Tag Archives: design

words

poetry_words

my wife Carol told me about this article she read or a radio interview she heard or something where the main topic up for discussion dealt with ways to guide your career — one of these fucking ‘paths to improvement’ kinda things, ya know?

aight

so

i guess the main person talking or writing about how to guide your own career toward better success mentioned owning certain words to help you channel / filter / control your behaviors and hopefully build a bit of a purposeful brand story for yourself — forgive me, i don’t know the real terminology from the article or interview, just the main concepts i took away from our conversation over the dinner table and all, ya know?

huh, i just said ‘ya know?’ to finish off 2 main paragraphs in this blogPost

not cool

but back to the main topic here, aight?

so, not sure if you’ve read some of the previous posts here about a little riff i got goin’ on called storyFirst, but its right here if you wanna go back — like you even have the time for that kinda schtuff right now and all, right? but the idea, the basic gist of it all is that you use the power of personal storytelling to drive whatever it is you might wanna change up in life, which seems, like, directly in-line with this article / interview Carol and i were discussing, right?

thank gawd i didn’t say ‘ya know?’ — ya know?

anywayz

so, i thought i’d take a few minutes to just jot down what i think my words are, the ones i’ve gravitated towards in both a purposeful and more subconscious manner over the years — what i’d love to see, if any of you can participate by chiming back through any of the myriad mechanisms or channels of communication afforded to us at this advanced age of ‘staying connected’ — i’d love it if anyone had feedback to say, like,

‘woah, lou, really? that was the vibe you were going for? well, you almost had it, but there was that fucking time you totally flipped out in the office about that email from Steve or something, i can’t even remember at this point, right? and that kind of behavior is not only totally uncool and all, and unprofessional, but it definitely goes against the idea of < put the word from my short-list in here >, which i thought was more along the lines of what you were tryin’ ta be all about — dude, what happened there?

get what i’m sayin’?

so, with that minimal contextual information and backStory in mind — here’s my list, my career list of words { or whatever you wanna call it }, and more importantly to me, my storyFirst vocabulary for some sort of self-guidance as: a colleague in the workplace; a friend in life; an acquaintance or friendly random strangerly cohort on the streets of San Francisco; an advocate for better human-centered design processes, methodologies and design results; a practicing Design professional and leader; a semi-professional wrestler sans mohawk, body piercings and backtatt skin graffitti artwork and speedo; an unprofessional japanese filmmaker; a storyteller of dark humor and adventure in a modernday world gone mad; a sometimes practicing open mike music or near-comedic performer; a laugh research practitioner and performance artist; a lover, a father, a husband and lifelong friend { only a very selected few can judge me there, at least from the special first-person perspective vantagepoint i’m personally looking for in my feedback communications }; etcetera and so on forever and ever ad infinitum farsi, amen

and thus, with no further ado, here is

my list of storyFirst personal life guidance and career-like words

fun

collaborative
highly collaborative in that kind of face-to-face sort of way that i think is absolutely vital to keeping things fun, light and efficient in the right kind of way { for the kind of energy i want to create, encourage, foster and be associated with every step of the way }

not innovative, although that’s almost the word i wanna hold onto — its just SO cliché at this point, right? and NOT every client, project, interaction or process is going to require or ultimately lead to a truly new and innovative approach or end solution — not even interpersonal, more everyday interaction needs constant innovation in the true sense of the word — i think the words that are related in some semi-sweet and semiotic fashion are more like:

nimble { really trying hard on this one lately, its a difficult one sometimes, especially when trying to improve team dynamics, etcetera nd so on }

big picture &/or blue sky — yes, its true, as a human-centered designer, after some ridiculous 15+ years of trying a million different ways of approaching a design challenge { if its even truly a design challenge at all after our initial investigations into the problemSpace / challenge context / all that }, i can say with full confidence that i always, always, always encourage and want to show off my ability to think big — in fact, to think bigger — when it comes to the way i research, actively design, think through, refine and execute my processes as a Design professional — if i don’t push for the biggest and the best right up front, the projects fucked

its that simple

its my job, as the Designer, to put the big vision { so i guess visionary could take the place of innovative, hmmmm } out there on the table { BAM! } and then to listen to like a dozen people typically sitting in 3 different office geolocations ask me big, doubtful questions — the sort of getting to NO approach of breaking the vision of what i’ve done to help funnel down the scope, the timeline and keep everything super slick and reasonable from a develper’s perspective — and THEN its my job, if i’m asked ‘Why?’ or ‘How?’ to ask, ‘Why not? Why can’t we just develop what I designed?’

ridiculous — yes, that’s what i said, ridiculous — i embrace it, all the way — i’m a goofy bastid and wherever i can fit in a laugh along the way, some subtle, twisted humor to cut through the heavy fog in the room at some of the dull ass conversations we all get to deal with in an office environment, i think ridiculousness { not the show, just the activity, the verb ridiculize, if that can even happen } is a tool i use, like laughter as an action in itself { even without the permission system of humor, joke or play to precede the guffaw, titter or ha ha } to break the monotony and move forward in a hopefully refreshed and lighter manner

along with that one, i guess, words like humorous, satiric, farcical — any word that’s associated with literally ‘making fun’ out of a situation, not to literally ‘make fun’ of it in a mean-spirited way, but merely to help us all survive and play together nicer — to ‘make it into fun’ i suppose — is a phraseology that i foster, support and want to be affiliated with — so, back to that top word, again, i guess, right?

hands-on and tactical but also high-level

well, let’s not get fucking crazy now, right? that’s starting to sound like typical corporate bullshitnot part of my personal storyFirst vocabulary list for this week at all

piece

a perfect world

crackedGlass_1016047_lz

we all know its not a perfect world out there, right?

none of us are, like, THAT delusional

but, what if we all just pretended we live in a perfect world and we began to treat each other a little better? that couldn’t really HURT anybody really, now, could it? in fact, it might be kind of cool and awesome in some strange and cool way

here’s a f’rinstance for ya

what if instead of having a continuous stream of bad things to say about people, what if we only said generally positive things? doesn’t it just feel good to receive a compliment? it feels even better to give a compliment to someone — even if you get nothing in return { and you should never even expect anything in return, right? then you might be complimenting someone for the entirely wrong reason } it just feels good — it feels good to know you’re recognizing the incredible awesomeness around us all, that you’re appreciating life, and that you’re appreciating the people in life that make all of this so worthwhile and fun and happy and alive

bad things are going to happen no matter what

its inevitable, its just the nature of every time-based medium

and life is a time-based medium, so hold on, here it comes ;]

i mean, we can all be honest, too — no need to walk around like an imbecile or something, and its certainly okay to have an opinion about someone or something, but try and back it up in some way with some real reason why you’re feeling so down about these things — just a little bit of research can go a long way, and it will also give us all a little bit more insight into your thinking process and why you’re judging in the first place

if you have a point to make with these observations, with your researched and clarified opinions that veer toward the negative side of life, then good for you — and maybe even good for the world

but realize, at least, just how vulnerable we all are — and especially you as the judge and jury expressing these opinions, especially if you’re expressing them in a very public place like on a blog or on Facebook or at church

unless you’re working at the Lynn District Court or something, too, remember that the Judge also receives some judgment from the social community within which they lay comment — and even THAT judge, the courtly official presiding, will ultimately receive judgment — after all, its not an entirely efficient process — the pay looks real nice and there’s no reason to be efficient if you’re getting paid by your hourly input as never ever reflected by the actual quality of those then quantified hours

but that’s beside the point

let’s all try a little experiment

let’s pretend

what if we lived in a perfect world? what would we say to each other? how would we behave?

try acting like we live in a perfect world and that people act and behave certain ways for good reasons

it might make us all a little less critical of our brothers and sisters

and then we might just concentrate on good things, good people, good feelings, and all the stuff that makes life fun and exciting

i’m gonna try it

let’s see what happens

mediaLuscious Design + Art Review

i just recently finished editing up the official exhibition catalog for mediaLuscious Design + Art Review — thanks to everyone for not only showing your work and participating in such an amazing gallery exhibition, but for also patiently putting up with my random email requests for photos, writings, input and feedback over the last few weeks

i have to say — this is probably the best book i’ve put together to-date, much better-looking in my mind’s eye than my own thesis even, which can probably be contributed to the fact that this project of capturing the spirit, energy, community and fun of this show was done for DMI and The DMI Family moreso than myself

anyhow, after a few more tweaks here ‘n there, i will be sure to post this up to Blurb and get a print proof to deliberate — and then and only then the book will be open for more public consumption via Blurb, ISSUU or wherever

[: what a show :]

On Intellect

Today I found last year’s MassArt MFA Thesis Show Catalog — it was so exciting to flip through the book, see all of the artwork and re-read the reflections of each artist, designer and performer that participated in the 3 shows that ended last year’s Spring Semester 2011.

In the mix, of course, many of the artists let the work speak for itself. An interesting choice. Kind of makes you wonder, though, why an artist would pursue a graduate degree at all and then not provide some articulated sense of what the work is actually about, maybe generously set up some mental context for the reader since this wonderful vehicle of marketing and communication will most likely meet up with its audience asynchronously, right? Sometime after the fact, after those miraculous little shows.

Now, not to pick on anyone here in such a public, online place, right? But one person, in particular, decided to make a statement about not making a statement. And the dude’s not expressing some nihilistic neo-Dada conundrums through the printed word. I just don’t think the artist had a lot to say, maybe even felt offended at the mere suggestion he should write as part of his graduate studies at art school.

James Ovid Mustin III stated, ‘Intellectual rhetoric is insignificant, because talk has little to do with procedure.‘ This statement is eloquently accompanied by 8 untitled paintings, each a dazzling display of diagonally-arranged, isoceles triangles of various muted hues that potentially suggest an animation of prismic lights when considering the entire series as a progressive collection of one larger work — this ‘procedure’ as Mustin III calls it. Besides the fact that a few lines of code in Processing could have automated the entire full-time graduate career he spent on these paintings { maybe freeing him up for more worthwhile pursuits, potentially even some reading and writing } — I find the focus on insignificance extremely telling on a thoroughly Freudian level. I mean, his short sentence could be seen as a gutsy, bold artistic statement, I guess.

At the end of the day I feel a little disappointed in both the statement and the work cataloged for JOMIII in 2011. One could spend an eternity coloring in the triangular hairlines, practicing this exercise one typically encounters as busywork in your typical Visual Design 1 class in most undergraduate programs. But to have no reasons, to leave no trace of any deeper thought or reason for those looking into MassArt for their own future consideration as a rigorous program of artistic graduate studies — its almost a slap in the face to the administration, to the faculty, to the world.

But its not. No, don’t worry. I’m sure that the statement came with very little thought. Its not a ‘thoughtful’ statement. I mean, it doesn’t seem like James considered what he might be leaving behind as his legacy, he didn’t consider this, I guess, to be an opportunity to tell a story, to tell his story to the world.

I hope these paintings aren’t supposed to tell his story on their own merit. They’re nice, don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen them out in a gallery setting or 2. They could probably adorn just about any corporate wall out there without worry of offending the innocent random passerby.

Total mental giftwrap. Patterns that you might consider purchasing from The Paper Store. Maybe on a larger scale these paintings could translate well on the walls of your local Credit Union. Not really eye candy or anything, but there’s nothing all that telling about them. I actually felt that the artist himself emitted a little more personality than these artifacts of his time and studies.

I’m not sure if I should be offended. I mean, I needed to write a book. A researched book that included my work, my thoughts, my ideas and some notion of intellect. And James wrote a sentence. A bunch of interchangeable paintings and a sentence. Did he consider his time at MassArt to be a sentence? A sentence of unintelligible intellect? Was his time and the artifactual evidence of his time at MassArt ‘insignificant’ to James Ovid Mustin III? And does my MFA from MassArt feel a little less valuable when the comparison is made, when I see now that I could’ve done far less work to achieve the same end result and recieve the same exact piece of paper?

I know this is not the case. I refuse to compare, contrast or judge. I know my time at Dynamic Media Institute brought invaluable insight and intellectual rigor into my life. I met fantastic people embarking upon the same journey as me, digging into Design with a capital D, looking deep into our souls and examining the current state of the world to see something seemingly invisible. To discover, through a very personal lens of Design: what I am about; what my work is about; and to, quite literally, tell the story of my context in this world. Such an intense program of study. Collaboration, innovation, fun. And in the word Design we find the word ‘sign’ which, interestingly enough, is the root word shared in the word Significant. Design brings significance, meaning, confidence and, yes, intellect to what we do as creative people of the world.

I feel a little bad. I think James missed the entire point.

objects of desire

the semester is over, you may go in peace

summers here + the time is right to go drinking in the street

analysis of the internationally still infamous Surrealist film ‘Un Chien Andalou’ … with a bit of simple subcutaneous research into concepts behind the storytelling … reveal some interesting insights into the fetish objects ofttimes automatically rendered through the lucid daydream creativities of the mad genius revolution started in the early 1930s

those familiar with the principle character, the ‘Chien’ himself, + the delightfully strange cinematic sequences of the film as they unravel + peel away, will recognize this satirical modernization of the classic Dalinian swarm of ants within the palm of the hand

9432510-formis_andalou

i call my cyberSurreal iPhone automatic app suggestion ‘formis Andalou’ in homage to the original … Dalí affords the presence of ants special symbollic meaning … ‘ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire’ … from my previous research the inference is multivariate + deep + actually suggests a sort of societal decay

watching the passage from ‘Un Chien Andalou’ … the man + woman standing + staring into the palm of his hand … mysteriously mesmerized by the vision of these ants as they run in + out of a stigmata-like opening in the center of his palm … as a living, breathing witness of incessant + neverending myriad similar watchers, similarly hypnotized fiends visually engaged with all that dances in the palm of their hands … well, i cannot help but ask about the data that plays within these, our daily apps … ants, data, information … the device itself, perhaps this is the hole … our own informatic stigmata allowing this newfound, willingly self-afflicted weapon of our own societal decay … Dalinian ants reborn again as the very data that makes us dance around like ants in our own unstoppable puppetshow afterlife … we follow the data … we watch + check + cannot help but come back + gently stroke our shiny, beloved touch-interface objects of desire { thank you to Toby Bottorf for this brilliant description, the way we touch our device }

i am certain Buñuel + Dalí were not attempting to peer into the future … no, no … their purpose, as was the primary goal of much of the original Surrealist movement, was to explore the subconscious … to create a dreamlike expression of the Freudian worlds within us all … and perhaps, in doing so, unintentionally reveal some of the Jungian collective unconscious pertaining to our timeless existence

interviews with Buñuel helped decipher the metaphor of the diagonally-striped box … a box first carried by the bicyclist … a disembodied hand is placed into the box … later, the fashion remains of the deceased bicyclist are taken from the box … and from the fashion remains the female heroine of ‘Un Chien Andalou’ is able to bring our anti-hero back to life … she literally reanimates the man, the fiend

Buñuel calls the striped box an ‘object of desire’ … + many of the poetic objects imagined + realized by the Surrealists played with sexual tension + in some respects our inescapable human condition … our new ‘objects of desire’ are the machines … not the machines glorified by the original Futurists … not the automobile or steam engine … not at all … instead, our modernday equivalent to the striped box, to the ants in our hand … our machines, our ‘objects of desire’ are the computer, the laptop, the mobile device, the electronic reader … the ants go in + out … ‘death, decay, and immense sexual desire’

i wouldn’t say that the desire is directly sexual … but it can truly be addicitive … our need to phsyically interact with data becomes very obsessive-compulsive … i see it everyday … the most crowded room filled with the most amazing, intelligent + engaging people can become an instant information graveyard of stonefaced data-retrieval meatware … a ring, a buzz, all screens come out + suddenly the socialSpace we all exist in is swept away, everyone whisked into email, text, tweet + feed … the data rules supreme … + the desire itself, this is opportunity … the promise of a quick, witty message … maybe messages that will lead to an interesting conversation a few hours down the road … as most of us earn our living off from the new information economy, its difficult to not think of every ant as some new opportunity, some new chance … chance though that is far different from the joy of random, automatic expression through parlor games + madcap theatricality … chance that is totally unrelated to Duchamp + his chance procedure, a sort of zenlike appreciation for what destiny might bring your way … how unCagian is this new chance, this new chance is far less playful, utterly unSurreal …

i hope i am wrong … that my train of thought stops soon at the very next station up ahead

i truly hope that the word i am about to change, that our ‘objects of desire’ … that this chance, as i was about to say … well, it feels a bit desperate … our interaction with the data, with our technologies … its all flipped now at this point, hasn’t it?

the information, the data, the tools, the technologies … well, we originally created it to use … for the betterment of our human condition, right? to improve our standard of living … to help make the world light + playful + free … this was the original intention … the 1950s vision of what our technology could bring to humanity

but this addictive behavior … our relationship to our technologies … and our changing relationship with each other … there is something of desperation in it all from what i can sense + see

i need to sleep on this for now … get away from the monitor myself for a bit, right? after all, i might be writing more about myself, observations about myself, my own inner psychology + my own conflicts than about the universal change that might be going on in the world … maybe i’m imagining it all … maybe i’m putting more into what i think i see in my daily life { but i honestly don’t think so … which completely scares me } … yes, yes, for now i will go to sleep … but these are the thoughts i am left with after another year of research into cyberSurrealism … after a year of discovering what my personal motivations might be in wanting to explore the cybernetic + the Surreal … as Toby also pointed out, in a very Carlinesque sort of way actually, the material is all already there … i just need to point it out to people … to report on the state of things per se … to nurture a better awareness + live somewhere between … to mistrust things just enough + report on my experience

this is my story

these are my dreams

Extending experience design { eed }

DSCF0242just like any other realm of design, you do not necessarily need to start thinking of the Total eXperience Design right from day 1

let’s say you start off designing a campaign or concept from a pure print standpoint at first … you have brochureware, business cards, flyers, posters, books, periodicals or any microSet of these items from the realm of paper and physically printed work … you can easily take your high resolution and vector-drawn artwork and interpolate that into the realm of onScreen eXperience ( oSX or whatever else you might personally call it … most might say uX for user eXperience, but i think i prefer the implied ‘operating System‘ in this oSX tla* … there is also an nearReference to ‘ossification‘ in the oS part of the tla which definitely holds some resonance to end deliverables like wireframes and other IA documents that set up the backbone for later rounds of ‘skinning‘ or visual design treatment ) … that works out nicely, right?

and then from high resolution to low resolution ( for onScreen ) to no resolution ( for mobile or text-based interpretation of the original print to web to text ), that’s another easy degradation … and we all know it could work in the reverse as well ( but would be a LOT more efficient having vector and high rez brand elements from the first ), there just may need to be some sort of reCreation to make the no to low to high rez translation possible

these are still playing in the realm of what i would consider relatively flat media … sure, there can be an element of time and space in both onScreen and onDevice eXperience design, but there is an almost near-predictablity whenever the backend relies on database technology ( as opposed to a less predictable system of people or performers )

here is another way to extend the experience design

let’s say you hand out training materials and businessCards ( other paperWare as well ) and after a period of rehearsal and behaviorSetting event-based sessions your salesForce or performance militia is then allowed to carry out some sort of activity ‘out there’ in both the real world and online … these performers ( salesFolk, whatever ) can then use tools such as databases and preScripted materials ( corporate or not ) to act on the behalf of an organization to work toward achieving a goal … a truly dynamic system … one that is a lot more improvisational and a LOT less predictable than one that uses a pre-programmed mathematical set of algorithms to perform a task ( a Javascript randomizer, perhaps, serves up 1 of 20 different animated gifs … or maybe there is a semantic web microApplication or adServer that grabs the historical online trends of a user and serves up some content or graphic that proves to be more relevant to the user as they navigate a system … if you’re a heterosexual woman, maybe the dynamic system serves up the image of a strapping, young poolboy w/ the tagline … ‘Hey Baby, time for some fun’ … and then maybe if you’re a tree in the autumntime, maybe a block of text gets served up instead to describe the benefits of dropping acorns to not only propagate the species but also to help a squirrel family survive through the upcoming brutal winter squalls approaching )

as an example … the totally random, packeted and human-chaotic approach Al Qaeda implemented might best explain the difficulty, perhaps, in properly tracking and putting a stop to the young pilot students in Florida prior to the 911 attacks … i personally believe, with the advent of satellite spy systems and other superCool stealth tracking the US government utilizes, that there is no way they could NOT have known, to some degree, that there was at least going to be some sort of mass hijacking in the skies above and about NYC … maybe the pure evil inside of a system of human beings cannot be tracked or measured by any device or team of watchers … or maybe all data was available to certain departments or individuals tracking the behavior patterns of these suspicious foreign agents but there was a failure to go beyond the numeric, patternistic analysis and interpret the criss-cross addition and multiplication of all the components to fully realize the truth and intention behind the efforts of the student internationals suddenly interested in ‘learning to fly’ … but the human element here, in this particular system design, that human element was either the excuse behind non-prevention or acted as an insanely powerful subterfuge to the antiSystem ( i guess system and antiSystem can be purely a matter of perspectavity … from the US standpoint, of course, we were protecting the system of Democracy { or Capitalistic Consumerism from the purely financiofactual societal analysis filter } and the antiSystem would be the terrorists, no matter from where or whence, from the era of the great Lewinsky and onward into the future forever and evermore )

the ultimate dynamic systems need to not only involve humans as the end-user | viewer | participant, but should also exploit the power of human performance within the system to help steer the processes from within the system

could robots effectively be programmed to sell Oracle products?

let’s say you could completely emulate a human voice, the inflection and accent of a salesperson or performer ( i keep saying performer as my real interest, my intentions are not meant for real market-effective purposes at all but perhaps, indeed, for the forces that influence the opposite inflexion when so deserved ) … could all of the circumstances behind a human conversation between client and representative be accounted for to anticipate every thread and potential for exception or bargaining? i don’t think so …

my theory is that life is a dynamic system … and that people, being the users of the system, need an equivalent human component within the system to create the ultimate dynamic set of status and interactivity …

if we started with a performance piece, a play perhaps … how could that experience be extended? maybe the brochureWare, the artifacts that will survive the live experience, these items could be designed to help brand the event and serve as a means to resuscitate the memory of the original live performance ( its key elements, narrative and nuances ) in the mind of the concertGoer or theatreGoer … maybe there are more intential ‘takeaways’ distributed to the audience ( Walter Sickert and The Army of Broken Toys typically distribute little ‘toy’ noisemakers for cued audience participation at critical shock and emphasis points in their theatricalmusical event-based concerts and shows … Crank Sturgeon quite frequently uses olfactory sensation to create a bit of spacial memory discordance that heightens my own post-event discourse and reflections of his noise performance, sound art and danceworks { he might throw freshly raked leaves about the space or burn fabric inside a toaster oven, each producing a unique and memorable nasal-based brand for his performative episodic installations } ) … or perhaps the performance itself purposely begins to extend beyond the stageSpace … maybe there are faux-protestations being carried out in a semi-unoffcial manner to heighten the senses of the audience as they encounter the rage and discontent of this pre-performative ‘appetizer’ tasting of what the intended subject matter could include … more and more literary experiences ( or at least fictional and written experiences ) are being augmented with peripheral online experiences that might express the opinions of just one character from the book using MySpace, Facebook or other pretended social web experiences to deepen the mythological aura and fictionSpace surrounding the ‘real work’ … Sasha Baron Cohen’s ‘Brüno’ movie had several promotional website extensions that helped heighten not only the hype but also the riduculous personality and parody that is obviously at the core of what Cohen does …

not every design needs this sort of extension

but in thinking about Total eXperience Design potential for a campaign, activity or product it can be very helpful to consider the static, temporal, algorithmic and ultimately human ( chaotic or concordance-reactive ) elements to include for the most effective txd … to consider, perhaps, not only the user expereince as seen from the side of the target audience but also from the vantagepoint of the targeting user participant in the system

*tla = three-letter acronym

..:: What is DESIGN? ::.. ..:: Designers’ Talk Discussions on LinkedIn ::..

10:14 pm – ..:: WHAT is DESIGN? ::.. ..:: Designers’ Talk Discussions on LinkedIn ::..

Fred Showker, Editor and Publisher of DTG, recently posted the following question in the Designers’ Talk Discussions section of LinkedIn:

My question: WHAT is DESIGN?

So many readers often write to ask about becoming a design professional. Many ask “What is Design” or “What is Graphic Design?”

Among the established definitions you’ll find that just about anyone you ask — you’ll get a different answer. So, in the May issue of DTG we’ll be asking …

WHAT IS DESIGN?

My studies at The Dynamic Media Institute at MassArt bring up many questions about design, media, communication and creativity. The question What is design? seemed to perfectly resonate with recent thoughts and discourse with the fantastic community engaged in these discussions at DMI.

Here is my response:

WHAT is DESIGN? What an excellent question. And what an important question to ask ourselves on a daily basis.

Here is my quick interpretation of design …

First of all, I think of the word design as more of a verb than a noun. An active process. A process that can contain elements of expression, research, planning, thinking, doing, conversing … but design is best when there is a lot of active exploration, research and process behind the end result.

As a second notion to consider … here is a layman’s linguistic deconstruction of the word as interpreted by someone personally and professionally involved with design for a decade or more. So here is my breakdown by syllable …

The ‘de’ part of DESIGN … ‘de’ reminds me of the word ‘di’ in Italian, both in phonetic | aural similarity and in direct translation of meaning … ‘de’ = ‘of’ in English.

The ‘sign’ part of DESIGN … ‘sign’ is the root of the word ‘significance’.

Literally translated DESIGN means ‘of significance’. More importantly, the interpretation I come away with is something more like the infinitive ‘to bring significance’. I think of it as a process where the designer brings meaning … actually brings something significant to the world. Or at the very least to a certain targeted audience.

So … in the end, we not only need to ask from day to day the all-important question ‘WHAT is DESIGN?’, but we also need to continually update and define ‘WHAT is the role of a DESIGNER?’ … the answers to both of these questions are shifting and changing more and more often in these times, due in part to the speedy development of new technologies and also immensely influenced by a confluence of so many eclectic fields coming together to define and design new significance, new meaning, new thought, and new methods of communication.

View the original LinkedIn Answers question and responses here: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=92232&discussionID=2742196&commentID=3023128&goback=.hom.anh_92232#commentID_3023128

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recent post on LinkedIn … check it out!