GDE720 W1 | Lecture Review

HISTORY REVEALED

This week’s lecture walks through the history of type and the significance of the creative contributions made by several notable designers including:

Hoefler & Frere-Jones

All typefaces are historical.
- Jonathan Hoefler

Think of the alphabet as camps of like-minded shapes.
- Tobias Frere-Jones

I was saddened to learn about the partnership dispute and ultimate dissolution between Frere-Jones and Hoefler. I had no idea that had transpired until doing additional research into these exceptional type vanguards. Whitney is the primary face for my organization, the University of San Francisco.

Scher paints maps leveraging her passion for typography.

Paula Scher

Type has spirit. Type doesn’t have to be this clean mechanical thing that is simply doing its job. It can be this marvelous thing to engage with.
- Paula Scher

Eddie Opara

I am a graphic designer. I am also a tinkerer.
-Eddie Opara

Work for ACLU by Hyperakt, agency founded by Vasker and Peraza

Vasker & Peraza

Infographics are about typography getting out of the way of the message
-Deroy Peraza

Typography is an expression. It can convey many things including:

• voice

• texture

• emotion

• tension

• dynamics

• movement

• direction

• education

• information

• and much more.

The advent of the Gutenberg press allowed for the mass production and diffusion of printed type. It was seen as the industrialization of typography.

Ghost sign in San Francisco

Stencil forms, painted street signs, which gave way to the ghost signs of modern day are relics of a hand-tooled era of typography. These expressions gave way to logos and branding enabling companies to create consistency and recall.

Wayfinding typography really took hold with the London Underground and Paris Metropolitan. These systems paved the way for Massimo Vignelli and Unimark’s New York Subway signage system.

REFERENCE:

Blackwell, Lewis (2000) Edward Fella: Letters on America, Princeton Architectural Press

Baines, Phil (2003) Signs, Lettering and Environment, (London: Laurence King)

Bentley, Alexander and O’Brian, Michael J. (2017)  The Acceleration of Cultural Change (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press)

Falmouth University (2018). History Revealed | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

Hustwit, Gary (2015) A Rare Interview with Graphic Design Legend Massimo Vignelli, Fast Company, 24 March (Accessed: 5th December 2018)

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GDE720 W3 | Lecture Review

BIG DATA

Collecting and visualizing the unseen. Beginning with cave paintings and a tapestry from the Battle of Hastings through to the poignant, illustrative information design of Mona Chalabi, Harriet Ferguson walks us through the history of data visualization.

Bringing meaning to the masses, most of which who where illiterate, telling stories through symbology, iconography and data has been around since the dawn of time.

Again, taking advantage of the illiterate, the Church used storytelling via decorative stained glass windows as a way to use fear and power to reach the faithful and nonbelievers alike.

Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Egyptians, and Sumerians relied heavily on logograms, pictograms, ideograms, hieroglyphics, and cuneiforms to tell stories and record history. A pictogram or pictograph is a symbol representing a concept, object, activity, place or event by illustration. Pictography is a form of writing whereby ideas are transmitted through drawing. An ideogram or ideograph is a graphical symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages.

Fast forward to the 19th century, and we’re introduced to information design with a beautiful examination of Napoleon’s Campaign on Russia by Minard (1869). Not only does the piece translate thousands of points of data, but visually expresses the significance of Russia’s ability to play into the weakness of Napoleon’s ego and ultimate retreat.

Moving into the 20th century, with the advent of the internet and technological era, data visualization continues to evolve and grow in it’s usage as a way to transform information and compress knowledge into visual stories, cultural commentary, and comparisons across seemingly never ending sources. Data is used to visualize the beauty of cooking, impacts on health and medicine, artistic expression of atypical data sets such as a stock exchange, activism. David McCandless, a visual data designer, writer, and journalist - an expert in the field of information design - says it best:

Data is the new soil. Let the data set change your mind set.
- David McCandless

McCandless emphasizes the need for context when using data to tell stories and craft narratives. “Relative figures that connect you to other data to see a fuller picture.”

View fullsize

David McCandless’ data visualization of fears reported by the media over time. Note the gap in fears during 2001-2002 for which the 9/11 terrorist attacks could be responsible.

REFERENCE:

Cheng, Joanne (2014, updated 2015) Analyzing Minard's Visualization Of Napoleon's 1812 March ’, Thoughtbot, 8 June, (Accessed: 7th December 2018)

Falmouth University (2018). Big Data | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

Felton, Nicholas (2015) Transforming data into meaningful stories | The Conference 2015, 14 January, (Accessed: 7th December 2018)

History of Visual Communication: Ideograms. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.historyofvisualcommunication.com/02-ideograms

Information is Beautiful (2018) Information is Beautiful (Links to an external site.), (Accessed 10th December 2018)

Interaction Design Foundation (2016) Information Visualization – A Brief Pre-20th Century History,  (Accessed: 7th December 2018)

McCandless, David (2010) The beauty of data visualization, July, (Accessed: 7th December 2018)

McCandless, David (2008), Information is Beautiful. (New York: HarperCollins).

Morton, Timothy (2013), ‘Chapter 1: What Are Hyperobjects? and Chapter 2: The Time of Hyperobjects’ in Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World , (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).

GDE740 W12 | Workshop Challenge

THE CHALLENGE

• Record a five minute presentation to analyse and evaluate the development of your chosen Industry Set project brief.

• Reflect on the project evolution, strategy, innovation, user testing, positioning and final delivery.

• Record your presentation in the format or media of your choice (for example, a Keynote slide presentation, video recording, podcast or website).

• Ensure you articulate the project’s relationship to its original research and strategic starting point.

FINAL DESIGN OUTCOME AND REFLECTION

Below you can see a recording of the app design. I am really pleased with the way it turned out. It was a very educational project and experience.

Imposter syndrome is something that impacts over 70% of people at some point in their lifetimes. Often far more than just once. There are even higher rates of imposter syndrome in the creative community.

Developing a mechanism for conversation around this dilemma is key. This app is a good start. Further development is greatly needed to normalize and mitigate the negative impacts of imposter syndrome.

What would I do differently?

In terms of project or campaign deliverables, and given more time, I would design a robust GottaBe.Me Imposter Syndrome kit which would include posters, tip sheets for engaging in group discussions for instructors and creative students, for counselors and for employers. Additionally, I would create social media assets so that folks can relay what they’ve learned about themselves with regard to imposter syndrome and provide a mechanism for having their own conversations.

From a technical perspective, I would have liked to create assets that are more dynamic like the mycreativetype.com animated characters as well as work with age-appropriate content developers such as student writers and skilled motion graphic specialists. This would really take the campaign to the next level.

All in all, I am really pleased with the way the project evolved. I really appreciate the input of my fellow cohort members and instructors as well as my colleagues in my professional community which is a university teaming with the target audience for whom my projects was developed. I work side-by-side young designers every day which made the project personally and professionally very rewarding. Lastly, I am delighted that I stretched myself to learn a new tool: Adobe XD. I was intimidated at first, but likely more due to my own imposter syndrome than the overall complexity of this very intuitive and well designed program.

The only real downside to this project was my inability to keep up with the course as it progressed. I faced a very difficult professional workload this course which definitely impacted my ability to focus on my studies in real-time. This taught me a lot about what I can do differently moving into the next course with regard to time management, establishing effective boundaries, and asking for help.

REFERENCE:

Skillshare (2018) Adobe XD Masterclass: Design a Mobile App & Website Wireframe. Retrieved from https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Adobe-Xd-Masterclass-Design-a-Mobile-App-Website-Wireframe/1543837313/lessons.

Beirut, M. (2015) How to use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, make people cry, and (every once in a while) change the world, London, Thames & Hudson.

AWWWARDS, (2018) Redefining Reality with Geoffrey Lillemon, Creative Director of W+K's Department of New Realities. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/AUuTjsbNvpk

99U, (2019) Joel Beckerman: Designing With Sound. Retrieved from: https://vimeo.com/343057666

Glug, (2019) Marcello Google Creative Labs. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/LdCBnqbCtm8

Skillshare, (2013) Design as Idea with Bob Gill. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/_-nuzlpiKag

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GDE740 W12 | Lecture Review

OUTCOME & AMBITION

This week we learn from four new agencies who answer the question:

• How does project evaluation help you, client, or the audience measure effectiveness of the project’s final outcome?

FELD

FELD believes project evaluations or debriefs to be highly valuable. They look at this as “lessons learned.” What worked or what didn’t work on a project. Or what would you do differently. Moreover, they see that the debrief part of the project provides the necessary space to effectively reflect on the project in order to best present is significance and narrative. When you’re deep in the project, it is more difficult to see the bigger picture. Evaluation helps to reveal or remind us of that bigger picture.

ACCEPT & PROCEED

Accept & Proceed’s project evaluations vary by client. They tend to simplify the evaluation process down to whether or not they get repeat work from a given client. That is their litmus test for success. I personally see that as a portion of the key aspects of a debrief or evaluation, but not the sole input of valuable project reflection.

STUDIO DUMBAR

Studio Dumbar debriefs projects with the client in person and again via anonymous survey. They share the results of that evaluation with the entire project team and immediately respond to anything that they see as an opportunity to improve, especially if it is in regard to client relationships. Rarely, when budgets allow, they will seek out more scientific methods of evaluation including cognitive biofeedback studies where subjects are connected to electrodes that read brainwaves as they are asked questions about a given project.

EDENSPIEKERMANN

EdenSpiekermann’s branding projects can run for a very long time with year-long launch plans making it difficult to seek client evaluation. Their digital projects conversely provide immediate results. They debrief their projects to reflect on what worked or didn’t, how they can improve their processes, and to determine whether or not they met the needs of the brief by solving what they set out to solve.

The takeaway here for me is that there is a wide range of inputs methods that you can obtain when a project concludes. The key is to reflect and learn in order to improve and grow.

REFERENCE

Falmouth University (2018). Outcome & Ambition | Interviews. Application and Interactions GDE740 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S1 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

GDE740 W11 | Lecture Review

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

This week we learn from four new agencies who answer the question:

• How do you respond to critical feedback and how is it delivered back to your team?

FELD

Feld believes that feedback is great, and critical feedback is essential to the success of any project. Personally, however, it can hurt. They see feedback as an opportunity to evaluate: 1. what didn’t we achieve in the brief? 2. was there a miscommunication? 3. did we take a wrong turn. Receiving critical feedback is seen as a benefit and a chance to challenge ideas so that the work can improve. Their advice is to take it seriously as you will experience this type of feedback for not only your entire career, but throughout the whole of your life both professionally and personally. Look at it as an opportunity to reflect and improve.

ACCEPT & PROCEED

Accept & Proceed collaborates extensively with their clients through the entirety of projects so feedback is seen as a part of the collaboration process. Their “Think as One” mantra enables them to have many smaller milestone check-ins with the client that they see more as a partnership on the project rather than solely in service.

STUDIO DUMBAR

Studio Dumbar looks at feedback in two ways: client vs. public. Their work largely ends up in the public eye given those clients with whom they partner: Dutch Railways, Dutch Police, etc. They prefer constant check-ins with the client throughout the project and for feedback to be direct and honest. This provides each project the best chance of success. “Feelings are facts” is a believe that Studio Dunbar holds in that regardless of the feeling or response a client may be having in terms of how they design has influenced them, the feelings are worthy of exploration. Disregarding or rationalizing away those feelings tends to diminish client-studio relationships and create blind spots within a project.

EDENSPIEKERMANN

EdenSpiekermann’s prefers to keep everyone involved: studio and clients along the way. This builds trust with clients. They value user feedback above all as it informs the viability of any project. Garnering this feedback early and often helps ES to iterate and deliver projects on brief. They see feedback as vital to keeping projects on track as well as an opportunity to improve. It’s important to seek it out at all phases of a project and to do so often. This regularity and frequency will help to mitigate taking critical feedback personally.

REFERENCE

Falmouth University (2018). Design Development | Interviews. Application and Interactions GDE740 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S1 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)