beautiful thing in the making

beautifulin

thething

making

beautiful thing

in the makingby (JAY) James P Jackson

THank youI would like to give a very special thanks to Vicky Carr, James Corazzo, Guy Lawrence, Helen Bee, MatthewCampagna, Anastasia “Nat” Tubanos, Liz Bennett, Des Tan, Chris Shearston, Craig Oldham, Darren Scott, Claire O’Halloran and also The guys at thoughtful; and many others in which help to shape the creation of this book.

contents

Introduction 6

Define Design 8 The Six Trends 12 What is design today 23 From the Front Lines 39 Competencies 71 Post Script 89

introduction

Introduction6

This book was written and designed to aid the designer of the future, a designer in which has traditional skills and yet a much broader perspective on problem solving.

Although no one can predict the future, we must prepare for it. Knowing that there are tectonic shifts occurring in the sociological, technological and geographical environments in which designers create their paths, we can begin to formulate a picture.

Introduction7

defiining designf

Introduction8

defiining design

Introduction9

Introduction10

In 2007 AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) with recognized and diverse leaders in design brought together to investigate the way into the future and trends in which effect design and designer’s. The six most important trends they identified were; Wide and deep: meta-disciplinary study and practice, Expanded scope: scale and complexity of design problems, Targeted messages: a narrow definition of audiences, Break through: an attention economy, Sharing experiences: a co-creation model and Responsible outcomes: focusing on sustainability.

These trends define design’s role in a much broader, strategic context. Anticipating the future problems to provide a lasting solution and understanding the audience in which designers are communicating to. But also striving to solve the bigger problems such as global and ethical problems by using design.

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/designer-of-2015

Introduction11

the six Trends

Introduction12

the six Trends

Introduction13

oneWide and Deep: Meta Disciplinary Study and Practice

Designers must be able to draw on experienceand knowledge from a broad range of disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities, in order to solve problems in a global, competitive market of products and ideas.

As the contexts in which communication occurs become more diverse, designers need to experience meta-disciplinary study as well as training deeply in specific disciplines. They must understand the social sciences andhumanities in order to understand the content they are asked to communicate and they must understand how to work collaboratively with other knowledge and practice specialists.

Introduction14

twoExpanded Scope: Scale and Complexity of Design Problems

Designers must address scale and complexity at the systems level, even when designing individual components, and meet the growingneed for anticipation of problem and solution rather than solving known problems. Design problems are nested within increasingly complex social, technological and economic systems and address people who vary in their cognitive, physical and cultural behaviours and experiences. The role of the designer is to manage this complexity, to construct clear messages that reveal to people the diverse relationships that make up information contexts and to deliver sustainable communication products and practices to clients.

Introduction15

threeTargeted Messages: A Narrow Definition of Audiences

Messaging will shift from mass communication to more narrow definitions of audiences (special interest design), requiring designers to understand both differences and likenesses in audiences and the growing need for reconciliation of tension between globalization and cultural identity. The most effective means of communicating has shifted from broad messages for large audiences to narrowly targeted messages for specific audiences. This is the result of both media capabilities (in terms of narrowcasting and mass customization of messages) and also global dynamics. This trend demands a better understanding of a variety of cultures, the value of ethnographic research, sensitivitytoward cultural perspectives, and empathy

Introduction16

fourBreak Through: An Attention Economy

Attention is the scarce resource in the information age, and the attention economy involves communication design, information design, experience design and service design.

The trend toward an “attention economy” encourages discussion of what is currently driving clients’ conception of form, the attraction of business to design and the problems of designing for a market that value the short term “grab”.

Introduction17

fiveifSharing Experiences: A Co-Creation Model

Designers must change their idea of customers/users to co-creators (mass customization) to coincide with the rise in transparency of personal and professional lives (social networking, blogging, etc.).

This trend focuses on user-centered issues through a filter that identifies appropriate methods for understanding people (for example, the current movement toward ethnographic research, rather than focus groups). It brings communication design closer to the work ofproduct designers (who really have the attention of business) and the emerging area of service design. Social advocacy issues both emerge from this phenomenon and are empowered by it.

Introduction18

sixSharing Experiences: A Co-Creation Model

Designers must recognize that the pursuit of excellence involves focusing clearly on human-centered design in an era of increasingly limited resources, in which appropriateness is defined by careful and necessary use of resources, simplicity, avoidance of the extraneous and sensitivity to human conditions.

Popular, political and business forces are all coming to grips with the challenges of working in a world of limited resources. Designers, as those who use creativity to defeat habit in the solutions they propose, must some a leadership role in proposing responsible uses of resources. This involves both the traditional concept of sustainability and also an understanding of appropriate technology and resources for the uses proposed. Responsible outcomes embody ethical issues, social need, global imperatives and the unique contribution of design thinking.

Introduction19

Introduction20

what

is

design

todayWhat Is Design Today

23

What Is Design Today24

Building a career in design is not something that happens overnight. It requires patience and tenacity, and it involves more than raw talent. A career demands an overarching curiosity about the world and how things work, topped off with well-honed people skills, having the ability to solver problems and to evolve in a world in which communication is ever changing. A true designer realizes to solve any problems; they must work with many other partners, collaborators and even co-conspirators.


Defining the Problem

The next step for any successful team is to define the problem, which they are trying to solve. Designers articulate it and surround it with boundaries to work with. Designers are called upon to help cull, visualize, and express that problem in human terms and to look at it from many different viewpoints.


Envisioning the desired end state

Victory is known when it becomes vital, when embarking on the journey of solving the problem. As designer’s, we can help to develop prototypes that well become an end product or state.


Defining the approach

Once designers know where, a map needs to be created to get there. That map must be imprinted in the minds of every participant along the way. Designers can literally make the map real.


Inciting support and then action

In some cases, not everyone will want to make the journey. They’ll need to be inspired,Convinced, Cajoled and Educated. As designers, we call on our skills as communicators to help them see why they should come along.


Seeking insight to inform the prototyping of the solution

Once a team is assembled, the next task is to look at the work ahead and being intelligent to solve. Often it pays to take pause and seek insight that will enable the team to prototype a solution. That means research. Designers can help structure that research, especially in.


Prototyping potential solutions

Then comes prototyping a solution that might mean a physically prototype which means to build it in miniature, or as a one-off, to see if it will work. Or, it might mean prototyping a new customer experience a collection of moments that make up an experience. In either case, designers play a critical role.


Delineating the tough choices

A good prototype unearths all sorts of unexpected data and insight and from that, tough choices emerge. Should we include this feature, or that? What if the solution costs more than people can afford? What if there are downsides? Designers have the choices evident.


This is the culmination of many steps of hard work. If designers do their jobs right, we can often be the pivotal voice in this step, helping argue for the best overall solution; we can visualize the case, see different sides of the problem and lay out a path for making a commitment to a given solution.

Choosing the best solution, then activating it


Enabling the team to work as a team

When integral to the project, designers can help the teamwork as a team. Helping them make choices. Envisioning different outcomes. Seeing the “whitespace” that connects divergent views and approaches.


Failure

Rapidly learning and “tacking” based on your successes and failures

The most effective teams are those who are constantly learning. Striving to improve them selves. As Designers can help take the team back through the journey, as a guide to recounting the steps where good decisions were made and where the team could act differently next time they are confronted with a problem.


From

the

front

linesFrom The Front Lines

39

From The Front Lines 40

gEt

BACK

TO

youFrom The Front Lines

41

To fully understand graphic design and other areas of visual art, such as illustration, photography and many others we have asked people for their views of the future of design and the future of the designer.


Should designers be educated? to be able to draw on a broad range of disciplines, which include social sciences and humanities, to inform their design output?


There is a tendency for the industry to blamedesign education for producing substandard students - which I think is wrong. These things (and more) should inform your work, but thereshould be things you learn yourself or pick up during education. I could not imagine fitting in these into current design education without skipping out other important elements of education. Having said that I think we do get taught a lot of these things during design education - it might just not be labeled as such.

Chris Shearston



Absolutely, a designer with no understandingof the human condition has no skills or talent.

Matt Campagna, Filmmaker Anastasia “Nat” Tubanos, Journalist


Darren Scott

I think the more intelligent and informed thedesigner, the more intelligent and appropriate the solution is likely to be. It has always been the job of a designer to be as informed as possible about the clients market and its problems. Only then can we as designers begin to understand and solve real design issues faced by our clients and their target market.



Clair O’Halloran

yes, some broader study can indeed be an advantage to any designer. In my experience, the most useful studies have been those that encourage curiosity about the world and english-based subjects - writing, and most importantly public speaking skills. A designer needs not only to be informed and curious, they need to be able to talk about and sell ideas.



Craig Oldham

I think that this can only be beneficial to design students. To quote Alan Fletcher, “It’s better to be interested, than to be interesting.” This fundamentally applies to Designers as Graphic Design especially, is always about something else. Very rarely is it about Graphic Design.

Design Education tends to do one of a few things: either it educates it’s students the practicalities of Design—setting type, layout, etc; it teaches them how to get a job within the Design industry, or it teaches them how to think and how to learn. Although both equally important there is a third, that although it is touched upon and it’s surface scratched, it is rarely gone into any depth. And that is of course the world in which design operates.

I see it as something that should be taught. Other arts, sciences, social and practical, as well as humanities—all as you have said—should come into a Designers education. However this is not the sole responsibility of the educators, but the student also. Designers should want to learn about other things and should read and pursue the intake of other subjects that form and add to the diversity of the world in which they will inevitably be designing in, and living in.



Helen Bee

I‘m not sure my field of work has ever been ‘mass communication’ as the areas of work I deal with are highly specialised & have a very defined target audience. This may not be the case for other industries however. Re your comment ‘is Twitter/blogs’ mass communication?’ - absolutely - just a different form to billboards. Some blogs get more readership than billboards & a much higher % or response rate too.


Has the shift from mass communication to a more narrow definition of an audience changed the nature of your job?

Chris Shearston

I assume you are talking about the increaseof social networking such as twitter or blogs - which allow us to target an audience specifically. As I have very limited design history, I can only guess but I would say these things have changed the way we work as designers, as any new technology would. However design is still about mass communication, we still put up posters and billboards - it’s just now we can have smarter outlets to work along side them.




Yes and I think all good designers do this. It’s vitally important to take social trends into account when designing/planning. Social trends change constantly so it’s vital to know what is going - how else could you communicate with relevance to your audience. It is impossible to market something to an audience without knowing what/who they are & how they respond to various medias etc. For example there is no point doing a twitter campaign to an over 60’s audience as it wouldn’t get a good response rate.



Darren Scott

Not sure I understand your question here. What ‘shift’ are we talking about? Designers have always been required to produce work for either communication for the masses or when requested a more targeted market. This is not a new issue, however designers have had to change the way they think about targeting in a very different way. This is due to the ever changing amounts of media channels available to us now via online, mobile, apps, as well as the traditional channels like print. Each new opportunity throws up it’s own set of problems!



Clair O’Halloran

my job is still very much about mass communication - I work on some of the largest brands in the usa and beyond. my work needs to appeal to an extremely large audience and at the end of the day increase sales - success is easily quantifiable through increased profit for my clients. consumer ‘targets’ are often tightly defined but the audience would certainly not be described as narrow. that said, understanding the mindset of the consumer target is key to a successful design.



Craig Oldham

I don’t believe there has been a shift. There has never been one way to communicate, that’s the beauty of communication, it can be transmitted and received in a myriad of forms and methods, and it is an individual experience. And audiences have always been very different. Technology hasseemingly further highlighted the facets of communications making your direction more ‘cost-effective’ but the messages are still the same. Communication hasn’t changed. So neither has my job. I just have more to play with.



Helen Bee

I‘m not sure my field of work has ever been ‘mass communication’ as the areas of work I deal with are highly specialised & have a very defined target audience. This may not be the case for other industries however. Re your comment ‘is Twitter/blogs’ mass communication?’ - absolutely - just a different form to billboards. Some blogs get more readership than billboards & a much higher % or response rate too.


Is it getting harder to gain an audiences attention? Is your design output changing in response to this?

Chris Shearston

As I touched on twitter earlier, I think this is the response to keeping an audience’s attention. Champions of this are Howies, Innocent and in fact a large number of design studios who blog and tweet to keep their audience in the loop. I’m sure this will change in the future, keeping us on our toes.




It is getting easier to get the attention of the ‘RIGHT’ audience by engaging people in social media campaigns in the lead-up to a release and even after the initial release, we’ve seen improved early reaction to release and a long tailfor on-going interest.



Darren Scott

You could argue that it is getting easier due to new media channels creating more targeted opportunities. I believe great work will always stand out if positioned correctly, but positioning is key in getting the best out of the budget.



Clair O’Halloran

yes, its definitely getting harder to gain attention. our design output at sterling as a response, is always grounded in consumer and competitive knowledge gained during the early stages of a project. its always a challenge to answer briefs and achieve stand-out in a very crowded market place. a good piece ofpackaging design needs to ‘pop’ on-shelf and also, fit into a consumers life beyond the store. consumers are becoming increasingly more discerning about the brands they choose to align and express themselves with.



Craig Oldham

I don’t think it is, really. I think that people generally shift and move with technology. I don’t subscribe to Hockney’s lamentation of the visual age, or it being dead, just because we all walk around with white-headphones in our ears doesn’t mean we close our eyes. I guess it just means we are more confined in our own space. Meaning that people now more than ever are designing their own spaces, these spaces in which they operate and live, digitally or physically. The difficulty now is just finding the right way into these more specific and personal spaces. But all you have to do is look at Facebook and Twitter and see that it’s still easy to make people aware of your work.



Helen Bee

I don’t think it’s any harder, but I do think things change faster. The importance or Social mead (eg twitter/facebook etc) is seen as key to many businesses but didn’t exist 5/6 years ago. People need to be willing to change the way they communicate - things must be done over a much broader range of mediums than ever before.


Do you subscribe to the co-creation model of design where the user/audience becomes a co-creator in the design / production of a product or service?

Chris Shearston

I thinks this works in some situations, and then would not work in others. Some jobs need an engagement and dialogue between the design and the audience; where as some more traditional jobs would be inappropriate for this. Personally I enjoy work that allows the audience to get involved as it pushes everyone into a new area. I don’t think you are referring to this, but I don’t like crowd sourcing,which turns design into a free for all.




I think the ancient art of story telling from cavemen around campfires still appeals something deeply ingrained in modern humans, and that people want to create an visual image. Even in videogames, the ultimate interactive television, a poor design makes for a poor idea. The experience of having a narrative to a design is revealed as one that is timeless. And so I DO engage the viewer in different ways, but not in ways that affect the beginning and end of the narrative.



Darren Scott

What let the lunatics take over the asylum? NO! I think it is great to collaborate with skilled people. But asking design illiterate consumers toparticipate in creating the visual solution is very dangerous. If asked for an opinion, most peoplefeel the need to criticise or, and best offer their own solution, which in my experience is usually based on personal preference and not educated thinking. Design by committee never really works in my opinion, the best results historically come from individuals or teams witha single minded vision that is based on a strong belief and trust.



Clair O’Halloran

yes, I think this can be a very successful model if managed well. any research or building with consumers should be carried out responsibly. consumers are not a replacement for designers, they should be used to inform and improve designs, not dictate or piece together the ‘best bits’ to create hybrids (which can happen). the best designers are able to listen and work with consumers then still deliver a product that can surprise and delight an audience - not exactly what they already know, expect and are comfortable with.



Craig Oldham

I think I’ve hinted my answer to this in response to the latter. People are more willing to engage with an idea now than they were before. One of the biggest visual occurrences of this to me would be the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. The Art displayed here is all about that interaction, of the user experiencing the art and Experiential Aesthetics. Whether this is in a designed manner—as in the user has a defined role in the outcome and perhaps have to do something in a certain way to obtain an outcome—or more of a serendipitous one—whereby the outcome couldn’t be predicated and becomes a virtue of the product or process. I don’t think it is a new phenomena, merely vogue.



Helen Bee

I don’t believe that I have ever worked on my own for any project since graduating 10 years ago. At minimum a project will involve the client & the designer. More often than not it will also involve an account handler, often a creative & copy writer. Some of the projects I’ve work on have involved up to 20 people - each contributing from their own specialist area. Again - this may be due to the nature of my work - it is very specialist.


Competencies

competencies71

competencies72

In order to fulfill the expectations for the designers of the future; they will need to employ a new set of skills that include beyond these typical scope presented today. No single designer has the skills required, yet this research revealed the range of competencies of a studio or design department, among its full complement of staff, will need for the demands of the future. These competencies uncover the challenges for educational institutions and for studios, in recruiting their teams.

competencies73

competencies74

oneDeveloping of Creative Ability

The ability to create and develop visual response to communication problems; this will include understanding of hierarchy, typography, aesthetics, composition and construction of meaningful images.

competencies75

twoAbility to Communicate

The ability to solve problems of communicate, which including identifying the problem. To do this the designer must research, analysis, solution generating, prototyping, user testing and outcome evaluation.

competencies76

threeUnderstanding

Broad understanding of the big issue is to relatecognitive, social, technological and economiccontexts for design.

competencies77

fourRespond to an Audience

Respond to audience and to recognizing physical, cognitive, cultural and social humanfactors that shape design decisions and to further develop into an out come.

competencies78

fiveifOne More Thing

Finally to understanding of an ability to utilize tools and technology, in which will develop in the future.

competencies79

Other

Skills

competencies80

Other Skills Which May Be Included for the Future Designer

For the future designer (and design), they will need other skills required to meet the demands for the future. Theseskills will be to practice abilities to be flexible, nimble and dynamic, but to manage and communicate skills, which are necessary to function productively in large interdisciplinary teams and to organizational structures. They must first understand how a system behaves and aspects that contribute to sustainable products, strategies and practices.

Other abilities will include constructing verbal arguments for solutions that address diverse users/audiences, lifespan issues and business/organizational operations. But a designer must work in a global environment with understanding of cultural preservation and ethics in a practice and to collaborate productively in large interdisciplinary teams. In many ways they must understand cause and effect; with the ability to develop projects to evaluation criterion that account for audience.

competencies81

competencies82

Post Script85

Post

Script

Post Script86

Post Script87

Within these four months of this project I foundand rekindle my love of illustration and street art and how to develop my illustration and into more than illustration in a book.

Post Script88

Throughout this project it was an interesting journey and taking risks and also areas that I didn’t know anything about, they eventuallypaid off.

Post Script89

James Corazzo was a helpful guide through this journey and facilitated learning me to understand what this project was about.

Post Script90

Altogether, I’m happy with what I have done, what I have learned and also where it took me. On a positive note I enjoyed the illustration for this work.

Post Script91

Post Script92

I also found that university is a good time and place to find and learn new skills and improve on old skills and learn new ones but also learn how to deal with time and making choices for the finalmajor project...

Post Script93

End

Post Script94

beautiful thing in the making

Documents

future problems

ethical problems

bigger problems

known problems

effect design

metadisciplinary study

important trends

meta disciplinary study