designswarm thoughts

It’s warm out. Makes me think of black and white movies.

Wrote this as an exercise for JC back in Ivrea. Re-read it today and didn’t dissagree with it as much as I thought I would. Strange how we set a path for ourselves and naturally try to follow it. I was young enough I suppose to be able to see beyond myself. In the day to day these days, it’s hard to take that step back.

“A person who creates ideas worthy of note is a person who has learned much from others.”-Konosuke Matsushita

With this statement in a way I seal my faith and set a path. Choose among my many interests and direct my attention. It’s a very hard exercise and I get the feeling I might be inclined to rewrite this every couple of years but I feel I musn’t.

I should have the strength to make this decision. To put forth all my thoughts on myself, my work, my professions, my faith and write it out loud. I still fear as I digest this task, that I do not know, nor do I possess the tools to make such a bold move, but looking back, I’ve been braver. This statement should reflect what I feel of the former suit I wore that is that of industrial designer as well as the new one that doesn’t quite fit right now of interaction designer.

I should be able to tell you of my hope of a society where the industrial designer no longer has the right to produce unconsciously anything that is asked of him. Where responsible design is compulsory and services guide manufacturing and not the other way around.

I should be able to tell you of my fears that this will not happen in my lifetime, that people and societies are stupid, greedy and forgetful, that what has been, will be again and that I feel small in front of that fact but my heart tells me I must be part of the solution and not the problem.

I should be able to recall all the times I was inspired, loved and hated things around me, objects, technology, experiences, people and use that to my advantage.

I should be able to talk to you of my wonder in front of so many things that I still need to learn, all along this road of my life, so many books to read, people to meet and conversations to be had.

I should be able to tell you I only work emotionally, when a project plays with my emotions, that I see beauty I wish to communicate to others or horror which I want to point out.

I should be able to tell you of my love of poetry in a temporary installation, the beauty of something that transcends its physical nature, when an object is more than its shell, that the idea shines through.

I should be able to let you see the possibilities to express that poetry which I seek in technology around me and scarcely find. I wish I could see myself working to better some things, not all, that I know I cannot achieve sadly.

I would tell you of my absolute love of the expression “delicious experience” and my loath of the word “user”. I am not a user, I do not use, I enjoy or detest, I am emotions and intellect, not use.

I should be able to hope that interaction design is not just a screen, hiding the truth, faking experiences for people who have forgotten to appreciate hard work or a sunset. Enhancing is beautiful, faking is a crime.

I should be able to concentrate on this light at the end of the tunnel that are these 2 years in a small Italian village away from reality.

I should be able to see the beauty in befriending and working with 20 other unique, funny, sarcastic, egostistic, ambitious, depressed and talented people who one after the other have made me change a little more everyday as a designer, a student and a person.

I should be able to tell you that I think anything worthy of mention is a combination of different points of view and has a natural richness because of this.

I should be able to say and do these things but I fear, and maybe I should just be silent, take a deep breath and listen for the sound of a future I can’t quite fathom.

So far:

- The iPad came out
- The President of Poland died in a plane crash on his way to Russia.
- The Liberal Democrats are doing rather better than the leading parties
- A volcano spread its ashes around Europe leading to chaos at airports and the bluest and quietest skies in years.

Clearly there is a glitch in the Matrix.

A bit of an update if you don’t follow my company’s blog. We’ve rebranded our UK studio to Tinker with a new url, new logo, corporate colours and everything ( for official release check out the official blog post) which was the result of more than a year’s worth of work in figuring out exactly how to talk about what we do, how to communicate it, to who and why.

A comment that people have made was “oh I liked the .it” and that’s ok coz it’s not going anywhere. Again read the blog post for that.

But it became very very clear quite early on that the joke was on us as far as our UK presence was concerned. What had started out as a pun (“tinker it”) then became a monster to manage in terms of brand message. With a dot, without, exclamation mark, without? Capital t or no? Corporate companies we deal with had their finance department or admin departments capitalise the IT because they assumed quite naturally that we were an IT firm. You can imagine how happy that made me.

The .it was also misleading in terms of url vs real location. A woman who I met recently who is managing director of a company I would consider in our ecology and are located nearby our office asked me “how often do you come to London then?”. I wanted to crawl under the carpet. “We’re based around the corner from you”. “Oh I thought you were in Italy”. This was a normal thing to assume of course, but one I didn’t think would impact our ability to reach the right people. And of course it did.

When you run a business, I figure 3 years down the line, it’s ok to admit that the logo you designed one sweltering April afternoon in the middle of the furniture fair (this year marks my first break in attending that particular event) and the website that was put together rather rapidly are part of a history but can always be improved on. That message can change, like companies change and adapt. The big difference these days is being able to play the Google analytics/juice game in a smart way, making sure everyone on Twitter gets it and that the people you work with know why you’re doing it. It’s hard work, but the attention span is quite short, so I think you can afford to change more often than what would have been regarded as safe in terms of marketing a decade ago. Work in progress, as usual.

I stood in line in a rich city of the western world for 5 straight days with no water or food to get my hands on a thing I’m not sure what to do with as I am not a “consumer” it turns out, but a “creator”. Damn.