I was recently asked to transcribe a series of essays published last year into a single manuscript. The result is available for free download (subject to Creative Commons protections).
To a person, we’ve changed and then changed again. Each of us has moved in and out of seasons of high productivity and then (understandably) anxiety about the state of the world. I’ve seen us adapt in particular ways to what each member of the team is doing in real-time, like players sitting around a card table. I’ve taken to using the symbolism of the traditional playing card suites to think about these periods. Sometimes we make big bets, sometimes we fold. The point, of course, is to stay supple… to stay loose… to stay in the game.
Recently, applications and operating systems have begun offering a skin tone setting for what is increasingly (and perhaps woefully) our common tongue: very small pictures of stuff thoughtlessly transmitted. As a point of comparison, avatars are projections of identity and rightly rooted in physical attributes. You may deign to select a signature hair style, a favorite accessory, etc. But I’ve always conceived of emoji as symbols, and symbols are at their best when at their most universal.
I’m old enough to remember when you could pick up any regional graphic design annual, open it, and know exactly which area you were looking at just from the work itself. Tennessee or Texas. Southern California or the Pacific Northwest. New York or Chicago. Each had clear stylistic tells. And as an aspiring designer myself, I loved the way concert posters, packaging, and logos all possessed the spirit of their place—and reflected the particular tastes of the people who lived there.
Published in UX Collective
As ideas for a better-designed tomorrow start flowing, it may be useful to identify a few of the false narratives that creep into our world and into our work. Particularly when we are afraid, we humans tend to wrap ourselves in ancient stories that make us feel safe. I certainly understand that instinct. But, if we let it, this is also a perfect season in which to evaluate the underlying belief structures that shape our design thinking—and perhaps bust a few of our most enduring myths.
Having logged more hours sitting on video conference calls over the past couple of weeks than I care to remember, I’ve noticed a few trends that (for me at least) can totally make or break a call.
Lettering assignment for Story Matters magazine. Ashley Rose Walton, Art Director.
(Issue 2, 2019)
A reimagining of the seal and flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
This past weekend, I had the privilege of participating in the first workshop offered by Umbau School’s new Studio Shenandoah in Staunton, Virginia. Umbau, which means something like transformation zone, is a school of studios—or places of focused study.
