Designing the designer

AIGA Design Camp, Nisswa, Minnesota, 6th October 2012

Creative people have a need to inquire deeply into their craft, making new connections and discoveries along the way. We embrace process and measure work against personal values, aware of strengths and weaknesses. Responses are best when instinctive, not bound by tools or methodologies. Join Simon as he considers what makes designers tick, considering the decisions we make and the ideas we should embrace to help us make the cut.

Transcript

1. Designing
   the Designer
   

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56. Destination
    

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57. What do you think you’ll be doing
    in five years?
    Interview question
    

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58. Doing
    

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59. Are you in your work?
    

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60. It took me until my 40s to realize:
    There’s no destination. There’s no
    ge ing anywhere. There’s just
    the going.
    Pa on Oswalt
    

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61. The reason that most of us are
    unhappy most of the time is that we
    set our goals—not for the person we’re
    going to be when we reach them—we
    set our goals for the person we are
    when we set them.
    Dan Gilbert
    

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62. Not necessarily slowing down,
    but rather just opting out of speed.
    Frank Chimero
    

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63. Serendipity
    

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64. Strengths
    & values
    

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65. To progress and to create work of
    substance or even greatness, we
    each must start by knowing our
    values, our strengths, and the level
    of expertise we seek
    Strengths and values
    

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66. I have not failed 700 times. I have
    not failed once. I have succeeded
    in proving that those 700 ways
    will not work.
    Thomas Edison
    

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67. Our strengths find us
    

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68. designer
    developer
    strategist
    writer
    educator
    manager
    web designer 100%
    

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69. designer
    developer
    strategist
    writer
    educator
    manager
    web designer 100%
    

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70. Learning
    

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71. I’m self-actualised, without the stamp
    of approval from any guild, curriculum
    authority, or academic institution. I’m
    web taught. Colleague taught.
    Empirically taught.
    Jon Tan
    

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72. The sad, beautiful fact that we’re all
    going to miss almost everything
    Linda Holmes
    

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75. Cra
    

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78. Cra smanship is a basic human
    impulse: the desire to do a job well
    for its own sake
    Richard Senne
    

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81. Tools
    

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82. Tools are the scaffold for what we
    produce, the enablers. They help us
    bring our ideas to fruition.
    Our tools
    

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85. The tool doesn’t make the
    cra sman. Choosing the right
    tool for the right purpose is a
    technical and personal choice.
    Oliver Reichenstein
    

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86. delight / emotion / surprise
    systems / constraint / restraint
    simplicity / complexity / focus
    context / reduction
    

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87. Creative inquiry
    

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88. Inquiring beyond the “necessary”
    to explore other areas, look at
    things differently, and bring these
    findings back into our work.
    Creative inquiry
    

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90. Drone
    

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93. New design
    principles
    

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94. The web is not print.
    

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95. The screen brings with it different
    kinds of challenges for visual design,
    some of which occur exclusively in
    interactive media.
    Jason Santa Maria, designer
    

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96. It’s unrealistic to think our old
    methods can fill in all the gaps, but
    new interaction pa erns and visual
    languages emerge everyday.
    Jason Santa Maria, designer
    

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97. These are the building blocks for
    our new design principles.
    Jason Santa Maria, designer
    

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98. Systems
    

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99. We don’t design web pages.
    We design systems.
    

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101. Responsive
     

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103. Ethan states that a responsive design is composed
     of three distinct parts:
     1. Flexible grid
     2. Flexible images
     3. Media queries
     

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104. The frame
     

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109. The
     complete
     designer
     

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111. Find problems and design responses.
     Not answers, not solutions.
     Responses.
     

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113. Design is more than just a job.
     

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115. Talent is cheap
     You have to be possessed,
     which you can’t will
     You have to be in the right place
     at the right time
     

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117. The extraordinary in the ordinary
     

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119. Simon Collison / @colly / colly.com
     

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