Design for No Reason: August 2005

One of us is smarter than all of us

So many times I've worked on great projects that in the end, were ruined by commitee, ..by some kind of groupthink democratic design decision making process wherein everybody has a say, and everybody feels they have to change something, if not just to dignify being in the room, being asked in the first place. If you're lucky, your work might still retain some spark, but odds are it ends up being all things safe, predictable, and without soul.

This article on the benefits and/or dangers of group-think is really, really compelling.

"More ant interaction equals more sophisticated behavior. It's similar to flocking behavior, of course, where birds follow very simple rules but complex behavior emerges.

And that's all great and intuitive... until you get to humans. Humans, he said, demonstrate the opposite principle: more interactions equals dumber behavior. When we come together and interact as a group seeking consensus, we lose sophistication and intelligence. Ants get smarter while we get dumber."

Getting Lucky

Imagery seems to be less of a commodity these days. It's some kind of weird decline of the photographer and equally proportionate rise of the "appropriator". Even more advantaged are people who have photography skills AND composition/layout/production skills. Hard to compete with people who have the total package. I see myself getting there someday, however.

College photography instruction and Black & White darkroom skills, not to mention screen-printing and illustration instruction, ..really helped me get a firm hold on the concepts behind digital photography and editing. Simply understanding and appreciating the old-school vocabulary and concepts that carried through to Photoshop gives you an interesting vantage point.

Kids coming up today without any knowledge of those old techniques will probably have a tougher time grasping even the language of design that your industry veterans still speak. Things changed so quickly. I wasn't really cognizant of it at the time, but while I was in school, everything was changing, or had just changed. And the design job market was shifting too. If it weren't for my interest in technology, I would've just been another drifting Bachelor of Arts graduate, out there waiting tables or going back home to learn a traditional construction trade.

Numerous talented people I went to college with that I can think of offhand - people who could draw, paint, create, ..but just didn't have any interest at all in new design technologies. Those guys still don't have jobs. I'm sure they applied for them. And I'm sure the employers looked over the resumes and remarked, .."Talented kid, but can he use Quark? Is she proficient on a MAC? Moving on.."

Flying Carpet

"Alavi’s latest project is indeed likely to inspire a myriad of ideas from creatives all over the world when they see how he had an aerial view of the Sacramento River woven into a carpet for the floor of a pedestrian bridge connecting the Sacramento International Airport terminal to the parking garage."

"The irony is that at the same time that all these artistic possibilities are opening up, folks are receiving less and less art education in schools..."

"This image represents approximately 50 miles of the Sacramento River starting just outside of Colusa, California and ending about 6 miles south of Chico."

visit sunny iceland....

visit sunny iceland....
Originally uploaded by _rebekka.

Flickr "Interestingness"

Flickr never ceases to amaze. The new "Interestingness" feature, and particularly how it interacts with the Explore page, ...no words to describe the extent as to which it rocks.

"There are lots of things that make a photo 'interesting' (or not) in the Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic photos and stories are added to Flickr."

I wondered if any of my photos came close to being "interesting" based on Flickr metrics. The closest I came was for one of my Hawksbill Crag photos ..on page 16 of December 2004.