This article is the second time that I have heard about the type of teaching that happens in elementary school. Children begin life asking questions, trying to figure out how things work. During school teachers encourage right answers and don’t have the time to answer several questions by 30 different children. The innovators studied in this article, somehow got around this learning and kept their inquisitive nature for later life. Inquisitive people are the type of people that bring new creations and ideas to our world. In order to keep growing as a culture, we need these people. Children in school need to be allowed to ask questions and create connections between things. Hopefully as y articles of this nature are published, the educators will take a closer look at how children start to answer questions. Without children keeping their nature curiosity, innovators may not be easy to come by.
Hybrid Thinking November 8, 2009
Be the “Jack of All Trades” to Make an Impact
After reading “Forget Design Thinking and Try Hybrid Thinking” by Dev Patnaik I was sort of overwhelmed with the feeling that I don’t know enough. His article mentions “hybridists matters now because the problems companies need to solve are simply too complex for any one skill set to tackle.” By having a great team of diverse people you can sort of create this hybrid dynamic. However, as Patnaik mentions, it is not enough. All of the people that you assemble into a room need to be able to communicate with each other and understand the comments they make. In order to achieve this, people need to be skilled in more then just one area. (more…)
A Review of Typology October 29, 2009
In their book Typology: Type Design from the Victorian Era to the Digital Age, Steven Heller and Louise Fili look at mainly headline type from the beginning of print to today. They acknowledge the argument that type can all look alike when looked at all at once. However, they believe that the “history of type design is more amazing than that” (Heller and Fili, 1999). Through out the book, they try to illustrate this history with examples and stories of the evolution of type.
My Microwave and Nielson’s 10 Heuristics October 26, 2009
I was asked to evaluate a machine/physical object against Nielson’s 10 Heuristics. I chose to take a closer look at my microwave. (more…)
Something I Designed October 15, 2009
Typeography Poster
As a class assignment last winter, I was asked to take the route I drive to school and create a poster. I had few rules I had to follow: only two colors (plus black), and use type sizes following the Golden Rule.
I think the final poster turned out pretty good. It is still one of my favorite things I have designed.
Designers and Consumers – A Modeling Experiment October 2, 2009
Representing Artefacts as Media: Modeling the Relationship Between Designer Intent and Consumer Experience
In an article by Nathan Crilly, Anja Maier, and P. John Clarkson; they attempt to join many different models of communication/interaction between the designer and the consumer into one diagram. They believe that having “diagrammatic models that represent artifacts as media can assist in these negotiations by rendering design more intelligible to non-designers, and by providing a common reference for discussion” (Crilly, 15). “Our objective, therefore, is not to develop a representation that integrates all features of the existing models, but rather to achieve simplicity and transparency while striving to avoid the inclusion of misleading terms and features” (17).
http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/429/220
Future of Newspapers September 22, 2009
I have one main source for news – my Google homepage. Listed in a little box in the upper-left hand corner are three links of local news. If any of the stories interest me, I click and read. Simple. Newspapers are more demanding, more time involved, and more money. That’s not a bad thing; mind you. It’s just that for my life-style, a newspaper does not fit in.
I recently watched a video where Jacek Utko spoke about newspapers. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html)
According to Mr. Utko, the newspapers are dying because “people don’t want to pay for yesterday’s news and advertisers for them,” portability issues, and environmental reasons. All of these reasons make sense to me – why buy yesterday’s news, when I have already seen it on my computer? If I have already read the text, is there something else that would persuade me to pick up and purchase a newspaper?
