Welcome to Room557

Can you separate the art from the artist?

It's no secret among my students that I'm not a fan of Gill Sans.

I speak openly about the topic to my students, but this semester, I had the time to codify it. My ire for Gill Sans is three-fold:

Putting your best face (and name) forward

One of the things that we insist our students do is to begin to build a brand for themselves. This starts by figuring out what people should call you and how you'd like to visually appear.

A consistent name and a headshot that looks like you is simple enough, but it's a hard slog when communicating this to our first semester students. Using a consistent name and having a representative photo helps do many things University-side, including letting your peers and instructors get to know you better... which are good things.

What is Design Process?

Developing a personal, documented, repeatable process is a crucial part of learning in design school. I often say that a potential employer will not necessarily hire you for the good work you’ve done. They’ll hire you for the good work you’ll do for them — and the best way for you to show them that you can do this is to show them your process work. After all, when you look at a portfolio, how can you be sure how much of the work came from the student... versus classmates, the instructor, or even the internet*? In most every class we teach, we have students keep a process/sketchbook — and in some classes elevate this to a more annotated version worthy of a place in a portfolio itself.

Each week during critique, we generally quickly thumb through the books and move on to the work. We refer to it if something comes up — but otherwise, we just want to know it's developing nicely. However, distance learning has made reviewing process work a bit harder. I wanted to formalize it a bit more and add examples.

 

... A potential employer will not necessarily hire you for the good work you’ve done. They’ll hire you for the good work you’ll do for them — and the best way for you to show them that you can do this is to show them your process work.

(*tip: good process is also the best antidote for a plagiarism charge)

How can I improve my grade?: 10 steps to improvement

We often get the "How can I improve my grade?" questions at at grading periods. It's not that hard for the most part:

1. Submit your assignments on time.
2. Submit your participation elements early.
3. Ensure your assignments are complete.
4. Ensure your assignments meet the assignment parameters.
5. Review at the examples provided — learn from them: be inspired, but don't emulate.
6. Listen to your instructor critique: "applying feedback to improve your work" is a grading point. Get on that.
7. Listen to all of your peer-critique: absorb > synthesize > apply ...
8. Watch all of the requisite videos and read all of the relevant posts: leverage that wisdom.
9. Ensure your projects are complete, meet parameters, and are on time... Did i mention that one already?
10. Ensure your projects leverage what you've learned in your previous classes — these baseline learnings are table-stakes. We can't re-teach Type-1 in Type-3, for instance... it's a given that in Type-3, you're doing all of what you learned in Type-1 and Type-2 and building on that. Otherwise, you're literally not evolving... growing... learning... thriving.
    
    

Flip the script

If you wanna be something other than a nerd with a scar on his lip, you gotta flip the script. — Johnny Lawrence

It seems like the best design lessons these days comes from TV and movies.

This one is from an old favorite franchise: The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai ... How can you flip the script?

Branding Inspiration from Hollywood

Inspiration for developing brands can come from the strangest places. I'm watching a scene from Iron Man 2 and am struck that this is an amazing lesson about the history, hopes, dreams, and limitations of brands.

Howard Stark breaks scene and faces the camera:

"Tony ... you're too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you. I built this for you — and some day you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than people's inventions... it represents my life's work. This is the key to the future... I'm limited by the technology of my time — but one day, you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is and always will be my greatest creation... is you."

[As a dad... I'm not crying! You are!]

Nothing changes on New Year’s Day

On a stormy June night in 1983, the world got to know U2 in a way that no one could have planned. “Had it been another 78 degree day, it would have been just another concert. Instead it was an amazing concert” (– Barry Fey).

 

[What seems like a purposefully moody photograph was actually the result of everything going wrong — then right — then captured on film.]

No one will remember the time you did something great when everything was stacked in your favor... People will remember the time you pulled it off when everything was destined for failure.

You can't say you're sexy

When you’re looking for a soul — or crafting the mission statement — of a brand, keep a few things top of mind: there are things that you can’t say — and there are some things that are simply expected.

My old creative director Paul Bennett used to say: “You can’t say you’re sexy… you just have to be sexy”. What he meant by this is that some things have to be shown — and saying them is not only weird but kind of invalidates them.

What makes "It" it?

I was reading a review of the upcoming movie “It” (Stephen King) which contained the following line:

Muschietti (the film’s director) understands the Spielberg-ian rule that creating a recognizable and convincing backdrop makes the payoff moments of coulrophobic terror and supernatural awe feel tangible and believable.

— Peter Hartlaub

It’s a bit of a reflection back on the discussions we have in our classes — specifically branding classes where students are challenged to recast the mythos of an existing brand — about the role of the believable being the foundation of the unbelievable is a good thing... or if you tell a far-fetched story, having ties back to things that are tangible and recognizable today can help to engage your audience a good bit more.

Nature of Identity FA16 (and SP16)... Lots of Awesomesauce

The fall of 2016 found Nature of Identity busting at the seams insofar as student count. A shift in the program meant that more students needed to take the class that semester than ever before and the seat count more than doubled.

At the same time, I had just made a major shift in the class by altering the flow and number of deliverables. The latter was great news as the change found 100% of the work the students were doing past week-1 finding its way directly into the final project in the final format — which meant no reformatting was necessary. Also, by separating the project into three smaller books (+ a website), it not only allowed for production throughout the semester, but the stack of books was a good bit more robust than a single book. It also gave more room to showcase process... as well as made the set more modular should they only want to show the process or the strategy during an interview. So, all good things... just a lot of change at once.

That said, we also had a record success rate at over 97% passing... which, for an advanced studio is quite good. Kudos go to the students who did absolutely fabulous work.

The basics of the class remain the same. We've added some exercises along the way and sharpened a few elements, but the idea that the students are looking deep into the heart of a brand to uncover what they're truly about is still a core element. This isn't a class about wingdings on coffee mugs and the students emerge ready to tackle some pretty high-level shiznit.

So, without pause, and in no particular order, let me throw some links your way: (I'll hot-link them soon... there's lots of cutting/pasting involved and there's just not enough coffee.)