Sunday

'Nuff of design stuff. The everyday still exists: Waves, seagulls, and stranded jellyfish (better than a foot in diameter).

And design? After class today I'm back to the drawing board with my two logos -- good critique and suggestions by the instructor. As for color theory -- life will never be the same?

Finishing one class before the next

This morning I settled down to complete my two assignments left from Design I. I've been thinking about them on and off all week .... I became impatient to see my "final ideas" and grabbed the X-ato knife and scissors. I decided to stop with the prototypes in my sketchbook in the hopes of some final advice from the instructor (and also because I knew I would never have the patience or craft to make a finished product.) Here they are:

Company Logo Assignment: Business & Design Lab

Sketches-in-process - Following my breakthrough on top left (See previous post

Personal logo assignment - Heraldic lozenge (used by women rather than shield) with English lions over US eagle, and a fleur-de-lis for scholar over my initials.

What's left on the table!

Good news on the scholarly front -- acceptance for EGOS and DMR interested in our article proposal.

Breakthrough ....maybe

Today I THINK (hope) I had a breakthrough in the two design assignments that I have left from Design I -- the logos for a company and myself. In class one of the students spoke about being able to see designs clearly in her head, and then struggling to implement them. I never had that experience -- I would just experiment until I found something. Today I had an inkling of this approach -- while I was Skyping with Ulla I asked her what image she had for the Business and Design Lab. She told me that Rolf Wolf (Dean of Business School) had drawn a B and a D back-to-back to indicate that they never talked to each other -- and that gave me an image to build on. It's not ready yet, but I do have a crude prototype.

And I'm also moving towards something for my personal logo after delving into heraldic symbols because I had the idea of a crest, and then separating myself from a realistic representation.

I look forward to seeing both of the designs when they are finished -- I wonder if they will look anything like these sketches.

Colors to come

I bought my supplies for Design Fundamentals II today -- most are the same as for the last class, but instead of jet black paper I have a "Color-Aid" box of 314 sheets of colored paper (4.5 x 6), all different, including 19 shades of grey -- well 17 really with while and black on either end. These relate to the color wheel developed by Josef Albers of the Bauhaus and later Yale University. I'm excited at the prospect of learning "color theory", but a little apprehensive because I can't make much sense of the 15 page explanatory booklet that came with the pack!

As always, stay tuned and I'll be sure to tell you all about it!

Further investigations

I'm reading Bryan Lawson and Kees Dorst's book "Design Expertise" and find it describes the way I am now understanding "design" after my course - the similarities between the book and my experiences are quite remarkable. Maybe I'm projecting, but at the very least I now have a much better grasp of the process. Interestingly, I selected this book at random from among my collection waiting to be read. I thought it might follow Schon's "Reflective Practitioner" well, and it does. I must ask my colleagues at the Business & Design Lab if any of them have read it and if so, their opinion. I know a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so I must be appropriately humble.

Otherwise I'm trying to finish a number of projects "in process." I hope the BDL position paper is now done, and tomorrow will revisit the proposal for an article in DMR. I also made a little headway on my two remaining design class projects -- for my personal logo I started to sketch a coat of arms, so after delving onto heraldry courtesy of Wikipedia, I am in process of designing one with proper heraldic significance. I can hardly wait till I start trying to cut the shapes out of black paper!

Back on track

70 degrees and sunny - walk on the beach, sit by the pool, skype with co-author, swim laps in pool, make an orange pie (rated 3 pies (out of 5) by Jack).

Design Class Resolved

I DID hear from my design class instructor -- this morning, in a message that included an apology and reason for not responding before, which I understood (another lesson in not being too hasty to pass judgement.) So I went to class with all my trials for my assignment to create a logo for the Business & Design Lab. And I discovered that others had been through many iterations too -- though most had completed a finished product. My classmates made suggestions, and Jeff spend time working with me on possibilities -- long and short of it is to not try to create something that my colleagues at the BDL might expect, but to start from scratch with my own ideas. I bought another sheet of black Cranford paper to do just that.

And my reworked "Constrained -Expansive" board garnered praise. So I'm encouraged and will continue with the second part of the course on color theory.

Even more art ...

We took the bus downtown (and back, 35c each way) and spent a couple of hours at the art show -- much like the Mystic art show in August. Lots of painting, sculpture, jewelry, and some

unusual stuff, including these moose (and other animals) with heads that nodded in "perpetual motion." It was fun to watch women trying to persuade their husbands that such-and-such piece was just what was needed for a particular spot. For the most part the men looked unconvinced, but bought anyway! We did not.

And the design prof didn't respond to my emails either.

The shoe is on the other foot

As a serious student I took note when the instructor encouraged us to email him with our logos for his comments before the next class. No matter that his email address was not on the syllabus (nor any office hours because I would have contacted him then.) I emailed him Thursday midday with a pdf of my logo and a plea for help. No response. Friday - no response. How long before a student is "pesky" because she keeps prompting the prof? Saturday morning I decided I could email him again because class is tomorrow.

I wonder if I will hear from him.

No imagination

I'm back to reading Bryan Lawson and Kees Dorst's book, "Design Experience" and finding it quite relevant to my current struggles in the design class. They write about the lack of a textbook for an introductory design course because it is impossible to teach design through concepts. They mention others like me who look for theories or a set of rules for how to go about the process of designing, and conclude that this is just not the way design works. "Design situations are not amenable to pure step by step logic but require the application of imagination. ... design proceeds more often by introduction of knowledge about things that might work rater than by theories about how to get from problems to solutions." (p124)

Clearly my imagination has left me because no matter how hard I try I have been unable to come up with a satisfactory solution to my logo problem! I sent the instructor as SOS email to day -- I haven't heard back from him; maybe he thinks I'm a hopeless case! Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow.

Immersion and Diversion

It's a good thing that I have the Olympics as a diversion -- I'm thoroughly depressed by my design homework -- no matter how much I search the internet (aka Google Images) for inspiration and sketched out possible designs, I have nothing that I can even prototype as a "Business & Design Lab" logo. If I thought it would be any easier with another company I'd switch. Jeff (instructor) said to start early -- which I did. And no amount of reflection in or out of action helps. Tomorrow I MUST get something "designed" so I can send it to Jeff for comment and guidance. This assignment was originally a group project, but because one student was absent last class, Jeff made it individual work. If it had been a group project I'd be a free rider!

The week begins

Some academic work, a walk on the beach, sit by the pool and read an article on praxis, and then to Circus Sarasota. It was a good show -- great showmanship and polished acts. We enjoyed it. And then there's the Winter Oympics ....

The Crit (2)

Not so good this week -- only one of my designs gathered praise -- the Near/Far using the MacDonald's arch. I hadn't used the white-on-black contrast as well as I might. In fact I have to redo at least two of the designs. I've gained the name "Lady Literal" for my desire to represent "reality." I had already come to the conclusion that I hadn't used enough white on black, and as soon as I saw the other students' work, my suspicions were verified. One student in particular does incredible work -- he must be an artist or designer of some sort by profession. But the instructor gives criticism in a positive way, always providing the reason/theory behind what is lacking. And it was helpful to see the other student's work and hear their crit. Management professors could learn a lot from the process.

One person was missing from class today, so the group project became a solo project -- too bad, I would have enjoyed some group interaction. We have to design a logo. I feel completely stuck.

Working on design

It was cold outside today (50F, 10C) so I settled down to finish by design class assignments. One in particular -- calm/agitated -- gave me a lot of trouble. I'd decided on curved and angular "scribbles" to represent the concepts, but no matter how I arranged the pieces of pare, it didn't look right. In the end I said "done" and will ask the instructor what arrangement would appeal to the eye. Here's my completed set -- the board was divided into two 4inch squares with half an inch between them. I tried to "connect with the edges" and "create a visual hierarchy" as two design principles I learned last class. Tomorrow's crit will tell me how successful I was.

Constrained-Expansive

Near-Far

Balanced-Unbalanced

Calm-Agitated

And my own choice: Rough - Smooth

We won the lottery!

The virtual lottery, that is, for tickets to view the next space shuttle launch (STS 131). Here's how Jack described it,

"Beginning at 8:45am, NASA opened a "virtual waiting room" that we entered. (Both of our computers were tasked to getting tickets!) At 9:00am the virtual ticket office opened. However, admission to the ticket office involved the lottery aspect. There was a countdown clock which refreshed your screen every 15 seconds. At the moment of refresh, if there was an opening in the ticket office, you gained entry. Otherwise your next chance took place 15 seconds later, and on and on and on! Finally, after about 20 minutes, Jill got entry! Then the high drama began.

"We had maintained a vigil over the Kennedy Space Center website over a number of days looking for information about getting tickets. Finally on Tuesday morning they posted the process, as described above. The hooker was that the admission tickets would be mailed via FedEx to the address on your credit card. Well, sending tickets to Stonington and getting a signature for FedEx was a really bad idea. So, quick as a bunny, I went online and changed our billing address on both our American Express card and MasterCard. I got word that this could take 48 hours to accomplish. Well, 11am Tuesday to 9am Thursday wasn't quite 48 hours. Sure enough, when we bought the tickets using the AmEx card, we got the message that they could not verify the credit card at the address submitted. Arggggh!!! So in we popped the MasterCard data (of course, there is a countdown clock running for completing the transaction within a short time span) and it was accepted! Whew!! We were shaking after all this!"

The rest of the day was somewhat anti-climatic -- even getting the final "yes" on the JIBE paper didn't have the same zing! I worked in my design homework all afternoon -- and only have two boards blocked out. I thought I had a good design, cu out the pieces, then decided to modify it. Three tries later I went back to my original layout! No photos till they're finished!

Mid-week

I can't complain about our chilly (upper 50'sF) weather after watching the TV coverage of the snowstorms over much of the country. We caught up on errands, and I made a yam pie to thank Jack for proofing the galley copy of the Worldview article. He gave it a "3 pie" rating (out of 5) because it didn't have a distinctive taste. I thought it tasted somewhat like a pumpkin pie, but less sweet and with a denser texture.

No work on design assignment.

Design despair - again!

This morning I was "on a roll" -- I had great ideas for my design projects and had sketched the layouts. I even had an idea for my own set of words -- beginning/end -- one entering a maze, and the other seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. So I set to work with my black paper and Xacto knife. ... Stop! Nothing looked right, the proportions were wrong, and objects that were recognizable in my rough sketches had no meaning as black cutouts.

I packed everything away and read my novel instead.

Reflection. I'm still trying to be too representational -- I want to show objects, whereas all I need to do is use shapes. The shapes don't have details, whereas my "reality" needs nuances and shading. And I wanted to see the finished product too quickly -- I didn't have patience for trying the white-on-black prototypes to gauge proportions and scale.

Tomorrow I'm resolved to take a "small steps" approach. Slowly, without details. Demonstrate the concept, don't try to be witty in the process. (I wonder if I will succeed.)

Much to be done

Caught a couple of hours' nap after the launch, and then it was business as usual - except we rush to our computers every time we return from an errand to see if NASA has put tickets on sale for the next launch (mid March) yet. Not today. Maybe tomorrow!

Good news about a paper that Jeanie and I submitted to the Journal of International Business Education - acceptance pending making two small additions, and publication in the next issue (due out momentarily).

Then it's back to the drawing board as I think through possibilities for my design homework. I have ideas for two of the pairs of words -- near/far and constrained/expansive -- but now I have to simplify and find a way to present them in black on white. I did buy some small brushes to use with the rubber cement in the hopes of having better "craft" as the instructor calls manual techniques. One of my ideas involves tire tracks, so I snapped photos of bike tracks on the beach.

(I've got a back-up plan in case this one doesn't work out ..... I'll see tomorrow)

4:14 AM on February 8 Space Shuttle Endeavour STS 130 Liftoff

(About 150 miles away)

AWESOME!

See NASA TV

The crit

Class today. We all pinned up our work on the wall - it was fun to see what everyone else had done -- no two were alike. The professor discussed each one, asking us questions about how successful a particular board was at capturing the requirement, and why. We learned from what each person had done well --or not. Not nearly as scary as I had imagined. It's learning by small examples, not through overarching principles. Different. I have to create the principles for myself.

Homework this week: Five boards, each illustrating a pair of opposites: confined/expansive, near/far, balanced/unbalanced, calm/agitated, and our own choice. I haven't a clue where to begin!

Equal parts black and white

I was all afternoon making the final two boards for my design homework. And I'll probably fiddle with them tomorrow. On the left, white is supposed to predominate, on the right, black. I wonder what my classmates and the instructor will say

More design homework

I had nightmares last night about my design class -- I was totally unable to complete the homework and had to drop the course ... then I had to face my colleagues at the Business & Design Lab!

So today I settled down to work. First I made the final figure-ground board; I cut out the shapes using the white mock-up as a pattern, and battled with the rubber cement to glue the on the matt board. This was a relatively easy task because it was one big shape and a few small ones. Jack, at least, was impressed with the result.

Here's a photo of "Chalice/Avatar".

While out on errands I purchased a few additional supplies -- new Xato blades, scotch tape that can be easily removed, and a set of french curves. Reinforced, I started to work on the final two boards: Equal amounts of black and white, but one has to look as if there is more black, and the other as if there is more white. I made my prototypes in reverse, using white computer paper to experiment with different designs on a piece of black paper cut to the size of the matt board.

First, my crude conceptualization. The white-on-black needed the white pieces to "float" on the black background. First I cut the white paper into strips and made squares and rectangles. Somehow I was able to position them all on the board so no edges touched. But the design had no "message" or beauty.

I went to the internet for inspiration (the instructor suggested we do so), and found an interesting example. Then, using my new tools I tried my own interpretation. I'm too unskilled in technique and impatient in temperament to make a really beautiful design.

I'll wait till tomorrow to see if I think of anything else, or use one of the two prototypes. Either one will be an exercise in very sticky fingers! (Readers, if you have an opinion, let me know by a comment!)

Last one. I decided that conceptually the black on white needs to have the black as the foreground and be a very "anchored" design. Here's my prototype. I can make it more

interesting, or maybe tomorrow I will come up with something else. I've done enough for today. Besides, I have snips of white and black paper everywhere!

Meanwhile, Jack completed his "Ikea project."

The good and the bad

The good: Today was a beautiful day -- we sat on the beach for a couple of hours this afternoon. A few people went swimming in the Gulf, but not for long.

The bad: I'm finding my design class exercises extremely difficult. After several iterations I have a mock-up for the "Figure-Ground" exercise. I still have to draw it properly, cut with an X-acto knife, and stick it down with rubber cement -- all techniques that try my patience.

Here's what I've done. After yesterday's efforts, I decided to go with a simple "chalice" design, and cut one from printer paper.

OK so far, but dull. Looking at it from all angles I spot a likeness to an Avatar.

So I found a photo online, expanded it and squared it off so a I could copy in an even larger size.

Yes! But more refinements are needed (the chin needs work) .... Tomorrow!

But back to good - I decided to read Bryan Lawson and Kees Dorst's book "Design Expertise," and have found that the first couple of chapters at least provide conceptual frameworks for the way in which I am approaching my design problems. I used a design-as-problem solving model, with a process of "pose-search-generate-evaluate" but also a design-as learning model, with a process of "frame-move-evaluate, reframe-evaluate." But identifying my methodology isn't much help if I don't have completed assignments to show for it!

Milestone

I've finished reading the Reflective Practitioner. I've started work on my design homework and have been "dumpster diving" in search of magazines with examples of good and poor design. I've been experimenting with creating a figure-ground design - here are two versions so far, I need to keep working on it.

They are made with white paper on black and are prototypes, not finished project. The left one is too complicated -- it doesn't work. The right one is too simple-

Meanwhile, Jack engaged in post-Ikea-visit activity

February 2nd

Ground Hog day ---there may have been sun in Puxatawany, but there was none here.

So we travelled north to the paragon of design for everyday living -- Ikea (there's one in Tampa.) We needed a stand for our new (to here) TV, but of course we came away with more than a single package! Making the furniture waits for another day.

At Ikea the design of the experience -- service design -- is as interesting as the furniture and accessories. We completed our purchases -- from finding what we wanted, comparing it with other options, collecting our selection, and paying, all effortlessly and without interaction with a member of the staff.

And for a diversion, I worked on my Academy of Management paper reviews. I've done two - one reject (it was purely descriptive and uncritical) and one accept (no doubt there). I've two more to go because the CMS division chair just sent me a fourth.