessori Method to Higher Education Graphic Design Online Classrooms
By Tracy ZunigaAbstract:
Online education programs are one of the fastest-growing trends in higher education.
According to a 2010 survey of 2,600 institutions online higher-education enrollment increased more than 21%, exceeding the 2% growth of overall higher education (Allen, Seaman 2). The very reasons for its popularity (choice, flexibility, pacing, open scheduling, etc.) also serve as the downfall of the students that participate in the program. Graphic Design students are particularly susceptible to these pitfalls as they are usually coming from a traditional “factory” style of education model for grades K-12 (with its emphasis on math, science and language arts) and can now explore their creativity in ways not emphasized before. Students fi nd themselves lost in a kaleidoscope of information and freedom while trying to apply their former traditional linear education process to the cacophony of stimuli that defi ne online distractions.
With their minds now combating cognitive overload, they fi nd it hard to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant. By applying the eight key Association Montessori International (AMI) principles to online graphic design higher education courses, cognitive overload will be reduced and distracted thinking minimized, which may increase creativity, the ability to retain more information in long-term memory schemas and allow utilization of top-down attention control.
I recall Louise mentioning this thesis to me close to year ago when I was first beginning to contemplate the looming threat of THE THESIS. Now that I’ve made time to examine it I find all sorts of congruities with the issues and strategies I’m considering for my own work (I didn’t expect to!). What distinguishes Tracy’s work from Diane’s is the suggested approach to the problem. In the first work the suggestion is that the prevailing technological climate should undergo a change. In the second work, there is an acknowledgement of the prevailing technological climate, but what is suggested is how to respond to it, rather how to shift strategies and thinking so that the business at hand continues to be productive and fruitful.
Filed by Michele Buchanan at January 13th, 2013 under Uncategorized