An interesting article I came across via Design Observer:

• “No More Posters! Let’s See More Action!” by Eric Hieman

I think this image, taken from the page, might sum up a lot of what it’s about:

Somehow related, but a considerable tangent to Heiman’s article:

I recently had a quick chat with a former classmate of mine, Jonathan Fajardo, who is currently taking a Graphic Arts course at ECU. He wanted to talk about the design process with me and a few of his friends to gather content for his current assignment.

It was interesting because we got to talking about the subculture or the conventions within the design field. Granted, neither of us are particularly experienced, but there was mention of design that works, and design that is, in so many words, “good.” While there are pieces of design that may win awards and nods of design celebrities, there still is the question of context, and perhaps just how successful it is when taken out of the AIGAs and the Salazars, etc.

Unfortunately, sometimes it isn’t always a hand-in-hand scenario. Sometimes an award-winning campaign (judged on photos and inter-design community buzz) could totally flop once launched in its environment. While graphic designers can write all they want about terrible graphics and typography, what I recently learned (with Chloe) was that sometimes, the standards kind of get blown out of the water—and not in the avant-garde super-exciting way.

More like, “This graphic is not the most sophisticated piece of graphic design, and will probably never win any accolades or nominations. However, the company saw a growth of 2% since we went with the talking cartoon turd.”

The world doesn’t run on who thinks what is an example of good typography, and neither does it run on how many magazines and blogs publish that one photo of your work. At least at the moment, it runs on how well the client does with your work, and their own measures of success. In this, I guess I’m comparing the “action” part of Heiman’s article to the action that takes place after the design, as well as our responsibility to consider what we are designing and what we are doing.

Perhaps “Good Design” doesn’t translate 100% to the outside world, but “Effective Design” might. I don’t know. I’ve begun to ramble. Any thoughts?

Here’s an interesting thing I came across, and got me thinking about certain things. Social issues and the designer’s role in all of it:

… because too often, we don’t even pick ourselves up to protest. We don’t believe that injustice will occur, and then before we know it, things happen, and we just adapt to the new rules. How many times have I signed a petition, and then did nothing more? I’ve been a California resident since 2000 (with a departure in 2002 for school in Milan), and to be honest, I have no idea what the hell happened that California’s budget is in the shambles that it is. And there is no clear resource for me to educate myself easily either. Isn’t there a web/graphic designer that could tell me what happened in a nice data visualization diagram? I would take a stab at such a thing if I knew what the heck happened!

• Ivy Chuang on “Design as Social Protest” from Creativity Online

I think this is a relevant topic, as educating oneself about any situation is not only preferred, but actually essential in today’s communities. Not to give too much credit to Design as a Practice (capital letters included), but we certainly do have an obligation to participate in social causes as designers. Even speaking as an international ex-pat of the Philippines, I find it hard to keep up with current events. I admit I’m part of the generation of MTV, so my attention span might not be as great as others, and with developments of new technologies and ways of communicating (Twitter, nice to see you back in the discussion again).

I need the flash and the pomp, the humour and the sparkles. A good example might be the Daily Show with John Stewart and the Colbert Report. I am part of the sad statistic! (Get over it.)

My instructor Deborah Shackelton once advised me of the dangers of being too self-referential, and this is good advice to heed—especially now, where we are shifting from individual entities and back into more collaborative settings to ride out the recession. It’s cool to do something and learn for yourself, but there has to also be a moment of sharing. Otherwise you’re just a 13-year-old boy locked in his bedroom discovering something for the very first time.

If design has the ability to communicate, then we should be looking to communicate ethically and responsibly as well. Although viewpoints and sides are always going to be different, I strongly believe in Designer as Author, and that we aren’t educated to just program and insert things into InDesign for a final output. There is something more human to how design is taught, at least I know for me, and pulling this humanity out of the equation is never an option. You can’t reach humans if the medium itself doesn’t contain anything remotely humane.

Talking about design touchpoints and emotional effect, are we able to design something that will resonate enough for an individual to do something more than sign a petition? Can design have the potential to get the armchair activists up and hugging trees and other objects again?

Sharks?

Optimistically (delusionally) speaking, and despite this lady in the video above, I think so.

But the question I’d like to bring up isn’t design reaching an audience, but the prospect of the design itself reaching the designer. Shifting the question a little bit from design-to-audience to design-to-designer, how do we as designers find the motivation or emotional investment to pull ourselves into taking on a design project for social change/protest in the first place? Do we need a super-human notion of empathy to begin with, in order to promote such change?

If it feels like there is nothing at stake for a designer, or the rewards aren’t as big or immediate, what will make us active enough to encourage more activism? Perhaps we can work on developing the aforementioned superhuman empathy, or as one of the very tired ideas I keep throwing around, maybe it is establishing personal connections with other people with different levels of empathy & experiences to bring to the table; being friends with people who have the things at stake, where our own emotional input is tied to the well-being of these friends, and the sincerity can naturally come through our work.

I remember the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean when I was in high school, and how foreign the disaster was to me as I saw it on the news. I felt terrible, but for the most part, these were images on a TV screen, people I didn’t know, numbers on the newspaper headlines.

However I also remember coming to school a few days after and realizing that I had dear friends who had families in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, that they were wrought with worry for the safety of people who were very much real to them. They had names to the faces for their concern, and actual memories connected to the destroyed landscapes. The effects of such a realization were remarkable to me. The whole school came together to raise money, and the donations were enormous—even our senior class representatives held a fund-raising event, where they all shaved their heads for the victims of the tsunami. All of this was rooted in the fact that we knew, at least by extension, who were suffering. They weren’t necessarily the ones taken by the waters, but even more painfully, the ones who had to live with the losses.

I guess this is even more encouragement to work outside of ourselves, and that design as/for social protest can only truly be worth exploring if it seeds from an equally social beginning. We can only get so close to hundreds of causes and topics and issues, but once in a while (hopefully more often than not), we just need to be close enough to the periphery, within flinging distance of the sweat and tears of others, to feel it against our own skin.

There is something interesting about this guy.

Andy Chen: “The Artist’s Hunger”

I think most of us know the fight it takes to get into art school, or design school. Like Andy’s experience, my own proclamation of applying to Emily Carr was met with confusion and “Ok, Ginger is a retard” discussions. But I think whatever we choose in life very much depends on how hard we fight for it.

For me, I remember applying to four art schools, and when I got into all four of them, plus offered a scholarship from one, my mother began to scratch her head. I could see it on her face: “Hey, if these other people think Ginger can do it… hey, maybe she really can do it…”

This was followed by more surprises; like me confirming a bedroom in a random student housing on Cambie Street (with BOY roommates—this did not impress the mother, actually), applying and registering all on my own, applying for a work permit, actually using said work permit to work as a cash girl for an upscale market, and other adventures that were so foreign for a shy Filipino-Chinese girl from Catholic School who had never even taken public transportation by herself or gone into a bank to manage anything financial in her life.

To explain, I come from a background of business. I’m from what some might call a fucking dynasty of Chinese merchants and providers, each generation’s story built on sacrifice, diligence and poverty. My family knew of nothing but how to do business. I remember childhood Christmas Eves of me writing invoices for things like ham and jewelery for the bazaars that my mother would have to make extra money. I sold calculators in a mall instead of enjoying summer vacation. My grandfather, who is in his 80s, still comes to work in the same store he built in Chinatown. He doesn’t pretend to work either, like the Queen in a constitutional monarchy. He actually works and makes decisions and shit.

In the end, a lot of the later generations (mine, in particular) grew up rather pampered, if not spoiled, and if not spoiled, then perhaps useless and ignorant of the basic necessities of independent living.

I knew that my mother had her doubts about me living in Canada on my own, and we fought over it often. She would say that I was so white, and that I was too independent, and that I was too stubborn, and that I was never going to get married this way. Every visit she made, from the Philippines to Canada, always ended with me and her standing in the middle of a room in our pajamas, unable to vocally express what we meant. Neither of us were very good at communicating. Our words would be cutting and angry, but our faces would be tired and scared. We so badly wanted to understand each other, but could not find the footing to even begin.

However, I remember coming home to my mum’s wake a couple of years ago, and meeting all these people. All these important business associates, distant relatives, former employees, and they all had one thing to say to me. “Oh, you’re Ginger! Your mother always spoke about you and how strong you were. Living alone in Canada, surviving all by yourself, at your age! She loved talking about you, Ginger.”

This one in particular surprised me: “Don’t tell your sisters, but I think you were her absolute favourite.”

Of course, when I told this to my sisters, they just gave me this look that said, “Yes, you little dipshit. Mum loved you the best.”

So I don’t know. There’s always a story to be told, things to be discovered. Andy Chen asks of his father in one of his posts, “Will I fail in his eyes? Will I ever make him proud?”

And the thing is, we kids might never be sure, but the parentals are and will always be proud of their children, no matter what they do professionally—because it’s always the way we fight and face their challenges that really matter. You stand up to them. You prove them wrong. And if you have a mother like mine, you will never find out until the very end.

That’s her way of telling you that a) she loves you and always have, and b) you’re a douchebag if you didn’t even know that in the beginning.

That’s my art school story.

Populist Paula Scher?

I just read this article this morning:

• “Where’s the Finish Line? Examining Success in Design” by Justin Kropp

It puts up various points, and not points that have never been discussed. The topic reminds me of a moment in my 2nd year class, where we briefly touched on “design superstars” and we were asked our opinion on designers as celebrity. At the time, we were new & young, barely informed of what design actually was, much less whose posters we should collect and hang up on our bedroom wall. The talk went to comparisons of Britney Spears to Paul Rand, I think.

Someone commented on the lack of celebrity designers in magazine covers or something to this effect. Being the little dipshit I was and am, I recall smiling to myself and softly adding to the uninformed discussion:

“Maybe designers aren’t attractive enough to be celebrities.”

Perhaps the instructor was trying to find out who was in design for the right reasons, and how much of the subculture we were aware of. When asked previously what our favourite thing about design was, we had answers touching on video games and fashion and problem-solving. I think I answered with the opportunity to learn something new and meet new people. Like Lavalife, but with a better excuse. Granted, I was not that popular in this class. Nobody really liked my jokes.

Image from this accidental find.