Craft in these digitally charged times

Source: Dave Catchpole at Flickr under a Creative Commons License

Chris Bowler, who is part of email newsletter company Campaign Monitor and founded Fusion Ads, shared his take on contemporary craft in a piece called “A New Kind of Craftsmen, Same as the Old One” via designer Kevin Smith’s tweet. Bowler equates craft with versatility, an opinion strongly influenced by the current toolkit, comprised of anything technological. These factors help facilitate opportunities for self-expression, professional empowerment and, most of all, encourage an extended landscape for one’s curiosity.

Bowler’s piece reminded me of Chicago-based web design and development firm Neoteric Design. They describe their approach as “craft-driven,” evident in their marketing and in their work culture, which is aligned to the romance and practicality of craft, particularly demonstrated in their application of colophons and apprenticeships: two entities with a basis in craft that I’ve highlighted in a previous post.

I forwarded Bowler’s piece with Nicholas Gracilla, Principal, and Sonia Yoon, Producer, of Neoteric Design. Following were excerpts from our email thread:

Sonia, May 15, 2013 at 10:23 AM: “This article resonated with me a lot, as I often feel caught between different worlds. Explaining what I do is often a narrative, more than a phrase. I’ve always enjoyed being an interdisciplinary thinker, maker and doer (a ‘Jacqueline’).”

Nate, May 15, 2013 at 11:14 AM: “‘narrative, more than a phrase’—This is where having a focused area is useful. An epicenter. Because then one’s story—of what she or he does for a living—breaks down. What’s the anchor? Bowler’s example is the web developer, first and foremost, who also excels at using Photoshop. There’s adjacency here that’s sensible. Here’s where I see ‘interdisciplinary’ being valid.

Bowler’s phrase ‘purposeful generalist’ is reflective. I like how he qualifies ‘generalist’ with ‘purposeful’—implies diligence/dedication. Without purpose, the generalist is skimming. Passive generalist. Or Dilettante? How about Diffuser?

Reminded of Buckminster Fuller’s claim, because it’s out there (in more ways than one): ‘We are all astronauts.’”

Nate, May 15, 2013 at 4:56 PM: “Sketched a diagram.”



Nicholas, May 15, 2013 at 9:04 PM: “Reminds me of a conversation at Dev Bootcamp a few weeks ago. Students are introduced to a broad range of technologies throughout their training, and expected to ‘find a niche’ to deep dive into. Dave Hoover [Founder of Dev Bootcamp] calls it the T-based model of learning.”

Nate, May 16, 2013 at 8:15 AM: “There’s a creative type, popularized by IDEO but not sure, called ‘T-Square’: horizontal stem represents disciplines/interests, vertical stem represents height of knowledge. Again, one must curate which disciplines to indulge in.”

• • •

Big thanks to Chris Bowler for writing and publishing “A New Kind of Craftsmen, Same as the Old One.”

Belated Response to PandoDaily Reporter Trevor Gilbert’s Article about the “Midwest Mentality”

Sunny Chicago in early June – Photo by Nate Burgos

Back in March of 2012, Trevor Gilbert wrote about “The Midwest Mentality”(1) which riled a number of Chicagoans involved in the local startup scene. I read it then and read it again. My reaction remained the same after my second reading: disagreement. Being a Chicagoan, I feel that Trevor’s piece felt like it was mostly written in a vacuum, and in a voice that was more grand than grounded.

Trevor’s Theme #1: Pragmatism is not hot

I wonder if Trevor has seen the movie “Top Gun” (1986). The lead character Maverick, a fighter pilot, is fond of this anthem, expressed with macho-conviction: “I feel the need ... the need for speed!” A hasty entrance into the market, with a potential spike of success, appears to be Trevor’s taste. He claims: “no ‘hot’ startup could ever exist in Chicago.” His examples of the “’hot’ startup” are the usual suspects(2) in Twitter (San Francisco, California) and Facebook (Menlo, California, by way of Cambridge, Massachusetts). Both are highly-trafficked, highly-reported in the media, and highly-noted by critics for being inflated with the froth of popularity.


Debut of coworking space 1871 in May, 2012 – Photo by Nate Burgos

To Trevor, pragmatism is a lackluster business proposition. Trevor posted his article in March. A couple months later, 50,000 square feet of space called 1871 (the year of the Great Chicago Fire) made its debut in downtown. 1871 is part of the steadily growing coworking scene in Chicago, (in addition to The Coop, one of the first local coworking spaces). These places were established to accommodate people who want to achieve something real, something useful, something worth their focus. Speaking of intensity… 

Trevor’s Theme #2: Intensity is found only in the Valley
According to Trevor, another synonym for “Midwesterner” (besides “practical”) is “conventional.” Long-term commitment and incremental growth, paired with respectful working hours, is “conventional”—too conventional—to realize anything he calls “disruptive.” Words, like “disruptive” and “revolutionary,” are pre-loaded with a lot of promise, declared and assured in advance. They also embody “intensity” which Trevor also claims is the missing ingredient in Chicago’s business scene.

Playwright Tennessee Williams said, “Time is the longest distance between two places.” Time can be interchanged with intensity. Intensity can be distributed over time, from point to point. I look to Chicago-based companies such as 37signals, Coudal Partners and Threadless, who took the time to make practical things and sell them, from Basecamp to Field Notes to Tshirts. The beauty of these products is their usefulness—their pragmatism. There is also beauty in how they got real, which wasn’t overnight, but the results of sustained effort.

To Trevor, the Midwestern value of hard work lacks the Valley’s intensity and is therefore insufficient. In the examples of 37signals, Coudal Partners and Threadless, it continues to be hard work that brings them success. I don’t see how dedication lacks intensity.(3) Need more examples of Chicago-based companies intensely bent on making things? Check out Built in Chicago’s list.



Founder and investor Chris Dixon tweeted, “Despite what you might think from media coverage, startups are still an extremely niche activity everywhere besides northern CA.”(4) Contrary to what Trevor believes, demonstrating intensity isn’t beholden, nor was it ever exclusive, to the Valley.

Tips for Trevor’s next visit

Taking a cue from travel writers who make revisiting a point in order to nurture and evolve impressions and observations about a place, here are initial recommendations for Trevor’s next Chicago visit:

Attend a CreativeMornings/Chicago event – This monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types is typically held near the end of the month. It was founded by designer Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swissmiss. What she started in Brooklyn, New York (circa 2008), has extended to cities all over the United States and internationally. CreativeMornings arrived in Chicago in June of 2011.



Visit a Chicago coworking space – Aside from 1871, there are others, some of which are featured in the video, “The Owners”, by the people of Desktime who “create simple, useful software to help people find, share and manage extra space,” and also manage The Coop.

Attend Chicago Ideas Week – For one week in October, CIW consists of 80+ sessions across the city and “aims to be the platform for sharing big ideas and making big things happen.” This echoes architect Daniel Burnham’s command of “Make no little plans… .”

• • •

It’s fitting to hone in on this passage from Trevor’s piece: “Sure, being pragmatic has its benefits. Work a 9 to 5 job and see steady, predictable growth over time. You get a salary, and you are possibly acquired. You spend time with your family and get to send your kids off to college. That’s fine, but it’s not revolutionary, which is something that the technology industry—regardless of geography—is based upon.” If blessings like parenthood; time with family, friends and loves ones; and getting an education—especially providing schooling for one’s kid/s—aren’t revolutionary, especially in these harsh economic times, I don’t know what is. Many groups, especially small businesses, are composed of colleagues, spouses, with the responsibilities of parenthood, who are pursuing what they want to do and “putting a ding in the universe.” Enjoying a living—as a wife, husband, mother, father, friend—need not be incompatible from making a living. Inspiration(5) infuses both personal and professional lives. Trevor’s next passage fortuitously states: “Midwesterners have their priorities straight… .” On this point, I completely agree.

• • •

“This has got to be the digital capital not just for the Midwest—I want this to be the digital capital for the country.”
—Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago

• • •

San Francisco contributor to the Architect’s Newspaper and roving design freelancer Lydia Lee tweeted, “‘Companies grow and die off so quickly, permanence is not always respected here in the Valley.’ sez SJ dir. of planning.”

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(1) Read Web-product maker Andrew Wicklander’s “Dissecting Pando Daily’s Hack Job Covering the Chicago Startup Scene”

(2) To be painfully obvious, there are other creative companies, besides the over-reported Twitter and Facebook. Lists like these help: A Field Guide to The Female Founders, Influencers and Deal Makers. Plus, why noted Chicago-based companies such as 37signals Basecamp and Threadless were glaringly absent? (Similar to writing about the design scene in Grand Rapids, Michigan, without mentioning Steelcase).

(3) Gentle reminder: it takes a lot of energy and hours to get something real.

(4) Discovered via a retweet by Nasha Virata, Founder of Tutorbeat.

(5) Jason Fried of 37signals said it best, “Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.”

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Biggest Highlight of Keynote Presentation at Apple’s WWDC 2011: People

Plenty of highlights emerged from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 keynote presentation. As Philip Schiller, who is in charge of worldwide product marketing, said: “A lot has changed during the last ten years.” He was referring to the debut of Mac OS X in 1999. An entire serial show could be based solely on the Mac OS X Lion’s features. The same can be said of iOS 5.

But the highlight, to me, was revealed by the camera, as it panned across the audience—each intermittent shot serving up a smidgen of human diversity. Many were there because of their jobs. Even so, it looked and sounded like all were there to feel good.



One of my favorite quotes is from urbanist Jane Jacobs who proclaimed, “Design is people.” This is a pattern of Apple’s keynote presentations throughout the years (and proven to be a kind of art therapy for me)—a cinematic showing of audience anticipation and reception to technology designed for them—people’s work, entertainment and ultimately their art.

Image-snips of Apple Special Event, June 6, 2011.

Toyota Communication Recall

After listening to National Public Radio’s article Can Toyota Recover Its Reputation For Quality?, I wondered about their “Public Relations Strategy.” It delivered neither the appropriate content nor the appropriate tone, especially at Toyota’s first public address of their global recall:



It seems to me a better model would be to bypass the PR Specialists in the communication flow:



The result is a leaner communication model, where the CEO speaks directly to Customers—and directness is always a virtue when it comes to apologies.

What’s Actually ‘Right’ with the iPad

Since the announcement of the iPad, there have been untold negative reactions, focusing on what’s missing or what it should have been:

Beyond honing in on what is lacking—that the iPad doesn’t have this and that, or that it would have been so much better if it were … something else—the most meaningful reactions are the ones about what to make for this device, like this from my web-developer connection, Tom Printy, who tweeted: 

A product that provokes people to view it as another compelling way to express themselves is, ultimately, a product that is desired. Complementing its User Experience Guidelines, the iPad quickly provoked gathering of its UI Conventions. And as long as it evolves, moves like this will evolve too. That’s because it excites people to create new content, tailored especially for that device and medium. To react to mostly what the iPad misses (or more negatively still, its ultimate miss as the ultimate tablet) misses the point: It’s Apple’s vision. And it’s one that again excites people to make content—to make art.

Human Interface Human

Annette Wagner describes herself as a human interface designer and artist. She began her career at Apple, where she held the job title of Human Interface Human. This suggests phrases like “humanizing business and technology” and “human-centered design.” Annette’s initial job title also implies a goal. Of course, it’s the job—not the title—that counts. As she puts it, “My main responsibility is to be a user advocate.”

The New York Earth Room and Its Caretaker

While in New York City over the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend, I planned a trip to the New York Earth Room, after viewing a short video about it. Since no cameras are allowed, the New York Earth Room is intentionally (and intelligently) left out of the video’s footage, thus heightening the mystique of the “interior earth sculpture.” This leaves anticipation and interpretation wide open. And while mine weren’t met, the Earth Room still satisfied my curiosity: it is a literal composition loaded with meaning. Adjacent to the New York Earth Room sits Bill Dillworth, who receives attendees after buzzing them in and, importantly, tending to the 280,000 pounds of earth enclosed in a white-walled space. Bill chuckles, and even refutes, the title of “curator.” I pegged him as the constant gardener but caretaker will suffice, in my (and possibly his) estimation. While chatting with him, I mentioned that the sculpture is ambiguous. I couldn’t tell if something was being buried or growing. Bill, in his contemplative delivery, simply said that “it has potential.”

It was immediate that Bill’s relationship with the New York Earth Room is one of deep familiarity—but the kind that doesn’t go stale. He’s been sustaining, not merely maintaining, Walter de Maria’s sculpture for 19 years. The sculpture was installed in 1977. To most, this may feel truly long; but to Bill, I believe that he would deem it as is, nothing more, nothing less. Bill emphasized that he’s “at a different pace” than everybody else. City living can be a daily blur. But Bill keeps steadfast in his place within the space-time continuum, urban and otherwise, much like the Earth Room that he keeps watch over.

One formality that intrigued me was Bill’s notation of attendance for the New York Earth Room. Rather than simply marking down the number of visitors or using tick marks, he created a whimsical set of characters. The sculpture is supported by the Dia Art Foundation, so I couldn’t but help dub Bill’s capture of attendance as Diacritical marks:





Each calligraphic stroke represents one attendee. If a family arrives, a bridge is made between characters (middle figure in above image) like a ligature. The visualization of his vigilance is entered into two separate blank notebooks, one is for weekdays and the other is for weekends:



While flipping through one of Bill’s attendance notebooks, there was comic relief in discovering a page of marks with a second color. As it was pointed out, it was done in recognition of Halloween:



These marks can be easily judged as superficial, but they constitute a change made over a long period of time. One can relate a number of products and services whose experiences gain from a slow evolution; a slow form of play. Like his one attendance-mark at a time, Bill keeps the New York Earth Room in a constant state of integrity, day to day, year to year, attendee to attendee, contributing to what a passage of time entails and means. His use of a rake and hose produces “subtle changes” to the New York Earth Room but it remains somehow constant in its enduring state. The micro-composition of the New York Earth Room, with Bill’s attention, keeps its quiet and pious way, while its surroundings agitate in their composition at an unsettled velocity. Some, if not many, may describe the Earth Room as simply a room of dirt. To Bill, in his own dictated pace, the room takes something commonplace and makes it extraordinary. One is reminded of the good earth.

The coupling of the New York Earth Room and its caretaker call to mind the profound rigor that can be found in cherishing consistency and its heir apparent, simplicity. Following and finding sanctuary, amidst the flow of ordinary time, is both the cue and challenge.

Women, Web 2.0 Style

There’s much PR about men contributing to the tools and toolkit of the Internet. Let’s not forget about the women who are shaping and making the future of the web, 2.0 and thereafter. Their contributions deal with the design of web-based products and services that foster user interaction with information. Fast Company magazine has a sampling of some of these netpreneurs.

Related: 8 Experts Predict How Web 2.0 Will Evolve In 2009

The Kennedy Family’s Design Connection

When it comes to design-related news, my Father is one of my primary sources. He recently reminded me of Caroline Kennedy’s design connection. As she strategizes her move to the Senate, let’s not forget the role of her husband Edwin Schlossberg, founder and Principal Designer of ESI Design, an “experiential design firm.” From a 2002 article, written by Steven Heller, in Metropolis magazine, Schlossberg was called “a pioneer of experience design long before the Internet made the concept popular. The inspiration hit him in 1965 when, at the age of 19, he attended a series of lectures at the New York YMHA featuring Marshall McLuhan, Merce Cunningham, and Buckminster Fuller. It was Fuller's ideas about ‘Spaceship Earth’—how to make the world work better for more people by doing the most with less—that enthralled him.” Fuller was a former employer of Schlossberg, who also befriended the artist Jasper Johns and composer John Cage. Schlossberg was a salon by himself, and he continues to carry on those encounters in his engagement of interactive media and how people interact with information.

Related:
The Family Man by Jeffrey Hogrefe, New York Magazine

Holiday Gifts 2008 by Design

It’s often hard to choose the right gift, let alone one for a designer. But the web can help eliminate the guess work by sharing specialty lists. In particular, the ones below might inspire you with great gift ideas for the special design-minded colleagues or friends in your life:

• John Hill offers his annual list of Holiday Gift Books: 08 Edition at A Daily Dose of Architecture
• Marketing crew Zeus Jones has a Holiday Gift Guide
• Design Magazine and Resource Core77 compiled 77 Design Gifts Under $7
• Web designer Samantha Warren offers her list of Gifts for Designers ’08 Edition at her Bad Ass Ideas blog
• E-tailer Design Public has their Holiday Gift Guide
  

Looking for something more unexpected? Among the many unique objects for gift-giving, potential gift-giving ideas can be found in these collections:

• Tina Roth Eisenberg highlights the Coolest Typographic Holiday Gift of 2008
• Joseph Sullivan compiled his list of Favorite Book Covers of 2008 at The Book Design Review

Happy design holiday-gift hunting! Remember to choose wisely.

Less Splash, Higher Score

The following sound bytes were issued from one TV commentator during the 2008 Summer Olympics synchronized diving competition:

• “Just a little off.”
• “Does it look pretty as they do it? Not really. There’s some splash there.”
• “The synchronization is not that far off.”
• “This dive is a bit messy.”

The sport and its judging remind me of the design process. Whether the pursuit is designing a building, a software application, a chair or a stamp, the design process, in a way, is aligned to the elements of synchronized diving: the approach, the flight, and the entry. Designers try to excel at all three, with the quality of splash that truly matters.

From Paper to Compass: Opening of the Summer Games in Beijing

The 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony was an impressive demonstration of site-specific installation art and giving unique expression to highlights of Chinese invention and history. With color-charged works such as Hero and House of Flying Daggers, filmmaker Zhang Yimou’s large-scale injection of color amidst the costumes, lighting, graphics and sets was apparent, culminating into a grand passage illustrating China’s past (paper) to the future (compass). The coordinated gestures of the thousands of performers were equally colorful. The opening ceremony—with all its visual cues, architecture and details—was a fluid interface.

The Boston Globe captured a stunning set of images of the event.

Update, August 17, 2008: LifeDev shares 7 Lessons from the Innovative 2008 Opening Ceremony Director.

Design the Vote!

Information Architect Sean Tevis is running for Kansas State Representative. The illustrative and witty presentation of his campaign is reminiscent of the book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. The unconventional approach is helping to bring in contributions as a result.

Image or no image?

I was comforted by Michael Surtee’s piece Images for Blog Posts at his DesignNotes blog. Being new to blogging, I feel compelled to accent each post with an image, even if it’s simply ambient. This stems from my background in graphic design—and my admiration for ambient imagery. Although blog posts can be treated as magazine spreads, unless I create the image or it has a direct relationship to the content (like this previous post), I’ve been creating the majority of posts so far as strictly paragraphs. As Michael advises, “If anything, I would encourage people to shoot their own images if they can, which in turn will make their blog more about their own POV as opposed to a coming off as a PR memo.”

One World One Dream

Some design-related links dedicated to the Summer Olympics 2008:

• Around the World (Wide Web) for the Olympics
• Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Image and Look
• Passing the Torch: An Evolution of Form
• A Map of Olympic Medals
• The Olympics of Illustration: An Interview with Mark T. Smith

Enjoy the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

Design that Fits

It takes time to make something beautiful. Tailor Joseph Centofanti knows this from head to toe. He owns and operates a tailor shop in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, where he’s been making custom suits for 51 years. All done by hand. This focused practice of craft required a successor who is Joseph Genuardi, a design graduate of Carnegie Mellon. There are clients who travel far to be fitted, but tailoring can be described as localized design in which tailors bring their services to distant locations in addtion to their own. Genuardi didn’t have to travel far to seek his passion for design by hand. He discovered Centofanti’s shop, observed the owner at work and became hooked. The two Josephs have more in common than their first names. They appreciate the relationship between fabric and human anatomy. They appreciate the value of craft and the rewarding dedication to it. “It takes a long time to learn, and the more I learn, the more I know it takes longer. And I’m OK with that, because I love what I’m doing,” Genuardi says. His mentor’s guiding statement of “We make the suit to fit the person, not the person to fit the suit” drives Genuardi’s sensibility to proportion and scale, from calculation to final cut. As Centofanti believes, “It’s about them, not me.” Genuardi strives to satisfy customers with design that fits.

Flickr Taps Into Our Inner Typographer

There’s a growing number of Flickr communities of interest, or “Group Pools” in Flickr-speak, honing their lens on the expanding range of typographic mattter from Business Cards to Letterpress to Table of Contents, Signage Systems to Type Specimens. Complementing these few examples of community-driven sets of images are solo exhibits such as the Great Ideas, Volume III, book cover series, Iain Follett’s Stamps collection, 1950s–1970s advertising, Vintage Logos, retronomatopeya, The Letterpress Process, and Good design on paper. More info about a couple of these Flickr sets can be found at the We Made This and grain edit blogs.

Typographer Erik Spiekermann said, “Picture yourself in a world without type. True, you could do without some of the ubiquitous advertising messages, but you wouldn’t even know which package on your breakfast table contained what.” More than an image-hosting service, Flickr helps reinforce the importance of type and typography. It celebrates the lettterform factor, beyond the “breakfast table.”

Wearable Calder

To celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Calder, an exhibition of his jewelry is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show’s curator Elisabeth Agro said that Space to Calder “is about occupying space. And he just sees the body as a grounding element for this other aspect of his work. Not that the body gets in the way—the body is one part of this larger work of art, when you put it on.” The master of mobiles brought his artistry down to a more intimate level.

design mind magazine debuts

Strategic-creative consulting firm frog design releases their publication design mind this week in a new medium: Print. Defying death, the revolutionary method of ink to paper thrives.

Update, August 16, 2008—Review by Michael Surtees: Part One, Part Two