I’m in Pratt Institute’s Graduate 2011-2012 Catalog!!

Hey everybody – awesome news! I’m featured in the 2011-2012 Pratt Institute Graduate Bulletin (aka catalog)!! I guess you can say I’ve come full circle. Wasn’t too long ago I was a bright-eyed design student at Appalachian State University dreaming of moving to New York and studying Communication Design at Pratt. I remember looking at the catalog years ago thinking .. if only I could get into Pratt. And three short years later my work is featured in their bulletin for new prospective students!

Also this week I’m printing and submitting in my final thesis paper and book. Now that my Pratt chapter is wrapping up it’s time to start planning for the next 5 years. My next project is reworking parts of my website (www.dcwdesign.com) and then it’s time to start making big post-school moves in 2012. Wish me luck – and best of luck to everyone in the new year!

Here’s the project that’s featured in Pratt’s 2011-2012 Graduate Bulletin. My Sophronia project based on Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities book.

Front of double-sided poster/mailer.

Calender of events detail.

Fold out poster advertising Sophronia – half circus, half “real” city.

Voter card for Sophronia.

:: And coming soon ::

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In striving for a remarkable life …

” In order to strive for a remarkable life, you have to decide that you want one.
Because if you expect less, less is all you’re going to get.”
-Debbie Millman, Creative Mornings, February 2011. 

It should come as no surprise that I’m blogging about one of my design heroes Debbie Millman once again. Just this past week I was lucky enough to attend the launch party for her latest book, Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits here in NYC. But that is not what inspired this post. For months I’ve had this idea marinating in my head about an aspirational post in response to graduating (or almost) with my Masters degree from Pratt, starting my design career in NYC and life in general. While the past few months haven’t panned out the way I envisioned in May, I’m beginning to see the pieces of my life falling into place. This summer I spent an amazing 7 weeks in Copenhagen learning about textile design in a place I’d never been, doing something I’d never done. Studying abroad seemed like something I’d never be able to do growing up, but it happened. I returned home and started a job as a designer for Starwood Hotels. In the coming weeks I’ll finish this all-consuming thesis that’s been on my mind for the last year. In many ways I’m exactly where I should be and I wanted to share some wisdom I learned along the way, especially for those in the process of getting to where you envision yourself to be. (I’ve also been watching a lot of Oprah lately, and her gospel is really speaking to me ..)

At the end of the spring I had this great idea of creating a list of tips for surviving your MFA thesis. Little did I know I myself would be in need of some of these same tips. As a current thesis student today, I don’t feel it’s the right time to create that list. BUT, I wanted to share some words of encouragement about life and working hard, because I feel that is something I so desperately lacked in my thesis journey. Weeks ago I started watching the show 1 Girl 5 Gays as I’d go to bed each night. Pretty mindless entertainment – mostly funny conversations about love and sex. One of the questions really struck me: What was your lowest point in the last year? Most of the people on the show talked about a break up, the loss of a friendship or family member, etc. All I could think about was school. I’ve spoken in great length about my struggles the last year at school and I’m still living with those struggles today as I’ve yet to finish. I think it’s important in life to acknowledge failure or set backs. It’s something people don’t really ever talk about, but I think it’s so important. Because it’s what we do in response to failure and set backs that define us. For the last year I’ve been spending my days and nights in an MFA program where I felt I never fit in. I always felt like I was battling for the legitimately of my ideas and my approach to design. That semester I received the lowest grades of my entire college career. A semester later, the day after graduation, I learned that I wouldn’t be in fact graduating as my thesis committee decided there was more work to be done. I was crushed. It was hands down my lowest point. I thought I could power through all the negative energy I was getting in school and win in the end. I didn’t.

The attainment of my MFA from Pratt is one of the hardest things I’ve done to this point. Never has a process created more fear, stress, and self-doubt within me. And that’s really a shame. In a design program we should be inspiring the next generation of designers through challenge and encouragement, not through fear. “You have ideas? Well we’re going to show you how to make them stronger.” I thought that’s what grad school was about. Not the case, or at least that wasn’t my experience. Recently a close friend reached out after a rough thesis critique. He said he was almost driven to tears as his ideas were ripped apart and dismissed. I’d been in that position several times, and it feels horrible. We (sometimes) put so much thought, effort, and heart into our work as designers, and to have it ripped apart can be devastating. It inspires fear and self-doubt. The night before I’d been listening to a Design Matters podcast where the speaker said, “Fear is the mortal enemy of innovation and happiness.” I felt so much fear my last year at Pratt, and I know many others did, that I second guessed everything I was doing. It was so unproductive. And it’s a horrible way to inspire students to go about creating work.

I want to balance this story with one of my highest points in the last year. While abroad in Copenhagen, each program awards a student with an academic/design award. I was lucky enough to win the award for textile design as student that best embraced the process and overall did a great job. That feeling of being recognized for the first time after a year full of self-doubt was an amazing feeling. After everything I’d been though, someone finally said good job. It made all the struggles of the past year worth it in some way, and powered me to move forward. So things brings me back to Debbie Millman and her countless words of wisdom. While you’re young and just starting out, “Don’t compromise” she says. “Now is the time to try and fail. Work as hard as you can, and harder than anyone else … and if you expect less, less is all you’re going to get.”

Many of these great pearls of wisdom came from a talk Debbie did for Creative Mornings back in February 2011. You can watch the entire presentation here. In this talk, Debbie shares her list of “The Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Graduated College.” I saw this talk online and wanted to write down all 10 in a list to share. So here they are! What I love about Debbie is that she’s so open to share her life experiences with others. She is honest and thoughtful, and happens to be a designer. But I ultimately find myself more interested in what Debbie has to say about life and being a designer, than what she actually designs. That’s never been important to me, though I do love her work. So my hope is that you’ll read Debbie’s list of 10 things she wished she knew so that you’ll know them today, and they’ll inspire you for the road ahead. Whatever that road may be …

1. Design talent = operational excellence. Operational excellence is what it takes to operate a business or a service well. Therefore design talent is a basic point of entry.

2. Design is not about design. Design is about a whole lot of things that ultimately result in design. You need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything. Everything else (but design) is what fuels design.

3. Money is not about money. Sex is not about sex. If people really want something, they’ll figure out a way to pay for it. Period. If somebody tells you they don’t want something you’re selling because they can’t afford it, it’s a nice way of saying like don’t want to hire you or like you enough to spend the money. Or you have no convinced them that the value that you will provide will be valuable enough for them to pay for it.

4. Ideas are easy. Strategy is much harder. Strategy, or coming up with a unique point of difference for a product or idea is incredibly difficult. “Strategy is choosing to perform activities differently, or to perform distinctly different activities than rivals.” – Michael Porter, Harvard Business School . You need to know why you do what you do a nd be able to communicate that easily and effectively.  You need to know your mission, believe it, and communicate it.

5. Know what you’re talking about.  Tell the truth. Admit when you don’t know something. When you do, it allows someone to share something with you.

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The Joy Project + thesis updates

So I’m coming out of the closet about something … I’m still *technically* in grad school. I’m still an MFA canidate and not an MFA graduate. Details .. details! As much I’ve tired to pack away the last two years and transition into the “real world,” I still have one last push to finish before I can earn that magical piece of paper from Pratt. I’ve spoken in length about my thesis process over the last year  (click on the “thesis” or “Pratt MFA” tabs on the right) and there will be new developments in the coming weeks. I’ve recently begun to panic at the realization that it’s already the middle of September and I still haven’t completed my final project .. so this weekend will be a turning point. Time to take this thesis bun out out of the oven once and for all.

I spent the morning reading 10 new letters I received as part of the Joy Project. My goal this weekend it design my visual responses for this new set of letters. This set is special in that each letter I designed was given to a friend of a friend that already participated in the project. Before I left for Copenhagen, I sent new 18 letters to 9 people. From that group of letters I received 10 back, so that means a 55% response rate. Some of the letters I really love and remind me why I started this project in the first place. For those unfamiliar with the project, I send letters asking participants to list as much moments, experiences and things that personally bring them a sense of joy, delight or happiness. It can be anything, no wrong answers! Each person lists these responses on paper and mail them back to me. I then take these letters and create a visual resposnse. The first 60 of these responses can be found on the project website, thisbringsmejoy.com – Some of my favorite new responses include the following:

I love reading these statements because they make me feel so happy and full of (you guessed it) joy. This serves as the motivation for the creation of my final project. I’ve been intrigued by the medium of newsprint recently and think a newsprint poster or booklet would be a great medium for the message (look – MFA speak!) My idea is to print a fold-out poster as we did for the Pratt MFA show, or a booklet like RISD designed for their 2011 MFA Show. The similarities between our two 2011 MFA shows is pretty interesting to note: we both printed on newsprint, both in Linco, B&W with one spot color (blue Pratt, red RISD), and we both used boxes or an outline as a graphic element. I guess both schools were onto something.

Above & below: The identity promo we created for Pratt’s first Design MFA show this past April.

Above: RIDS’s stacks of newsprint books

Look familiar? I’m not alleging copying – but since our show was first in April, I’m going to say we did it first!

The design of their book is really beautiful, especially this fold-out poster.

These pictures give a nice glimpse into the form I’d like to use to create my final project. The decision between book or poster will ultimately come down to cost .. as it would cost over $1,500 to print the same size and number of pages as RISD and I can’t spend that much one last project. I’d like to create a typographic piece on newsprint with one color and leave 1,000 of these posters/booklets all over NYC. My hope is that when found, people will go to the website and contribute new joy responses digitally (on the tumblr site or twitter). These responses will then be added to my collection of over 800 ways to experience joy. So that’s where I am today and stay tuned for new developments!

I’ll leave you with one last letter. Enjoy.

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Thesis Writing

Sorry for the lack of updates, but this is what I’ve been up to … writing, off and on, since last Friday. Currently I’m at 25 pages and over 9,300 words. (The image above is not proofed, so if you find errors, please ignore for now, xoxo) I want to find a way to count the number of times I’ve used the words “joy, methodology, create, and process” within my paper. In a strange way, I’ve enjoyed being able to finally validate my area of study in regards to a design thesis, and writing this paper has been helpful for increasing my overall confidence. Sometimes when people ask me what my thesis about, I feel embarrassed to say joy. In one of my readings, Driven to Joy, Gabrielle Esperdy writes:

Although Thoreau called it “the condition of life,” there is something faintly embarrassing about joy. Like sex, its necessity may exist in direct proportion to our lack of interest in discussing it. Or maybe this reticence is caused by our uncertainty about an emotion that is difficult to define.

Gretchen Rubin also touches on the subject in her book the Happiness Project, which I’ve mentioned earlier. It’s good to know I’m not crazy, I just wish we as a society felt more ease in talking about happiness and joy. I guess we’re all just suspicious of happy people, and myself included. At times I feel like I’m going through another coming-out process with my thesis. If that’s indeed true, I’m glad I’m going through this process. I came out towards the end of high school and that process was crucial in developing my confidence in myself. Where would I be today had I not done that? I’m sure I wouldn’t be blogging from NYC talking about writing a thesis that’s for sure.

I’m excited to finish the paper so I can finally get back to the visual part of this project. Last week, I sent out letters to 30 friends, asking them to participate in an activity I did a few weeks ago. Here’s some pictures of the letters. I’m happy to say I’ve received about 10 back in a week, and can’t wait for more. A big thanks goes to everyone that particpiated! I’m printing one last run of cards this week, so that will make a total of 40 I’ll send out. PS, if you want to participate, email me your address!

Within each letter is an introduction page briefly explaining my thesis direction and asks for their participation in my “mission.” Should they chose to accept, they open the smaller enclosed envelope, with the directed exercise. This is later mailed back to me here in NYC.

Here is the pile I threw away because of typo’s … only realizing the mistakes after wasting $70 on printing and several hours cutting and folding.   

The first two letters I received!!

Introduction page with joy quote.

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Final Projects Fall 2010

St. Vincent’s Hospital “Place Project” — Full View

Here are screen shots of my finals projects after my first semester in Pratt’s MFA program. This year I was in three studios, Graduate Seminar, and Thesis (17 hours — before this point, I had never taken more than 9). While some classes I really enjoyed (Visual Language and Transformation Design), one in particular I felt absolutely no connection with (Technology Studio). Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Technology Studio, I’m really happy with my final project, “Romantically Uninvolved: 2010 Annual Report” — an annual report on my “dating life” (of lack there of) during 2010. Once everything is posted and presented, I will spend more time talking about each project. So enjoy the pictures, they’re probably better than whatever BS MFA artist statements I’ll come up with later

Close-up of St. Vincent’s Poster, 26×42 Poster, Visual Language Studio

A peak into my “Creative Process”(a mess). 30×30 Poster, Transformation Design Studio

Close-up of “Process” Poster, “Let your haters be your motivators”

Cover of “Romantically Uninvolved: 2010 Annual Report” 20-page Report, Technology Studio

Interior Spread

Close-up of NYC Map in Annual Report.

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St. Vincent’s Project Update

This quote that goes perfectly for what I assume was the mission of St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. The hospital was NYC’s last remaining Catholic hospital and found itself in the center of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, eventually creating the first care center for AIDS patients on the East Coast. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, a religiously-back hospital, helping the very people the Catholic Church preaches against. How did the attitudes change? St. Vincent’s was flooded with funding for their work providing HIV/AIDS care in the 1980s, which helped keep the hospital alive. Some argue the advancement of HIV medication, and the reduction of AIDS patients, is one of the factors leading to St. Vincent’s closing in Spring 2010. Interesting indeed.

(Almost) Final Version

Close-up of poster.

 

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St. Vincent’s Hospital

I introduced this project in a previous post about new MFA work at Pratt. For the last week or so, I’ve been reading, visiting, and exploring what is left of St. Vincent’s Hospital in NYC. As someone that has only lived in New York for a year and a half, I honestly don’t feel very connected to many places in the city. Yet again, we are asked to pick a place of significance in New York as an inspiration for a self-initiated project. I actually like doing this, don’t get me wrong, I just wish I lived here longer, so I’d know more about the places I’m investigating. I’d recently read an article in NY Magazine about St. Vincent’s closing and NYC’s (in my view) fucked health care system. My only knowledge about the hospital was that it was the center of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. It is literally around the corner from Pratt Manhattan, yet I didn’t hear about the actual closing until months later.

Thankfully, I don’t have much experience with hospitals. My brother had to go a few times due to head injuries, but besides that, I’m not used to visiting or staying in hospitals. I feel uncomfortable in them, but I think that’s normal. I do have a memory of one of my brother’s hospital trips: I didn’t want to go along b/c I’d miss Dawson’s Creek (priorities!) and I was making a pasta salad (it was in the freezer to get cold quicker). My brother ended up being fine, but I spent all night missing Dawson’s Creek, and my pasta salad was totally frozen.

What strikes me about St. Vincent’s is, how can a hospital fail? How can a hospital be aloud to go bankrupt? St. Vincent’s was nearly 160 years old, it treated patients from a cholera outbreak in the 1800′s, survivors of the Titanic, diagnosed the first cases of AIDS in the US, and survived 9-11. Yet it couldn’t save itself. Our country has a strange relationship with health care. Many wealthy nations view it as a human right, while in the US, health care is a booming profit-driven industry, based upon NOT providing care and help to those that need it. The idea of companies gaining profit on the ill-health of their customers is sickening to me, but that’s another issue.

So why St. Vincent’s … why do I feel a connection to a hospital I never visited? After reading the NY magazine article, I felt really sad. It made St. Vincent’s seem like a living thing. An aging, broken, and sad thing … but still something once living. This hospital in particular holds so much history, and if the towers are turned into condos, or if the buildings are torn down, what happens to all that history? Shouldn’t we (and by that I mean NYC) thank the hospital for all its done for the city? Our government will bail out auto makers, banks, wall street, give huge tax breaks to corporations, but why didn’t they save the hospital … a business dedicated to delivering and saving lives? There were a lot of problems with St. Vincent’s, and it didn’t happen over night, but I want to save the stories of the place, even if the hospital itself is beyond repair.

Here’s an example of what I mean, from the Save St. Vincent’s facebook page:

There is a digital memorial, or archive of this type for stories about 9-11. It’s called the September 11th Digital Archive. St. Vincent’s deserves the same. Something alive online, where previous patients, workers, politicians, etc can add stories and images, so that history will be preserved. That is what I propose for my final project. I’ve reached out to a few people, but I’d really like this project to be bigger than the class if I can talk to the right people.

Here are some photos I took last week exploring the site.

 

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New Projects

click images to visit my new tumblr blogs!

Over the past few weeks I’ve developed a new addiction … TUMBLR! I’m constantly collecting images as sources of inspiration, so tumblr became a great way to do this online and document what inspires me. I’m hoping this collection of images, words, and thoughts will help inform me for possible for possible thesis directions. I’ve expressed my frustration of our lack of making in the MFA program, so quite simply, my inspiration tumblr serves as an outlet of documenting beautiful things, and so what what if I like beautiful things?

THAT SAID, it’s important to consider why I find this work beautiful, figure out what makes it successful, and see if I can apply that to my work. The second tumblr account I created is solely for my thesis. I finally had a thesis BREAKTHROUGH last Friday. It looks like my thesis is simply turning into the search for joy: my personal search, and searching for it around me. I’ve been working on visual essays (I plan to finish them over break), and have a list of side projects and explorations to do soon. My previous post serves as a manifesto to create this work, and see this idea though. Why can’t design be full of joy? If I can’t find joy (and happiness) in my work now, while I’m in school, then what’s the point? In a ideal world, I’d love to find a job that is a creative outlet, but the pessimist in me finds that unrealistic, at least at first. I know I’m going to have to “pay my dues” and do some shitty work before I really find my place. And in today’s economy, I might be doing shitty work for years to come just to hold on a job.

In closing, I’m so happy to be where I am (thesis-wise). I have the green light to start screen printing over xmas break and things seem to be falling into place for most of my projects. The jury is still out in my technology class — I haven’t felt a connection to that class all semester. In my visual language class we’re doing another “Place Project” — pick a significant place in nyc and create a book or something about it. I chose the recently closed St. Vincent’s Hospital in NYC’s West Village. Here’s my introduction for the project:

Just to give you a taste of some of what I’m looking at, I grabbed these from my tumblr accounts. If any of y’all have accounts, I’d love to follow you! Or follow me!

http://dcwdesign.tumblr.com AND http://sharedjoy.tumblr.com

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Joy & Panic

I finally have a concrete idea of what I want to do, or I finally know how to talk about it. Friday ended up being a great thesis day, and I’m ready to frankly do whatever the hell I want for my thesis projects. I’m done talking about my idea, and I feel like I’m ready to start creating. Now this all sounds good, but I’m feeling probably more anxious and panicky than I’ve felt all semester due to my lack of unproductivity this weekend. I was so motivated to get going on Friday, then due to housing a visitor, and other social commitments, wasn’t able to lock myself away and just focus on my work. I’m really trying to NOT enter a state of panic, but EVERY week I say to myself, this is the week I’m going to start on these projects, and I don’t. What is it going to finally take to get going? I can get my studio projects done .. at the cost of neglecting thesis. Today (Monday) I have a convention at the UN, project due Tuesday, two presentations Wednesday, then thesis again on Friday. I have no idea how everything will get done on top of sitting in class eveyday for 6 hours. I’m most productive when I’m alone. I used to lock myself in the art building at Appalachian to get everything done. I’d get there at midnight, work for 4 or 5 hours in peace, and finish a project. Being busy isn’t really the issue. I used to be busier in undergrad, and even in the MS Program last year. I sleep more than I ever used to yet I’m only getting half the work done. I feel like it’s impossible to be alone in the sense of the word I need. At home I have roommates, an annoying dog that never shuts up, visitors, and a million other distractions, like a room and apartment that never stay clean. Everything stresses me out now, and I don’t know how to get over it. I can head to my studio, but that subtracts a good hour or 45 min of my time, and I’m not “alone.” I just need to get out of this cycle. I hate how I feel so together in one way, but so behind in another.

Keep calm and carry on.

How many days until graduation ??

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MFA Biscuits

Today I presented my most recent MFA project for technology studio. I made buttermilk biscuits! Biscuits for a technology class you ask? For this assignment, we were to create a machine in the theme of Rube Goldburg, that communicated “hello” or another greeting, in at least 10 steps. Goldburg machines show up in cartoons and movies where crazy inventors make incredibly complicated machines to accomplish simple tasks, such as flipping on a light switch. Many times these machines are far more complicated than the simple act they’re designed to accomplish … I guess that’s the joke right?

Here are some examples of these machines:

Pencil Sharpener

Napkin Machine

Alarm Clock

My idea from the beginning was to create a machine that said hello “southern style.” As someone born and raised in the South, I’m used to people actually greeting each other, which NEVER happens here in NYC. In North Carolina, complete strangers smile at each other in the street, say things like excuse me, thank you, I’m sorry, etc. None of these things happen on a typical day here. Many in my studio class made awesomely complicated machines taking direct inspiration from the Goldburg machines, and my hat goes off to them. It’s clear they spent hours making a functioning machine, and most of them worked! Kudos to them! I had absolutely no interest in making a literal machine and felt I was onto something about how folks in the South use hello as an expression, and how that is visualized, or how could I replicate that expression.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately of home, growing up, family gatherings, etc. as I haven’t been home in months. I’ve been very nostalgic you might say. One thing that is always present in these memories is food. The first thing I do when I go home is make a stop at my favorite fast food joint Bojangles, for their famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits. It’s comfort food to me, and I have so many great memories of going there, especially in high school and college. When I think of home, I miss things like fried chicken, fried okra, pork, turkey and gravy, deviled eggs … the list could go on and on …

Then it hit me, food is the perfect expression of hello, and a recipe, with all its ingredients and steps is an example of a machine. Biscuits are a great example of a Goldburg machine because they’re so damn complicated to make. Despite few ingredients and steps, it’s totally a learned tradition or skill how to make buttermilk biscuits. Everyone has a recipe they’re partial to, and everyone has an option on how the best biscuits are made. I really like that idea, and despite me following the recipe exactly, there is still a great chance for error. This morning I woke up and made two batches, and I actually had one of these errors. My first batch came out perfectly (see opening picture), I couldn’t have been happier. For the second batch, I used a different bag of flour (not self-rising I later realized), and the biscuits didn’t rise at all, and more resembled golden hockey pucks. I think in a way that perfectly illustrates what the project was trying to express, so I’m happy with that outcome.

Everyone loved the biscuits so that was a great relief. I designed a recipe booklet for the biscuits pictured below. I’m planning to make another batch on Thursday for my MFA Reviews, but this time with self-rising flour!

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