Thursday, April 2, 2009

some old friends


our next assignment in type II is to compile a book of student generated book reviews using a grid structure. (which i'm actually really excited about...) each person in the class makes a recommendation to add to the collection. naturally, i thought of bruce mau. massive change is another one of those books that sits on my shelf just looking good; the mere knowledge that it even exists, and that i own it, is enough to excite me. but i re-realized when i pulled it out just how damn good it is. and it's funny how the meaning has changed from my senior year of high school to my sophomore year of college. i don't think i had any idea back then that i would ever find myself this wrapped up in the design world. now, every word from the introduction holds more weight because it is even more of an affirmation for what i'm doing. (or think i will do in the future.)

another pivitol discovery (thanks donaghy) from senior year was ideo design. and over the weekend i found the nightline video (up on youtube all of the sudden) that introduced me to their deep dive process for the first time. it was perfect timing for a rediscovery: my text for the community art convening was due sunday night, and it was sort of a missing link for my motivation with the studio baltimore project. of course i would look at the city and think of how every facet can be redesigned to function better. it's not so much that i'm an idealist (but that helps). it's not so much that i pity the people that design could help (but there is, without question, an element of service.) and it's not so much that everything that isn't perfect is a problem (although i am a perfectionist. and a former fpser.) it's more that i know anything can be edited. in my head, making adjustments and improvements in the places we inhabit is as simple (and enticing) as getting the right letter spacing and leading on a body of text. as with design, it becomes a matter of usability and accessibility. (and aesthetics.) the overarching design of things is exactly what massive change is getting at, too.

"for most of us, design is invisible. until it fails. in fact, the secret ambition of design is to become invisible, to be taken up into the culture, absorbed into the background. the highest order of success in design is to achieve ubiquity, to beocme banal... most of the time, we live our lives within these invisible systems, blissfully unaware of the articial life, the intensely designed infrastructures that support them. accidents, disasters, crises. when systems fail we beocme temporarily conscious of the extraordinary force and power of design, and the effects that it generates. every accident provides a brief moment of awareness of real life, what is actually happening, and our dependence on the underlying systems of design. massive change is an ambitious project that humbly attempts to chart the bewildering complexity of our increasingly interconnected (and designed) world... we hope to make evident the design decisions that go on and are made manifest accross disciplines. massive change is not about the world of design; it's about the design of the world."

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