Designspiration

Inspiration for posters...

Stefan Sagmeister Pieces

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Reflection of Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud’s comic on understanding comics puts into perspective how important images, lines and symbols are to portraying a message without words. He makes a fascinating point that cartooning is about stripping down the objects and focusing on the important part, the meaning. Humans assign identities and meaning to almost every icon they see, which gives the image life. Pictures can also evoke an emotional response from the viewer simply by the lines they use. As McCloud states, “All lines have expressive potential.” The important pieces of a comic book are also vital when creating a well designed advertisement or work of art. As an artist and designer, you want to evoke an emotion and make the viewer associate meaning to the piece.

Reflection of Writer's Toolbox

Through making a few mind maps of my own I can understand the viewpoint of the authors in that it is an extremely helpful way to quickly write down your ideas and form connections later. Similar to free writing, they both require the ability to let go of judgment and simply write your ideas/thoughts. Although, I am improving at mind mapping, out of all the strategies I enjoy creating word lists the best. I think they are neater and have cleaner lines for my train of thought to follow and make connections. However, all of the suggested ways to come up with ideas can be very helpful, except for maybe brainstorming. In my experience brainstorming, with a group, often leads to a few talking over each other and others not being heard.

Ideas for redesign

IDEO Reflection

To me the 60 Minute video we watched on IDEO was eye opening to how the creative process works in a professional setting. I imagined brainstorming and project proposals to be held around a large table in an office building, but I was wrong. IDEO comes up with it’s best ideas through organized chaos as they have boards filled with various ideas and suggestions on sticky notes. They follow the principle of the crazier the idea the better and to go for a number of ideas not editing any of them out. While working on our project we utilized a lot of the suggestions IDEO’s team leader made. We assigned tasks to different people and interviewed the public to see what they though of our design. Although it was difficult at some points, we also tried to concentrate on one conversation at a time and stay focused. The relaxed yet productive atmosphere at IDEO was a joy to see and inspiring.