Habitual You

Habitual You is a social experiment intended to draw on the human condition, honing in on the routine quirks we all find in ourselves, but don't often talk about. 

This small team of design students from Portland State University was interested in seeing various artistic expressions of people's quirks and 

wanted to start a far reaching conversation sparked by the sharing of our individual habits. 

In order to achieve those goals, our team branded Habitual You by focusing on using hand drawn type.

To take the humanistic theme even farther, we decided to do it the ole-fashioned way and create post cards and post-mark them to randomly selected individuals across the United States. 

Knowing that in this age, digital is now the prime way to reach the masses, we had to take a step toward the computer and we created a blog. In this blog, submissions received via snail mail or e-mail were posted in order to display the eclectic and beautiful collection of habits sent in from all over the world. 

More ways to spread the word in order to gather participants included a poster displayed in the halls of the Art Annex, and a Facebook announcement inviting anyone and everyone to get involved. 

224 members were collected in this process. 

Although 75 cards were sent out, no responses were received as of yet. The blog proved to be successful, and we got many interesting submissions. 

Our hopes are that the blog continues to gather submissions over time.

  

These are some images submitted to our blog: habitualyou.blogspot.com

7,6,5...launching thoughts to my future

"What are you getting your degree in?"

"Ohh...graphic design. What do you want to do with that?"

I only had embryonic ideas of ways to answer that a couple of years ago, when I made a commitment to this track.

And my ideas are still lil guys, just trying to grow.

I had a feeling I would need to dive into the good the bad and the ugly to find out how I felt about it all. To figure out where my talents lie and what fuels my fire. 

The book is helping the growing process. Outlining various routes to go, HTBAGDWOLYS later gives a pretty thorough report of the duties included with different roles within the large studio, the small studio, and the individually run. 

There seem to be an equal amount of pros and cons that come with each option...I see myself beginning in a large environment to attain knowledge and that was confirmed by the following quote: 

"A period in a good design studio producing work for corporate clients can provide invaluable experience for a young designer, furnishing him or her with valuable skills and disciplines."

It makes sense to me now, why just about every senior designer I have spoken with has spent their early years working on projects for Nike. 

So, fledgling ideas are now reaching through the top-soil. I want to start big, wherever that may be, I will take it as a learning experience. Through the years I have been encouraged toward writing and photography, and design stands in my educational background, but I do enjoy graphic design and see myself incorporating it. Working for a magazine with a large, buzzing team of people seems to be something that may be a good first fit for me.  Eventually I would like to work in a smaller environment, working intimately with clients and my studio team members. Running a solo-show does not sound like a fun time to me...the book keeping, the taxes, the client recruiting, the idea generating and the design execution...it all seems like too much. I have never been good at multi-tasking and role shifting, and doing all this alone makes me want to poop my pantalones. 

That's how I'm feeling now anyhow. We will see where the professional winds blow me.  

h2b a GD w/o LYS. ch 234

My book is filthy. 

It was such a crisp, clean, cyan and white book. 

I tried to keep it that way.

Now its sort of floppier, gray-tinted with unintended textures gracing the cover. 

Oh well. The deep sighs of relief that each turning page provides me when I'm on the bus...waiting for the bus...walking off the bus...walking to the bus...laying in bed, eating breakfast, during coffee break at work...the ease of breathing is worth destroying its fresh aesthetics.   

Coming close to graduation, the questions of my designer-future have been transforming from hypothetical 'if' questions to actual 'when' consternation. I have been gathering experienced designer friends and connections for coffee and insight. I've been gathering piece of mind, and not taking 'you'll just have to wait until you get there to find out', for an answer.

Thank you friends, thank you teachers, thank you connections, thank you how to be a graphic designer without losing your soul...thank you for helping me feel like I've got at least a wheel on track, and helping me feel prepared. 

Here are some jewels I have picked up thus far: 

• Everything I see and touch makes me a better designer

• Acquiring fluency in the design languages, most notably type, is an ongoing process. 

• Being a young graphic designer is not easy, physically or emotionally. We enter the field with talent, potential and personality as our primary assets, at an average age of 23, where we are not exactly kids anymore but surely not responsible adults yet

• Human relationships are important in the process of finding a job

• Look for ways of making yourself indispensable

• There is a price to be paid to live the privileged life as a designer, and that price is unflinching commitment. You have to be prepared to make sacrifices

• You're not much of a graphic designer unless you've designed a successful letterhead

• Persistence, doggedness and barefaced cheek will pay off

• Any studio that doesn't pay its interns is not worth working for

• Trust your personality and trust your work

• Learn to enjoy interviews

How/to/be/a graphic/designer,/without/losing/your/soul

I have never before wanted to sit down and devour an entire school text book until this cyan printed wonder book was given as a required-read. 

In the introduction, Adrian Shaughnessy says that this book will not tell us what sort of designers we should be, but that we will be making our own individual decisions about what matters, what looks good, what is success. But he does make notable traits that a designer should have in order to be successful. 

Here are a few of my favorites from chapter 1 : 

• Designers take interest in everything that goes on around them, having curiosity about areas other than design: politics, entertainment, technology, art, ten-pin bowling and wrestling. 

• Designers are observers, and the best humor comes from microscopic observation.

• Designers constantly scan, scrutinize and absorb what goes on around them.

• Designers demonstrate understanding, openness and receptivity.

• Designers posses the ability to talk about their work, especially with clients and non-designers, in a coherent, convincing and objective way. The way designers present ideas is as important as the ideas themselves.

• Designers can find patterns of words that communicate meaning and value to clients.

• Designers can remove the personal from the equation...less you means more you. 

• Designers can communicate to clients/other designers/partners/viewers in a way that they don't feel cowed, threatened or discouraged by your views. 

I loved the section on integrity. Ever since my early realization of wanting to be a graphic designer, but that advertising in particular has been and can be destructive

 to individuals and societies as a whole, I have found myself setting up future scenarios where I have been faced with opportunities to change the world for the better or for the worse.  Besides being able to support a reasonably comfortable lifestyle for myself/myself and a dog/myself and a family, I don't care to make masses of money. I would be content with my life  knowing that I stuck to my personal philosophy rather than abandoning it at the first sign of trouble.

 At the end of my career, I would know that I have succeeded if I would be known for having principles that I stuck to in order to better the world we live in.

 

Conveying Emotion & Personas

Because 'the need for designers and developers to understand human behavior has grown', new ways to accommodate technology to the needs of users have been smartly developed. The article on personas started out a little ridiculous sounding to me and I began reading this article thinking that personas were a waste of time and money...then I remembered how much I love Urban Outfitters' more spendy, more chic sister-store, Anthropologie. I know a few people who work in the store, and I have been given the inside scoop on aspects of their training. In one stage they are required to read stories about a set of women. These women have names, personal preferences on what they do with their time, fears, passions, and particular fashions. They inform their employees about these woman because the store is seamlessly separated into sections regarding this set of women. After hearing this, I realized a reason I love Anthro so much...I feel comfortable there. When I walk in, I do not get overwhelmed, but I meander to the section of the store where I typically find my favorite items. When I subconsciously understand I won't find anything appealing in a particular section of the store, I do not stress that I didn't look hard enough for hidden treasures, and I move on. I believe Anthropologie uses the same Persona technique that the article's software company used. 

So even though I was skeptical of the Persona technique at first, I see that it works. After reading on in the article, I found that I was more and more convinced of it's effectiveness. It is important for any company selling something to be relevant to an array of users. 

Excitement for a product also shines through from producer to consumer, and as the article states, 'personas were not critical to this process, they served as a springboard that inspired creation.' It seems to me to be much more exciting to design with an actual human-being in mind, rather than designing for the ambiguous person that may or may not be like you. 

the earthy girl, the tomboy, the chic.

Directed Story Telling

Since beginning my journey as a graphic designer, I've been informed that design needs to be conceptual. It is not simply enough for graphic design to be beautiful and only beautiful, but it is essential that it serves an intentional purpose. 

I'm not sure why I'm having these bouts of grade school recollections lately...but here is another: In 5th grade, I was a pretty smart kid. I was sent to the 'talented and gifted' classroom a couple times a week, which basically meant I had to endure a few hours with a scary woman who, on a daily basis, made me want to poop my spandex stirrup pantalones. One day, according to our elementary desires for future professionalism, she divided the classroom into two. I have always wanted to be an artist, a graphic designer in fact. So there I stood on the side of the classroom that said teacher designated me to. I was part of a small group of other creative kids, separated from the larger group who wanted to be teachers and doctors, veterinarians and firefighters. After the organizing had been done, she told us what this really meant: 

The larger group of kids aspired to help people, the rest of us did not. 

At the time, all I knew was a guilty pit in my stomach, I thought that maybe I should try harder to want to help people. I tried on different goals, the vet, the teacher, the doctor...they never felt true to who I was. But as I grew and began pursuing design, I realized that design does help people, in

 unconventional and unnoticed ways. 

This article about directed storytelling pinpoints and integrates exactly why I've always wanted to do design. 'To produce communications that resonate beyond our own experience'...'using methods and tools that will help us understand what is meaningful'. To delve into a culture to understand how to touch and improve people's live in relevant ways. I enjoy learning about people and I loved Clandinin and Connelly's quote "to do research into an experience...is to experience it." I will keep this article/technique for future reference when needing to gather significant ideas for what is most important for my audience or client. 

Sabrina Ward Harrison is a designer who may not use directed story telling, but creates to improve peoples lives. 

Audience as Co-Designer & Cultural Probes

I remember my relationship with my parents when I was in high school. When I was told to do something, I bitterly did it or did not do it at all... yet, were I to come up with the same task myself, I would do it with joy.

Analyzing this now, from my less adolescent perspective,  I see that I reacted this way for a few reasons: 

1  I knew I was capable of taking care of the task without lecture

2 The advice was coming from a direction which I could not relate to nor could relate to me 

Somehow this thought reminds me of why it is important to encourage people to solve problems themselves, rather than to flat out tell them how. 

Also, in order to touch people with impact, 

it is important that people feel understood.

This article about the HIV prevention campaign in Kenya explains that the creative team included members from their target audience in order to effect culturally appropriate aesthetics for cross-cultural communication. Research had shown that 'clear transmittance of information occurs when the encoders share the same culture as the decoder's, so the Kenyans designed their own propaganda using their own visual language that would help get their message across boldly. 

People have an innate ability to seek out similarities and evidence of understanding, 

and in that understanding they find something they can trust.

With trust comes devotion

with devotion comes action.

And after being part of social action art projects and reading articles such as these, I realize that any campaign pitching something that invokes action from the audience should actively include the audience along the way...

connecting people with

similar understandings,

similar passions,

similar issues,

and similar experiences. 

Plus, should not only art, but life be about connecting people in order to make living a little easier and less lonely anyway?