During this class I also saw the power of creative group brainstorming. If you have an open mind you can use the group to help you expand and push your original ideas. I feel like the encouraging atmosphere and helpful suggestions helped me to get rid of the fear or uncertainty that I had. During the class I feel like this was the area where I experienced disruptive wonder.

My graphic design process has changed immensely. I have slowed down and have learned to document every step in the process. I realized that it is during the process that the real discoveries and disruptive wonders come about. I have even tried to bring this process into my current job and I am beginning to see great results.

I was introduced to Chip Kidd back in undergraduate work. He came to speak again in CT a year ago. He is a great and entertaining presenter. With this weeks unit about process and presentation I decided that a presenter I would like to emulate would be Chip Kidd. Yes, he may seem a little over the top and some may not think his jokes are funny but he engages the audience.

In the TED video I am sharing he does a very good job sharing his process. I am not so much concerned with the content (though it is a very good TED talk) but focusing on the presentation and materials. He uses simple black slides with white type with a sans serif type. In the beginning he establishes his background and how he came to be a book designer. He shows lessons he was taught in his first day of design school through slides. This is very effective and instructive. He continues sharing anecdotes from experiences and mixes with humor. He finishes his talk with an artifact.

I thought it was a well-rounded presentation and incorporated great visuals, few slides and a presenter that was very enthusiastic about his work. A great example of how to present your information to a group.

It was in GRDS 701 and 702 that rekindled my considerations of deepening the initial brainstorming and design process. I used concept maps and other ways of brainstorming ideas in my schoolwork but in my career I never thought or hard reason to use concept maps or other brainstorming activities. Documenting this part of the process was never a thought of importance to me.

Then I read April Biss’ process book and I was flabbergasted. She documented everything! I really thought I learned a lot from viewing this process. It seemed a bit lengthy and very different from Jane’s process I had viewer earlier. She showed her research materials, prototypes, websites and the final project. It was great narrative and great presentation of ideas and process however I think she could have made it even better she incorporated Jamie Turpin’s use of Table of Contents and color to connect the process into a cohesive and manageable grouping of information.

Grouping information is incredibly important for understanding and retention. In my Literary Research for Exploration A I read an article written by George Miller.

In his article he developed two theories for processing information and learning. I would like to focus on the first one which is “chunking” and the capacity of short term our memory. “Chunking is the idea that short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information (seven plus or minus two) where a chunk is any meaningful unit. A chunk could refer to digits, words, chess positions, or people’s faces. The concept of chunking and the limited capacity of short term memory became a basic element of all subsequent theories of memory.” http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/IP/GAMiller.html

For this reason by adding a table of contents and breaking down the different parts of the process visually even more, I believe April Bliss could have made her already very successful process book even better.

I had heard about this magazine through a colleague. It was interesting, had some impressive names attached to it but what grabbed my attention was how the founders went about getting support and financial backing for their idea. They went through kickstarter.com

What is Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others.

What a great website! I spent hour discovering projects, seeing peoples ideas and getting inspired. I thought this was a great topic to tie into our topic of process and ideation.

The website breaks it up nicely with categories and there are always new projects posting. It’s nice to see this type of community online.

Along with being inspired by the projects I saw, it was nice to see that community of support for ideas and projects. Maybe in the future I will use this site for my own project or thesis idea.

http://kck.st/KSgdMt – Howler Magazine Kickstarter video

http://vimeo.com/50623718 – first issue of Howeler

The first process would be the Tim Brennan example I have pictured above. Tim Brennan says “Somebody calls up with a project; we do some stuff; and the money follows.” In the corporate world I feel like this is my process. My boss tells me what project is needed, I do some stuff show him, he tells me more stuff to do and I get a paycheck. It was mentioned in the Unit 7 of GRDS 701 by Professor Trudy Abadie, ” some designers fall into the trap of some corporate cultures where the work of the designer is somewhat undervalued, based on strict corporate guidelines and formats that restrain the creative work the designer is capable of doing.” I feel like I was falling in that trap.

Expanding the two-step process after Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall (1972)

Accept – Analyze – Define – Ideate – Select – Implement – Evaluate

I feel like I use these in my current application of design process for SCAD. It has been a while since I have had to implement these tactics but it have been refreshing. I think my favorite part of this design process is the Ideate portion. Brainstorming and diving deeper into the subject is my favorite part. I love trying to find unique and clever ways to display my messages to my audience. I have a freedom that does not exist in my everyday corporate life. Though I was given a project and I used this design process technique to develop my idea for the projects. So maybe I can continue to do that in the future for non-regimented projects.

I have heard of this concept of flow but very loosely in definition. I used to call it being “in the zone” when I was in undergrad. Being in the zone for me felt like I had narrowed my focus and I was just accomplishing my goals and getting work done.

I experienced flow often during my thesis class in undergrad. I was in a computer lab by myself with no windows, no sense of time just me and my computer and music. Other times I find the flow is when I am consumed with a project at work where I just lose sight of time and all I can focus on is my creativity. I usually forget to eat and just plug away until something distracts me enough to realize I haven’t had a break.

It’s not always that easy, sometime I have to plan it. Plan it? How do you plan having flow? Well, I wouldn’t plan the flow as much as I would plan giving myself the time to mentally allow myself to get to it. I still do this today, when I work on a painting I usually try to plan three hours for my me to paint. This usually allows for me to have enough time to organize, relax and let the zone/flow come to me. I can see this as a training mechanism, giving myself an allotted amount of time frees my mind of worries of things I think I should be doing and allows me to focus on creativity,

With that in mind, I have been using these techniques during my first two SCAD classes. I haven’t giving myself three hours but I have set aside time to allow myself to find the flow of my assignments.

The notion of disruptive wonder is not new to me but the ability to practice it is rare, especially working at a magazine that has specific voice, template and look.  I hope that it is like riding a bike, so even though you may not of have practice in years you never forget how to utilize it. As I try to incorporate disruptive wonder in to my Exploration B project I am finding harder to do then originally thought.  Concept maps help and the last Exploration helped to teach me how to open my mind. I find that collaboration helps to push my ideas as well and found that to be extremely helpful in the last project.

Am I open to creating disruptive wonder. To be honest I think that’s why I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to challenge my brain in thinking ways that it hasn’t for many years. School projects force you to challenge your mind in ways that it may not be challenged in your everyday job. Learning how to relearn is a great way to expand your mind and open up to new ideas. Finding a way to be creative within limits sometimes can pose a challenge but it also can be helpful in creating disruptive wonder.

When Steve Jobs was inventing the first iPhone he decided he wanted Gorilla Glass to be the glass they used on the face plate. He went to Corning glass and requested as much glass they could make in 6-months. The Corning CEO replied, we can’t. We don’t have a plant that makes that  glass anymore. Steve Job simply responded ‘Don’t be Afraid’.  In the end the glass was made to the CEOs astonishment and iPhone had the product that Jobs wanted. http://www.boardwalkcm.com/blog-profile.php?ID=22

As I go forward with my Exploration B I am going to take that quote from the late Steve Jobs ‘Don’t be afraid’ and work hard to find disruptive wonder.

- First I examine the design challenge. I examine the following questions so I can focus my thoughts and prepare for research. I decide what needs to be said. How it needs to be said and who my audience is. After I determine these questions I try to figure out what medium would be best to translate this idea.

Research

- I used to just go online and look for things. After this class and 702 I have learned that I need to go beyond the Internet to look for ideas. These classes have also helped me to learn how to create concept maps. These concept maps have been very helpful. I am a very organized person and love lists these lists help to organize ideas in my head.

Design

- After I have done my research I reevaluate my design opportunity and make sure that the final solution will best display my design narrative. During this part I use thumbnail sketches to help narrow down my design. After I determine what thumbnails work it revisit them and develop them more until I have a rough sketch of my project.

Execute

- Once I have a rough sketch and plan for my design I execute the design opportunity.

Evaluate 

-       Finally after the project is complete it is time to evaluate. Does this solution answer the design questions? This is the hardest part because you need to do a truthful self-assessment and sometimes that means that you need to go back to your thumbnails sketches.

I think my process is effective, it allows me to create broad ideas then focus in on them. It also allows me to evaluate the final product. However my biggest weakness is my fear. It is what holds me back. This process doesn’t always help me to push ideas further. Having someone help me to push my ideas would be very helpful.

In regards to presentation topic introduction, I believe that I presented my topic and provided background information of why this topic interests me. As I assess my presentation I feel like there are times that I could have elaborated on a topic and go off script to provide a point. This would have help to demonstrate my confidence and knowledge in the topic. Along with that I wish that I continued to define terms of my topic. I made a great effort to define terms in how I used them in my research but I see now I could have repeated of even defined more phrases. My one concern with defining more terms would be losing the pacing and direction of the presentation.

When I think about the visual aspect I could have provided more detail to the slides. But I wanted the viewer to be focused on what I was saying and not reading my slides. I felt I was successful in the execution of visuals and avoided being on a slide so too long. When I think about presentation flow I feel like it is a cohesive storyline and that I lead the viewer through my main research findings. This was my first presentation and I felt my timing was great but I know that I will improve in the future. I did listen to my professor’s advice when she said you couldn’t do it in one sitting. I synthesized what I wanted to say and outline of my presentation, then the next day I created the script and key points I wanted to hit on. Saturday I put together the presentation and recorded it. This was extremely time consuming, it didn’t help that I hated how I sounded and never thought I sounded confident enough. The other thing I learned for the future is the amount of time it takes to upload large files, I guess this was a great lesson to learn in the beginning of my studies at SCAD.

I think a main component of my Exploration A process was letting go. It was hard to let go at first and not fall back into my heuristic biases but I feel like by the final project I had completely let go and allowed for new ideas to come in and I am happy with where this project led me.

At first I was nervous taking a long time to decide what word I was going to pick for my everyday object. The first assignment coming up with words I didn’t allow my mind to wonder. I was almost “stiff” in my execution. It wasn’t until my first group meeting with Sam and Ed that I saw the potential that could have been if I was more organic. With that in mind I went back and redid my concept map. I allowed my mind to go to the impossible. I think the most important factor was that I stopped trying to figure out what the final part of the process was going to be and tried to see the exploration.

I think this was the most influential part of my success. Letting go of the idea that I needed to figure out what the solution was and just enjoy and focus on the exploration. I never approached a problem like this before.

I have to thank my classmates for giving me the confidence to go for it, not settle for the very good but to go for the extraordinary. My group meetings were my favorite part of the assignment too.  Ed and Sam pushed me to be the best I could be, our sessions were very productive and I feel like I learned so much from them. We decided to keep in touch via iphones because our work schedules were crazy and we wanted to make sure that if we saw something we could send a picture text to get instant feedback.  I never thought you could be connected and feel this type of camaraderie from fellow students in an e-learning class.

When I think about what could have been missing I think maybe better execution in the final idea. After the exploration stage I felt that there were so many design opportunities available and deciding what solution was difficult. If I had more time I think I would continue this exploration and not settle for the one solution but try many solutions so I could see what would be the best solution.