process work

an image collection of what i'm working on, interested in, or obsessing over.

ArtBuddies needs you!

Be a creative buddy to an inner-city child.  Volunteer for Art Buddies!

Help a child from a low-income family know the joy of self-expression and the fun of working with a creative person like you. Create one-on-one with your child while working side-by-side with a group of other volunteers from advertising, design and architecture. Help your child create a fanciful costume, get photographed by professional photographers and celebrate in an exciting parade. Afterwards, join your fellow volunteers at a party in Uptown.

Application deadline is Thursday, April 1.

Change is imminent; change is emergent: A Critical Reflection on the Graphic Design Curriculum Re-design

Some of my thoughts recently shared with the graphic design program faculty at the University of Minnesota College of Design. The start of a three-piece series of work to be submitted to the AIGA/Winterhouse writing awards… lots of work to do before the June 1 deadline!

iPad? Yes, please.

This is the magazine experience I've been waiting for. It's in my lap, it's flat (not a pop-up screen), and I can just use my hand to page through. Plus, I can get additional details and multimedia experiences for the once-flat images in advertisements and feature articles. Sign me up, Apple, I'm on board.

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The emerging practice of service design

via jamin.org

Having recently completed my MFA in interactive design (note: emphasis area, not track, although this has since changed in the program), I'm rather intrigued by the heralding of a new "emerging" field in design. It could be that my thesis centered on emergence, or it may be because I see this as an even more holistic approach to interactive design. Assuming the latter, I feel that I could analogize service design is to interactive design as integrative campaign is to identity design. Where interaction design can exist in a bubble, service design must consider the needs of its participants through a number of different touchpoints. Perhaps the most convincing point arguing service design as a separate field is proven in slide 39; terms such as "front stage" and "blueprint" are as foreign to me as "css" is to my mother ("See abscess what?).

Here's to hearing more about service design in the near future. Heck, maybe there's even a job out there for this budding design educator. Service that!

105,000 tattoos …and Counting

On March 8, critically-acclaimed Iraqi artist and Wafaa Bilal will make a statement as he transforms his body into a permanent canvas honoring the documented casualties of the Iraqi war. Over a 24-hour period, his back will be tattooed with 5,000 red dots, representing the American death toll, and 100,000 green UV dots–visible under blacklight only–signifying the underreported and largely unnoticed deaths of Iraqis. As average citizens annotate the performance by reading aloud the names of the fallen, Bilal will be asking for donations to be made to Rally for Iraq Scholars, which provides financial support to those who have lost parents in the Iraq war.

Tattooing One Dot for Every Casualty during Operation Iraqi Freedom > (via Infosthetics.com)

Another one of Bilal's performances, entitled "Domestic Tension," consisted of him living in a Chicago museum for 30-days in a one-room cell. During this installation, visitors of the gallery and/or the project's website could shoot yellow paintballs at him 24-hours a day; eventually hackers were able to program guns to shoot automatically, without warning. Reportedly, Bilal was shot over 60,000 times from people in over 130 countries during the month. This chilling exhibition drew attention to what it's like to live under constant stress and fear of attack, and won Wafaa the Chicago Tribune's "Artist of the Year" award for 2007. 

Making something out of "nothing"

via feltron.com

For the past few years, Nicholas Felton has published "The Felton Annual Report" (in digital and print format). Dry as it may sound, it's actually chock-full of data visualizations, all based on information he collected while going about his daily routine. The 2009 report relied on the response rate of people he encountered throughout the year; he gave them a business card with a unique URL, they submitted information on their interaction. The result? Another year of beautiful data. Enjoy!

Read more in an interview with Nicholas Felton

TiltViewer - Free customizable 3-D Flash interface

via simpleviewer.net

Just saw this used on http://www.fm1071.com/loj/photos/celebrities/ and realized that it's available for free. Haven't given it a shot yet, but looks like it has some potential. Simple, easy to navigate, and works how you think it should work. Anyone else have experience with this?

Why We Should Teach Design Early

via good.is

The idea: "Design education typically begins at the college level, but if we wait until then to teach design thinking we are missing critical points in the growth of young minds, whose ability to think creatively is boundless. Teaching high school students to think like designers would help shape the way they look at the world around them and positively affect their future endeavors."

The proposal: "Inspired by these notions, a team of designers from the Austin studio of frog design got together and started an initiative called “TeachDesign.” The objective of this initiative is to expose high school students to design methodologies through immersive, real-world projects that have a lasting positive impact on the participating students, school, and community."

Rewarding results: "What is most rewarding is progress the students made in their critical thinking and ability to solve real world design problems. The students have shared their enjoyment not only of the learning process, but the ability to express all of their ideas in an open forum. The TeachDesign team of frog designers and SHW Group architects collaborated with the students, helping them to refine their ideas and develop a point of view to present to their audience in a powerful and persuasive way.