So this isn't directly related to my project but both of these experiences really contributed to the way I view my project and its significance.
This week a group of UW students went to Hornall Anderson to talk about experience/interactive design. One of the really interesting elements was hearing them explain that when they say experience or interactive design, it's not just websites it's anything that is interacted with. I don't see myself as having very good web skills but I do think that I could excel in some element of developing an experience. What really made me think specifically about my project was the first work example that they showed. I forget the exact details but it was for T-Mobile and an event that helped to assert T-Mobile's relationship with the NBA. The work itself was extremely impressive, of course. However, part way through the presentation I started to wonder how much money went into that experience and for what purpose, and I became increasingly less comfortable. It was really interesting for me to have a more active opportunity to understand what I would have, or could have, done if I had been a part of that team. The work they do at HADW is almost always clean, efficient, beautiful...all of the things that we are taught to do well in our formal education. It was far easier to look at the project and accept it as good based on it's immediately observable qualities, as we are, as designers, people attracted and responsive to good aesthetics. It reinforced the content of my project and helped me to see some greater relevance to it. I think that the majority of us chose this profession because we are people naturally drawn to the aesthetic and functional qualities of our surroundings. Because this is something to which we are naturally attuned, these are the qualities that must be built upon and refined in school and with practice, but other qualities must be more purposefully taught. Perhaps understanding how ethics relates to this job, or how your successful work contributes to a company or the economy, is something that we need to address explicitly.
Again, the relevance, and I think the content, of my project was emphasized at the Cornish BFA show. It is definitely clear that they spend much more of their time in studio, especially compared to DS. For the visual communications major, the projects and installations were, for the most part, very impressive. There were many projects with really interesting content as well - a visual system for individual rehabilitation focused on war veterans, an investigation of design using hand craft without the computer, and the identity for what seemed to basically be a sustainability guide and resource hub. I suppose it's possible I set my expectations at an unreasonably high level, and I acknowledge that the intention of their senior project might be quite different than ours, but overall I felt that their senior projects were not extremely ambitious. This is not to say that they didn't take a great amount of hard work and time, but many of the projects seemed to be a very professional display of any other portfolio piece. I'm trying not to talk negatively, just make a comparison, because the quality of the work was exceptional but seemed somewhat limited in scope.
The basic benefit of this week was that I see my project as something extremely relevant and interesting, and while I feel nervous that I have taken on a bigger project than I have time to finish, I'm glad I'm doing it.
That is all.
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