Jessica May

Emerging Graphic Designer, Photographer and Programmer

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Changes in Self

Change. We are surrounded by it. We live in a constant state of flux where nothing is ever like we left it. Life and people are ever changing. They grow, evolve, and transform whether you want them to or not. Nothing ever stands still. Nor should it. Change makes the world interesting. It allows people to better who they are and develop who they really are.

Three months ago I looked at who I was and what design meant. Three months ago I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing as a designer and what this field that I belonged to was all about. Since then I have seen and experienced so much that what I thought three months ago, it's just not the same as what I think now. And I'm a different designer because of it.

When I think about my experiences and how I've changed over the last three months, it looks like this. With ups and downs, my journey has been that of a rollercoaster. From the "What is Design" revelation, to the realisation that design and advocacy often go hand in hand. From confusion of what was even meant by "Thoughtless Acts" to the clear understanding that followed. From brushing off brainstorming and logical ideation, to a comprehension knowledge of why they are so important to design. From the stressed overload that was the Minor Charrette, to the easy, free flowing event that was the Major Charrette, over this short period a lot about me has changed. When I started this journey the process of design was barely the process of getting out a pen and notebook and drawing something up. It was the concept of creativity and artistic nature of people. Since then I have come to realise that design is a process of problem solving and that it has the ability to affect many other branches of life, much like it does with advocacy. Not only that, but how planning, ideation and prototyping provide much needed tools within the process of design, making design much less of a two dimensional concept.

During the first week of my journey I was asked to draw up a tattoo that represented me as a designer. My design style was bright and colourful but also structured and purposeful. When I first started off as a designer and an artist, I was very focused on photography, specifically that of nature and flowers, so I wanted that to reflect in my tattoo. As both a creative graphic designer/ photographer and IT programmer, I wanted my tattoo to reflect both sides of me as a designer. With this in mind I drew up this tattoo. With a pink, flowing flower as the artistic nature and the green, sharp leaves as the IT influence, my tattoo was born.

Although my art style and influences haven't changed, my understanding of design has and thus the tattoo needed a revamp. Keeping with the same base design but simply adding more detail, representative of my deeper understanding of design itself, an updated tattoo was formed.

The change in design is not too extreme as to change my design roots and influences, but enough to signify the depth of change these three months have had on me. After re-designing my tattoo I revisited the definition of design my peers and I had created at the start of this three months. Long and wordy, the definition still summarised the overall concept of design as a whole, but as a personal definition, I found it very broad and unspecific. My goal now was to find a definition for design that fitted me and my personal understanding and beliefs. Using both my new tattoo and the original definition as a base, I made a more focused definition, entirely representative of me.

The definition still covered the major themes of communication and problem solving within design, but now also focused on the creative and technical aspects of it. This more concise definition conforms strongly to who I am as a designer and what my perception of design is for my work.

Armed, with my new understanding of who I am as a designer, I was asked to look at the future. Five years forward to what I wanted to be and to do as a designer. What my goals were for the next five years as a designer. Although advocacy and design are both strong parts of who I am, I find more joy in doing them as separate activities. Designing for creative purposes rather than designing practical items in solution to problems. Thus where I plan to be in five years focuses more on my graphic design work more than anything else.

Change happens. There is no avoiding that. Over the past three months I have seen a lot of change in both myself and my understanding of design. It has taken what I knew and expanded it. Allowed my personal ideologies and understandings to grow and develop into something much more than what they were. Allowed me to have a much more sophisticated and deepened understanding of design itself and what it means to be a designer. Design is a complex concept and now because of this journey I have taken, I have the ability to understand so much more of it.

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Constructive Criticism

Constructive criticism. It is something all designers have to face when designing for a client. "I like it, it's good, but what if..?". It's something that no one really likes but is something that we need to expand and refine our ideas and develop ourselves as designers. Without it you would only create the things that you liked. The things you were good at. Constructive criticism allows for innovation and uniqueness to take its place and grow.

Half way though our two week Major Charrette, we were asked to attend a consultation with our tutor to present our ideas and receive some constructive criticism to help refine our ideas. The concept behind the charrette was "[creating] new, meaningful ways to provide care and support for people who are currently homeless or recently arrived refugees in and around Brisbane. […] in ways that promote their rights and wellbeing, as well as recognising difference, creating connections, and cultivating respect." (Choi, 2017).

For this task I rejoined my group from the previous charrette, as we all knew how the others worked within the group. After three hours of group brainstorming we had developed an idea for the task. Coined "Bluebird Project" our organisation focused on providing homeless women with a safe and comforting space, as well as better access to sanitary products and care that they may need. Through a café shopfront Bluebird Project could provide: safe and secure toilets and showers, to allow homeless women more accessibility to these necessities; coin operated washing machine/dryers, allowing them to have clean clothes; free food, allowing them to save money for other things they may need; access to professional community help, people that they may not be able to talk with normally; and Sanitary Hand-Out Containers, filled with tampons and pads giving the women access to what they need during their period. With this basic idea in tow we headed to our tutor, Carly Hare, for some advice.

Hare suggested that we focus on refining the idea, as it stood we had a basic plan for an idea, but not enough to make it new and innovative. She also mentioned we needed to look not just at community stakeholders and meaningful engagement for them but also for governments and the wider population of Brisbane. Hare heavily recommended we look at and use the ideation techniques we were taught a few weeks back as a way to refine our idea and expand on the concept. She loved the focus we had on homeless women and specifically their sanitary needs and how the idea created a safe and secure environment for them.

To address this feedback, our group planned on meeting together more often to help the creative ideation process and expand our thinking. We also looked at the TILMAG ideation technique to expand our ideas and to help create a more refined idea. Through these meetings and TILMAG ideation my group decided to change the project form a café building to a mobile truck that was able to go to the homeless shelters to provide the women with the care they needed. From this point the group delegated the tasks out to spread the workload. We met several times after the original consultation to check up on each other's progress and to ensure we all knew exactly what we were doing for the project.

YouTube: The Bluebird Project

Facebook: @Bluebird.Project.Brisbane

As a team we worked well together. As individuals we balanced each other out and allowed for constructive collaboration to take place. The advice given to us by Carly Hare allowed us to further develop and expand our idea and make it something new and innovative. During this week I have seen everything that I have learnt over the past 10 weeks come to a peak. Everything has been useful, from prototyping and ideation techniques, to the thoughtless acts and the advocacy lecture. I have seen how everything has a purpose and not one second has been wasted.

References

Choi, Jaz. 2017. "Homelessness & Re-making Homes". Accessed May 21, 2017. https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-6795403-dt-content-rid-8440311_1/courses/DXB101_17se1/DXB101_2017_Charrette_v1.pdf

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Design Charrette

Charrette. Defined by the Oxford Dictionary as a public meeting or workshop devoted to a concerted effort to solve a problem or plan the design of something. As a period of intense work, typically undertaken in order to meet a deadline. (2017). A design charrette is a short intense collaborative workshop designed to design something and solve a problem. A way to quickly ideate and produce a refined and innovative product.

This week, as part of the preparation for our large upcoming Design Charrette, we were asked to take part in a minor charrette. A five hour burst of collaboration, planning, ideating, prototyping and presentation. Where in two hours we were to: plan and research a topic; to refine and prototype an innovative idea; to create a one minute promotional video for our idea; and to create a 5 minute PowerPoint presentation and speech about the product. This of course seemed far too short a time to complete such a daunting task to the standard of which the project was asking. And it was. As our lecturer Jaz Choi had said in our briefing "I want you to fail. Spectacularly" (Choi, 2017) because you don’t learn from success you learn from failure.

(Kennedy quoted in Walter, 2013)

Asked to create "… an innovative concept [based within the Botanical Gardens] to meaningfully engage people  in sharing stories" (Choi, 2107), we jumped straight in, formed our group and then made our way into the Botanical Gardens, the focus of the task. With only two hours to create everything we needed we jumped quickly into our research and planning. Unfortunately, to save time, our group did minimal research and focused on an early design concept instead of engaging in complex ideation and planning, leaving us with a rather basic idea. Although I did suggest more time be spent on creating a more innovative idea and design question, the group came to the conclusion that a basic idea was favoured over not having presentable content, so the idea remained and we continued on with idea development. As limited planning and ideation was done, with no talk of the ideation techniques we were shown, and no design question created, our groups project ended up with a broad target audience which left us with an unfocused idea.

Focusing on a way to make our project easily accessible, we decided to base our idea on something that could be accessible via both smartphone and without. For this we looked at the noticeboards that were set up around the park. Akin to the use of augmented reality programs like Pokémon Go, we had the idea of using these unused noticeboards as sharing platforms for stories both in AR and though the physical board itself. With the app, users could interact with these billboards through prompts asking them to share their stories. These prompts would also be available on the actual notice boards and users would be able to write their stories on paper and post them on the board. These boards, both physical and online, would be moderated by individuals to remove any inappropriate content and allow for new content to always be available to be added.

Our project was titled Sonder, after the term and feeling that has come about in recent years under the same name, that looks at "the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own" (Jkcreativ, 2013). This idea was the driving concept for the charrette and the project we had created, and thus made the perfect name for the brand and project.

With a name and an idea, we delegated out the remaining tasks required to different members of the group in order to complete all tasks in the time remaining. Working individually allowed us to greatly reduce the time we spent on the project but also meant that we didn’t get to see what everyone else had created. This became problematic when the group members had each finished their work only minutes before presentation, leading to the group not exactly aware of the final PowerPoint's content. This meant that when we got up to present it to the cohort, we didn’t know exactly what was coming on the slides and exactly how many there were, or that we needed to talk about each. Content was repeated, skipped and not covered as we struggled to meet the time limit, and for those of the group that were not exactly great at public speaking or improvisation, we struggled to talk. We ended up with such a lack of time that we didn’t even have time to show the promotional video that we had made for the project.

When it came to feedback we were told to narrow our demographic; that we needed to justify the digitisation of the concept; focus on particular aspects of the concept and refine them; and move away from our first idea. None of this came as a great shock to me as our lack of time and limited time management had meant that our idea was still in need of major development and refinement when we took to the stage.

(Robinson quoted in Walter, 2013)

Overall our project was a massive failure but that’s what I had been expecting. With limited time working, mostly with people that I had never met before, the project was sure to be a bust. But a bust is not necessarily bad. It showed me what I needed to do for the major charrette. What worked and what didn’t. What it means to be stuck on your first idea and how bad a plan that is. It solidified in my mind how important logical ideating is to the success of a project and how a specific audience is required for a refined idea. A fail may be a fail, a slip and miss, but a fail helps you get up and run faster in the future. To avoid the obstacles you didn’t see originally. This charrette, although stressful and tough, has shown me what needs to be done in the future and how sometimes failing is the most important thing to do.

References

Choi, Jaz. 2017. “UrBNE Stories – Sharing Stories in the City". Accessed  May 21, 2017. https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-6777445-dt-content-rid-8245953_1/courses/DXB101_17se1/DXB101_Mini-charrette_Brief%281%29.pdf

Jkcreativ. 2013. "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows" Accessed May 21, 2017. http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder

Oxford Dictionary. "Definition of charrette in English" Accessed May 21, 2017. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/charrette

Walter, Ekaterina. 2013. "30 Powerful Quotes on Failure" Accessed May 21, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2013/12/30/30-powerful-quotes-on-failure/#3d91848124bd

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Prototyping

Planning. Something most people don’t automatically associate with design. Planning is strict and logical and design is free-flowing and creative. But without logical ideating, it can be hard to discover fresh, new ideas. The first design a designer imagines is not necessarily the best option for the task at hand. Logical planning can help spark ideas and can lead you to things you never would have considered otherwise.

This week we were asked to design a food box for use within the cultural precinct that must make the precinct itself more attractive and embody the unique experience of Brisbane. To do this we were asked to look at the deeper understanding we now have of the people within Southbank, thanks to the thoughtless acts activity last week. Together, in small groups of 4-5, we used our collective understanding of the essence of Brisbane to expand our own individual understandings and to dig deep to into what the task was looking for. With this group perspective we came up with a design question to help guide us towards more critical thinking.

With this in mind, my group took to the planning phase of the project. For this we looked over the four planning and ideation methods shown to us earlier in the week.

- TILMAG, an abbreviated German term for 'transformation of ideal solution elements with a common associations matrix.' This planning method looks at using what you want from the product to generate how you can achieve this by creating a matrix using "ideal solution elements" as values. (Edney and Slocum 2017).

- The Heuristic Ideation Technique (HIT) Matrix compares characteristics of two existing, seemingly unrelated, solutions to spark and develop new ideas (BMGI 2017).

- Scamper is a mnemonic that stands for: Substitute; Combine; Adapt; Modify; Put to another use; Eliminate; Reverse. It looks at improving and creating new products by looking at old ones and using the prompts of the mnemonic to ideate. (Mind Tools 2017).

- General Morphological Analysis looks at breaking down a problem into its essential parameters, then filling out a matrix with different possibilities to arrive at creative and useful combinations (Idea Connection 2017).

Focusing on the "General Morphological Analysis" format of ideating, my group started brainstorming by looking at the individual parameters of the food box. Soon we had a multitude of ideas to choose from and started looking for a best fit.

Eventually we settled on an idea, centred around the experience we wanted our audience to interact with. An interactive scavenger hunt of sorts, where tourists got to experience the heart of Brisbane by being promoted with different locations within the Cultural Precinct. The box would contain a map of the area with different locations marked for the tourists to go to, where they would be able to collect a small card or gift to put inside the box. Each card or gift would be representative of the greater Brisbane area, thus granting the audience a deeper glimpse into the heart of the city. This would allow tourists to craft their own experience whilst still interacting as a whole group. The boxes would also then be kept by the tourists as a souvenir of their time in Brisbane, creating a retainable and eco-friendly experience. At each of the locations, typical Australian food would be available for the tourists to enjoy to further enrich the Brisbane food box experience. As the box is intended to be kept by the users, the box will be made out of plastic, a strong, lightweight material that could stand the Brisbane weather. As an event for tourists the box would be available all year round but in greater quantities around the holiday season. To make the box more unique, we decided that designing it in the shape of the district would add a creative flare to the box and allow for a map to be printed on the base of the box.

Without enough time to prototype together, we all went away to develop our own prototype of the box. Using simple and cheap materials that could be made into ideas quickly, I put into practice the idea for the box. Using pipe cleaners I built a small box that followed the shape of the precinct and the curvature of the Brisbane River. With the box in hand I saw how it could very easily be carried around the precinct or stored in a house as a souvenir. I imagine it having photos and art representative of the Brisbane area on the outside to add to the box and the experience.

This experience of designing the box has shown me just how important logical ideating can be for a project. How something that I once would have brushed off as time consuming and of little project value has helped me discover some very creative ideas. It has also shown me that collaborative creation can lead to new and innovative ideas. How even though group projects can be tedious and time consuming that the end result can benefit greatly from it. Logical planning and prototyping can at first seem to be time wasting, but in actuality it can expand and deepen the creative process and allow for better, more innovative ideas to surface.

References

BMGI. 2017. "Heuristic Ideation Technique (HIT) Matrix". Accessed May 6, 2017. http://bmgi.org/tools-templates/heuristic-ideation-technique-hit-matrix

Edney, Paul A. and Slocum, Michael S. "Tilmag's Five Steps for Solving Innovative Problems". Accessed May 6, 2017. https://triz-journal.com/innovation-methods/innovation-tilmag-transformation-ideal-solution-elements-common-associations-matrix/tilmags-five-steps-solving-innovative-problems/

Idea Connection. "Morphological Analysis". Accessed May 6, 2017. https://www.ideaconnection.com/thinking-methods/morphological-analysis-00026.html

Mind Tools. "SCAMPER. Improving Products and Services". Accessed May 6, 2017. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_02.htm

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Thoughtless Acts?

Thoughtless Acts. The things we do without even realising it. From walking around puddles or grates on the floor, to shoving rubbish wherever it will fit, we react to our environment without even realising it. This week we looked at the book “Thoughtless Acts” by Jane Fulton Suri (2005) in which she details the subtle, thoughtless ways we interact with the world. These 'thoughtless acts' that Suri documents reveal how people's behaviour shifts as they interact with the world not perfectly tailored to them. When designers adapt this kind of observational approach it gives us a better look into the people around us and those involved in our creative endeavours. (IDEO, 2017).

To put this into practice we ventured down to sunny Southbank, where many a thoughtless act can be seen in action, and attempted to capture photos of people committing these acts. The sunny weather during the day meant the park was filled with tourists and families alike and meant that there was no issue finding the images needed.

- A little girl reacts to the birds around her and runs at them to cause them to fly away.

- A woman reacts to the elevated step and uses it to tie her shoe.

- A group of people react to the muddy puddle on the floor and move around it.

- People respond to the platforms and stairs and use them as seats.

- A person responds to the perfectly sized gap in the plants and puts their stroller there while they eat.

- People respond to the bicycle basket and leave their rubbish there when a bin is not near.

- Some people co-opt a cold drink to cool themselves on a hot day.

- People co-opt the pillar by leaning a wonky railing on it.

- Someone exploits the buildings pole to tie their dog off while they go inside.

- People exploit the platform to hide light cables behind it.

- A boy exploits the shape of a tree to use it as a play toy.

- A boy adapts a bollard to use it as an object to rest on.

- Children adapt the stream and its rocks to use it as a playground.

- Children adapt the 'Brisbane' sign climbing on top of it and using it as a playground.

- People see that others have left their cup in an area and put theirs there as well, conforming to a group.

- People notice that someone has left their bike here and conform and leave theirs there as well.

- People conform to the idea that this hill is for sun-baking.

-  A sign signals people as to what is not allowed in the area.

-  A ribbon signals that the ladder is not to be used.

-  A woman signals her friend over to her by waving her hand.

To add to our findings we were also asked to sketch two things we found interesting within Southbank and write some observations about the day.

This first sketch was of an installation of a man on a unicycle suspended above one of Southbank's market squares. I found this particularly interesting as it is not something that you expect to find when you go to visit Southbank and it caught my attention as a unique experience. On top of its interesting appearance of a stone man on a unicycle, it was suspended at roof height above the square where I did not expect to see anything at all, let alone an artistic man.

My second sketch was of people walking around a grate on the floor. I found it interesting to watch as the interaction between the grate and the people depended on age, gender, race and how large a group was. Some people swerved to avoid it, some people swerved to step onto of it, some people didn’t react to it and I saw a kid run over to it just to jump on it.  I found it extremely interesting to see how different people reacted to the same object in vastly different ways just based on who they were.

During the day I noticed three main groups of people at Southbank. Those there as tourists, enjoying the experience of Southbank, those there as families, enjoying spending time together and letting the children play in the park, and those there as groups of friends, enjoying the warm day down by the river. People seemed to be mostly taking the time to relax and enjoy the warm atmosphere that Southbank creates. With large sections of plants and flowers and the nearby river the park smelt of outdoors and people enjoyed the environment. With all of the family, friends and tourists there the park had a very lively and upbeat mood of people just enjoying their day out with each other.

While initially I found the idea of in-depth observation of others to be weird and uncomfortable and didn’t really know why I had to do it and what help it would bring me, I slowly started to realise just what I was doing and seeing. When you watch the thoughtless actions of someone you get a far deeper understanding of who they are and what their motives are. This itself can help designers better understand the people they are designing for and make the thing we design so much better. With a look inside the mind of the people we design for, we get an in-depth personal understanding of our user base and that is something so important to design, something I now realise can be gained from spending an afternoon observing people.

References

Suri, Jane F. 2005. Thoughtless acts? 1st ed. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

IDEO. "Thoughtless Acts?" Accessed April 20, 2017. https://www.ideo.com/post/thoughtless-acts

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Inspiring Designers

Kate Moross, Floating Island, 2011

Designers are everywhere. Their creations improve the quality of our lives daily. But every once in a while, one designer will stand out to you. Their work will catch your eye and you'll stop, take a second, and truly look at their work. Stop and take a moment to be inspired by what they have created.

Kate Moross is a 30 year old illustrator, art director, director and designer. She started working as a designer in 2008 with her bright, colourful, energetic typography and illustrations. She later branched out into music videos, textiles, identities, murals, fashion and magazine covers for big-time publications. She is a widely sought after designer who unapologetically works for what she truly believes in (Moross, 2017, under "Kate Moross"). Kate Moross is an inspiring artist to me, and this week, I have been asked to make her a sandwich as well. To try and capture who she is as a designer in just a sandwich.

The first thing you notice when you look at Moross' work is how bright and colourful it is. The work she does has so much life behind it, so much character, it's mesmerising. As a whole her work is so bubbly, exuberant and colourful I knew this had to be one of the focuses of her sandwich. After having gone through a similar process with my own sandwich just last week, ideas for this sandwich came much quicker. After coming up with a basic plan for the sandwich I hit the farmers market to get all the fresh colourful fruit I would need for the project, followed by a trip the shops to get the other missing ingredients. The focus of the sandwich was the bright colourful fruit inside.

Kate Moross, New Balance x Kate Moross, 2017

Each fruit I chose is a unique bright colour, has an inviting distinct taste, and a fresh bold smell that just reminded me of Moross' style. When you walked into the room with it you would be immersed in a stream of delightful fresh fruit smells. Each fruit's taste, popping in your mouth as you eat it, the juices creating such rich symphonies on your tongue. I knew that normal bread was not something that screamed "Moross", it too had to be bright and colourful and so the regular bread became raspberry lamingtons. The natural fruits would contrast nicely with the fluffy creamy taste of the raspberry lamington 'bread' and the whipped cream topper. The filling of my fruit sandwich couldn't just be made of ordinary everyday fruits, it needed a unique spark of character. Something that was out of the ordinary. So I decided to add the colourful, sweet and sour candy, sour stripes, and the funky, exotic, oddly-shaped fruit, the starfruit to the mix. These were especially used to give that extra creative, unusual, spunky kick to the sandwich.

In the end I used this exuberant list of fruits: Strawberries; Raspberries; Orange; Pineapple; Banana; Starfruit; Lime; and Blueberries.

Now to go the extra mile we had to design the environment around the sandwich too. What it was sitting on, where it was sitting, what was around it and if there was music playing. As Moross' work looks playful and informal I decided that a colourful party plate would be the best way serve the sandwich up. Surrounded by similarly colourful napkins and a bright decorative milkshake it creates a bright, colourful and playful environment for the similarly designed sandwich. I used some of the smaller fruits and some sweet laces to decorate the rest of the plate to add to the colourful aesthetic of the sandwich. As a lot of her works are artistically crowded I chose to create a similar feeling in my photo, crowded and active but not enough to detract from the work itself. I also envisage, spunky upbeat pop songs to be playing in the background of the environment. I couldn't quite find the perfect backdrop for the work so I found something that would be suitable, something that would break up the brightness a little bit. Apart from this, the photograph accurately captures the whole essence of Kate Moross and her sandwich. I am very proud of the sandwich and would only change the effectiveness of the background.

Sandwiches may be to some, a weird way of looking at who someone is and what they represent, but it is just another form of abstract art. It is asking people to take something that we see as completely straightforward, and describe and portray it in a way that is far more advanced and complex. It stretches our creative thinking and allows us to truly look at, and think about, the meaning we are putting into the work that we do. This is something that we, as designers, should be able to do well if we plan to be successful in our field. And personally, I can say that thinking in terms of sandwich craft is opening my mind up to far more intuitive, deep creative thinking.

References

Moross, Kate. "Kate Moross" Accessed March 20, 2017. http://www.katemoross.com/about-kate

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Design & Advocacy

Design and Advocacy. Two topics that most people wouldn’t believe have much in common. But as I have come to realise, they have far more in common than it seems at first glance. I had the pleasure last week of listing to Dr. Julie Connolly from Multicultural Development Australia (MDA) talk about this exact topic and how our design and her advocacy work often go hand in hand.

Connolly talked not only about the work she did with refugees and the work she does with them through MDA, but also about advocacy and all there is to it. She talked about different types of advocacy, social justice and the different types of change they want to see in the communities. But she also talked about raising up the voices of those who are in need of help. About how design can help to get these voices heard. Connolly talked about how design and advocacy are both entirely people related; how they are both thinking of the users and the people; how they are both invested in understanding people and designing a better future for them. That through co design we can shift the decision-making process and collaborate with the people who need our help, to best benefit them.

Through Connolly's talk I realised that design and advocacy are not too far apart from each other. After her talk, I now understand that design is not just a creative problem solving process. That it is not just making, creating and beautifying the world. I realised that design has a voice that can be used to speak up for those that need help. That it can use its power to make important issues reach more people in ways that will get them to listen. That it can help make sure everyone's voice is heard. Design and creative thinking can be used to make a greater impact in the world of advocacy and help people all over the world in need.

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What is Design?

Design. A word that most people understand and are familiar with, but what does it truly mean? When you stop and think about design what pops into your head? What does it mean to you? This week, I’ve been thinking about what design really means, to define design as a whole, what it means to be a designer and what it takes to be one. When i stopped to think about what design meant i came up with this:

In my mind that summed it up pretty good. It talked about what design was and what it did, and that was all it needed to do. But as i started talking to my peers i realised it was more than that. As we started to talk amongst ourselves in small groups i noticed that design is more than just what I had first thought. Through a collaborative design process we expanded upon our ideas, altered them and evaluated exactly what design meant to us. Each member of each group had input into the creation and design of the definition, till we were all working together to create the most accurate definition we could. Without any elected leaders the whole class got involved in the discussion and was able to add their opinion on the topic, making the final definition one that everyone thought was accurate. In the end we came up with this:

A long and wordy sentence that summed up to the best of our ability the broad theme that is Design. Although it could have been more succinct, I found the final definition to be an accurate representation of what I already knew design to be. It looked at more than just what design was and what it did, it also touched on why we need design; how it works; and the nature of design itself. With this in mind I took to the web to see what professional designers defined design as. In my search I came across a round table discussion between professional designers about design and what it means. Here are some of the notable definitions:

Paola Antonelli; curator of architecture and design, Museum of Modern Art, New York,  (2001, para. 22):

Erik Adigard; cofounder, M.A.D., (2001, para. 3):

Antonelli and Adigard look at design as more than just art and making something look pretty, they look at it as a way to creatively solve problems in the world. They look at is as a story telling device to communicate things to a wider audience and as an improvement to the world around it. In those ways the definitions given by these professionals are very similar to the one developed by my class. Antonelli's definition specifically resonated with me as she describes design as being a way to "produce something that the world didn't know it was missing" as it delves into the deeper meaning behind design, into why we design in the first place.

Having looked at what design truly means conversation drifted to what do you need to be a designer. What skills, what abilities, what mentalities were needed to be the best designers we could be. After a large group discussion, several key ideas came out. Our core factors of a designer are the ability: to implement ideas; to be flexible; to be collaborative; to have good time management; to brainstorm; to be innovative; to be hardworking; to be creative; and the ability to communicate well. Over the course of the discussion these 9 key skills were brought back to focus time and time again. They became the 9 core elements of being a designer.

As a designer one should strive to ace these skills and push themselves to be the best designer they can be. Personally I know that I'm pretty flexible and innovative, being especially good at problem solving, but struggle when it comes to managing my time well and the initial act of brainstorming. These weaknesses of mine are something I plan to improve over time, by setting myself small milestones to keep myself on target and set myself little brainstorming activities to try and stretch this skill.

Have you ever thought of yourself as a sandwich. Yes that’s right a sandwich, a big pile of ingredients stuffed between two slices of bread. Because I was asked to, and let me tell you it is an interesting experience. Defining myself as a designer in the artistic form of a sandwich proved to be much harder than I first thought it would be, because it's just a sandwich right? When I arrived home to start planning my sandwich I was struck with designers block, and because brainstorming is not one of my strong suits, I remained stuck for a while. Slowly ideas started hitting paper and my sandwich started taking shape. I looked at the size, shape, visual aesthetics, materials and taste of my ingredients and slowly but surely my sandwich took shape. Once I had a pretty good idea I took to the stores to get what I needed. Once assembled I took to the sandwich with my camera to capture the final giant product.

As both an IT programmer and a graphic artist, I felt the need to express both sides of my designing through my sandwich. For IT, I designed the sandwich with distinct layers as if lines of code, for art, I made the sandwich with bright exuberant colours for the colourful nature of my art. Throughout my life I have also found interest in many different forms of art, and as such I made my sandwich quite large. My first interest as a designer was that of photography, specifically photography of nature and flowers. As this was a huge part of why I became a designer I used handpicked fresh lettuce and small decorative flowers, as well as other fresh vegetables as a centrepiece of the work. As my work started to evolve I started to look into social commentary as a part of my work and so I made the bread I used thick and grainy for the deeper meaning behind the work I do. A lot of the graphic design that I do involves interesting, oddly shaped objects and for that reason I have used the odd shape of capsicums within the work. On top of all these visual aspects, the sandwich includes a lot of prominent, strong, attention grabbing flavours such as the red onion and aged chilli and cheddar. These show the bold and expressive nature of the art that I love to work with. To top it all off I have included some cherry tomatoes off to the side to represent how my art and design style is still growing and being developed as a whole.

Then it came to photographing my sandwich. I needed the perfect environment to showcase the work. To most truly represent myself as an artist, I took it outside to the nature that had so inspired my artistic nature in the first place. Displayed perched on a kitchen stool, I photographed it in front of some of the plants in my garden, with the light of the sun peering down from the tree line above. By taking it so, I believe the essence of the sandwich was depicted on camera effectually. Overall, although a bit simple in appearance, I felt the sandwich effectively captured who I am as a designer and my own personal style. And thus, the Sandwich Jess was complete.

Design. A word so deep and complex that no one truly understands it. Design is more than just what most people believe it to be. Design is creation. Design is storytelling.  It is interpretive, collaborative and communicative. Design is innovation and problem solving. Design is design. It is different to everyone. Your understanding of design will be different to mine. Design is hard, it is time consuming. It requires re-evaluation of ideas and lots of planning. Until now I have thought of design as something that just happens, as something you do, but it's more than just that. It is all of these things. It is a process, an idea, and a way of thinking. In truth, now there is only one way I can think of how to describe design and that is:

References

Antonelli, Paola & Adigard, Erik (2001, January). “A Conversation About The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.” Conversation hosted at Wired. Accessed March 13, 2017. https://www.wired.com/2001/01/forum/