Design Thinking

I think that a little self denial is not a bad thing, so I'm giving up Facebook for Lent. I'm not Catholic, but I think its healthy to keep things in perspective, and considering I was checking FB upwards of ten times a day, I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time. So, I logged out, changed my email to an account I never use, deleted my normal email account from the site, and changed both the password of my facebook account and the mail account to something I'll probably forget in the fullness of time. So we'll see how well this works.

It's been a week of reviews for me- talking about ideas for Design Thinking and ideas for studio. I spent a lot of time working on a physical model which paid off really well- I got a lot of feedback and criticism on the design, and its much more fluid and intuitive way of working for me. I'm finally figuring out my architectural method. I did mess around with some sketchup first though, I do admit. 

Here's my revised design thinking book, updated and expanded from last time:

Open publication - Free publishing - More observatory

More Pie a la Node

Steelcase is one of the major furniture companies in the world. They recently designed an update to the traditional school desk/chair unit called the Node. As part of the updated features, they also designed the chair much much wider, and built it to withstand a 300 pound high school student plopping into it. The photo on the right is from the Steelcase website.



I oftentimes struggle with the idea of designers as enablers. There are some who believe that it is the responsibility of the designer to reflect the culture and customs of its users. American kids are fat and it would not surprise me to soon see federal prohibitions on discrimination against obesity, similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Additionally, I think everyone should go to school, and to that end, that they should be encouraged and feel comfortable in school.

However, I worry that the gradual oversizing of all seating will lead to complacency with obesity. If you don't fit into a standard seat, there's a problem. Real and immediate, and a direct consequence of being unhealthy. I do believe that most people who are overweight wish that they were more thin. However, wishes do not translate into direct action and while many think lean thoughts, America as a whole gets wider and more unhealthy.

I believe in individual responsibility, but at the same time, I think that American culture has enabled this obesity epidemic. People make choices about what to eat and how much exercise to get, but our work and food and city environments strongly influence those decisions. Designers have a direct hand in the expression of material culture. It is worth stating my own belief in the matter that "if you build it, they will come," or in other words, if you start designing gun racks at restaurant entrances, you're going to see many more people packing heat to dinner. Maybe that's just a designer's conceit, and that really we are marionettes who dance on the end of the strings. I believe that we can jerk the strings back.

Mai and Mai Tai

Yesterday was a really busy day. I worked through lunch on a design charette (design brainstorming) with a group on how to develop the NE corner of Mesa-Phoenix Gateway airport. There's going to be a huge resort/conference center moving into the massive property to the NE of the airport, which it made sense to tie into with our schemes. So that was kind of fun. The rest of the afternoon was not so much fun as we discovered some problems with our building and what we needed to do to fully understand and remedy them. Not fun discussions, but interesting ones to sit in on. The after-work beer on the patio was definitely deserved. 

After, we decided to pick up a friend of ours, Mai, and go out for some drinks. Mai's been one of our good friends for awhile, a Japanese industrial designer. She really loves Phoenix, so its a real shame that the economy is so bad. She's flying back to Japan next week. Anyway, we took her Trader Vic's which was oddly hopping for after 9pm on a summer thursday night, including a live band which thankfully went away after about half an hour.Good time for drink and food specials too. I grabbed a Mai Tai (my favorite drink) and Saori and Mai grabbed some other tropical libations, and we munched on beef cho-chos and panko shrimp. It was nice.

I had one beer when I came home, and one mai tai several hours later, so tell me why I still felt hung over when I woke up. Sand and grit behind my eyeballs, stomach is tight, water, toast, aspirin, back to bed for a few more hours. 

Just in time for the World Cup.

Dude, I should totally start a webpage

I've been kicking around the idea of making a website. The idea is that when I am in graduate school, I'm going to be meeting a lot of people and making a lot of contacts, both professionally, personally, and academically (and a fusion of all of the above), and I think it would be useful for someone who has my business card to have a website to go to that tells them "ok, so this is what Alec is about." Specifically, potential future employers and design / social collaborators. It would have:

• Professional work
• Student work
• Competitions
• Nonprofit work
• Resume
• and maybe even a link to my blog hidden somewhere in the site for people who really read every little detail on every page.

One issue is domain name. I can get www.aperk.us.but I'd really prefer a .com domain. I could go with studioap.net or apworks.net as well. I can get a domain for two years for about $7 a month. And that's with a premium 'eco' provider who run their servers on wind power.

One of the problems with working in the field of design is that your website needs to look and feel designed. No one is going to hire you for serious design work if your website looks like crap. This is an example of how my classmates are representing themselves on the net: http://www.patrick-riddle.com/ This is my aunt and uncle's website: http://scheerandscheer.com/. One's a little more flashy, ones a little more simple, but they're both really slick. I think if I create a site, I'm going to go for few elements and clean design with the hope that it will be read as "minimalsist" instead of "didn't want to shell out the bucks for a professional webpage designer." 

Thinking about that now, what kind of statement does THAT make? Please spend money on me to do design work for you, but when I needed a professional designer for a different trade, I cheaped out on a DIY website. This would bear closer inspection. Hell, talking about starting a website is like talking about starting a band.