Is there a silver lining in this otherwise cloudy state? Yes. What often gets overlooked is design and the role it has played in defining who we are as a state. Michigan has a robust history woven into the fabric of it’s existence. We are a state defined by design and innovation: Henry Ford and the assembly line, Cranbrook and the roots of graphic design post-modernism, Hermen Miller and furniture design, just to name a few. Although Hermen Miller continues to be a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy, Michigan is in a rut. Does innovation exist anymore? Many prominent firms are downsizing due to a reliance on the antiquated automotive industry. Agencies are outsourcing work to the east and west coast because they are want “cutting edge” solutions. Yet, we have extremely talented students graduating from some great local programs and entering a market that is not quite sure how to handle them. We also have a strong core of studios bleeding talent and expertise. What is it that’s keeps us from reaching new levels of innovation? Are we dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants unable to cast a new vision for ourselves? Why can’t we look beyond what we currently have and capitalize on our potential. Having just finished a book entitled “Good to Great,” the author Jim Collins states “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.” I realized after reading this passage that although he was talking about companies this philosophy could easily apply to a town, city or state. It definitely can apply to Michigan in general and Detroit in particular.

So my premise for this article is this: what can we do as students, educators and professional designers to contribute to the rise of the Michigan design economy and make design a powerful tool for economic transformation? How do we get people to stop and notice that Michigan design is still relevant and powerful? No, it’s not naive to think that our design community can instigate change, but I do believe that it will take the effort of many and the vision of a few for us to make our collective design voice heard.

The next question needing to be addressed is how do we get there? It would be an impossible task for me to tackle such a large topic in one small article. If I have one piece of advice to give, it would be to create opportunities. Let me explain. Like death and taxes, paying off student loans is inevitable. As higher education costs continue to escalate, students have to maintain one, two and sometimes three jobs to avoid a devastating amount of debt. Unlike other countries who recognize the value and the strategic future of design, the United States has not historically embraced it. Having traveled to the Netherlands the past couple of summers, it’s both inspiring and frustrating to hear that government grants are readily available for recent grads to pursue their work and develop their skills without the pressure of having to get a “regular” job. The benefit is two-fold: students are able to pursue jobs that wouldn’t normally pay the bills but challenges them as designers and allows them to develop a critical voice. In most cases they are also able to build a base of clients that sustain them after their government funding has dried up. Second, the government has invested in the students future. In return, the students stay and the government benefits from their expertise and money that is injected back into the economy. We don’t have the same options here, so we have to make opportunities. I encourage designers to seek out collaborations with like-minded designers and artists. Strength is in numbers. Looking to classmates who share similar ideologies and seeking out relationships with artists and designers that share a geographic proximity will not only be a practical networking tool but will motivate us to greater things. It’s not always easy to work a full day and then come home to begin working on other projects. But with motivation and a group of colleagues pushing you towards a similar goal, side projects sometimes considered cumbersome can quickly turn into inspiring initiatives that fund themselves and present new career options.

Another strategy is to start projects that benefit other individuals and/or organizations. Whether it’s donating your design fees to a local non-for-profit or creating your own projects with proceeds benefiting a worthy cause; design can become an ambassador for goodwill. It can also educate a general public that generally lacks a sophisticated design palette. It is not my intent to bash the non-design population, but it is a fact that design can be seen as an elitist activity that the public generally does not understand. This is our problem to fix. The more exposure we can generate the greater level of public design literacy we can achieve.

And finally and most importantly, we need to promote our design community. Even though it’s not a design organization, GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) is a great model for us to follow. It was founded by two twenty-something Great Lakes residents, as a multi-media documentary, networking, and creative research effort to encapsulate day-to-day experiences in “declining” post-industrial cities and answer the question: what’s right and what’s wrong about my post-industrial city? What would happen if we applied this model to our design community. We need to tell our stories but lack the effective mechanisms to do so. We need less pessimism, more optimism and people to step forward and make change. When expectations are low, impact can be high. Whether large or small, if we collectively work together we can begin to shift the design paradigm.

Somewhere along the lasting line of design school history, it was declared that life after graduation was the end of the world as we once knew it. The blissfully invigorating freedom we’ve all come so accustomed to, slowly sinks away when we enter the world of professional practice. Life after love is rooted in this restrictive world; a world where clients exist as the people to please, and our original and innovative design ideas vanquish in the face of subjection.

I find this particular way of assessing life after love a bit dispiriting. If love is supposed to be a formula for deep affection and intensely passionate feelings, then where does that leave one without it? In the absence of love, are we to be continually miserable? Are we to dejectedly mope around mourning the loss of what we once held so close, desperately longing for anything to fill the void in our loveless hearts? Is that what life after love really is? Is that what life after design school truly looks like?

More…

I was recently perusing our school’s library when I came across a book entitled, “Life After…A Practical Guide to Life After Your Degree.” Flipping through the contents, I quickly learned that this book was outlining, in 150 pages or less, how to best put a newly earned degree to practice, while acquiring and retaining the job of your dreams. In a carefully spelled out, step-by-step guide, this publication would help ensure its reader that they were on the right career path, help them learn how to keep their motivation levels high while searching for various positions, guide them through the wonders of networking, and explain the proper way to make the transition from “scholar to worker.” Of course, following these easy steps is guaranteed to ensure any candidate a fulfilling and “good life.”

How incredible, I thought. What a wonderfully convenient resource! How nice it was to have found this handy, travel-size life manual to help guide me through, the long and miserable path towards my loveless life. Of course, this book, like many others of its kind, assumes that current graduates will earn their degree, prepare an impressive portfolio, find a job, and live happily ever-after in a nice new office, supplied with nice new macs, working for well-paying clients. Indeed this is one scenario. But, on the other hand, what tends to be omitted from guides like this one, is the advice that tells a recent design school graduate how to adjust to professional surroundings after spending four exploratory years within a rigorous academic environment.

Perhaps this portion of life after our degree is left out on purpose? After all, the real world, I’m advised, can be somewhat discouraging. An instructor once told me that I better enjoy the freedom that I have while I’m still in school, for once graduated I’ll be at the mercy of a client and their design “expertise.” As a rather young student back then, I remember thinking, how awful of a thing to say to someone. It was just so pessimistic. I assured myself then that I wouldn’t be THAT type of designer, and remained convinced that I would surely be able to find a job that would give me maximum control over all my design decisions. However, as I’ve advanced further and further in my four year program, I too am leaning on the side of pessimism. As students, we continually hear about the “client driven world” we’re about to enter. We’re assured that the late nights and long hours still exist and that original work often gets disregarded in favor of the trendy or cliche.

Sometimes I feel like design students are subject to a massive prank. We’re taught how to think in new ways, and are exposed to innovative work around the globe, but are subsequently told that our authorial rights end when we leave school. If life after school is indeed all about succumbing to clients, budgets, and consumerism, then why do we spend four long years of our young adult lives, killing ourselves to create smart, idea driven design? What’s the point?

In the three and a half years that I’ve been a college student, design school has become a great love. Regardless of common opinion, I tend to believe that life after school will provide me with just as much satisfaction. To ensure that we’re all more apt to reach this fulfillment, I suggest that we instigate a new optimism into design culture and practice. Life after school mustn’t be viewed with such negativity and despair, but rather with fresh hope and expectation. Designers have a unique talent, granted the ability to alter the way we utilize, view, and experience the things and ideas in our everyday lives. Perhaps our next step should be to change the way society uses, views, and experiences designers. As class after class of young designers receive their respected diplomas, they are given a responsibility to fulfill. Rather then moan and groan about the way professional practice operates, why don’t we change it? Lets start believing in a different life after love.

Recently, I spent a solid half hour in the school cafeteria, chatting away with another student. We were table mates by default really, she approaching me and my unoccupied seats in a desperate attempt to find for herself a place to land and enjoy her lunch. I introduced myself, she did the same, and we proceeded to talk about a variety of topics ranging from Detroit to the over-priced sandwiches offered in the cafe. As we casually spoke to one another, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow…how nice; how exciting to be interacting with a student from another discipline.” Then, as we both described the structures of our respected curriculums, along with the type of classes that we each take, something happened. This girl, this seemingly pleasant girl, looked me dead in the eye and said: “You see, the thing I don’t get about graphic design is that you’ll do anything to make money…it’s like you sell yourselves out.”

I’m not certain, but I would venture to guess that my mouth dropped wide open, and hung in that position for several unnoticed minutes. I couldn’t believe it! Why would someone say such a thing? Where would one get such an exaggerated idea? Not wanting to cause a scene nor let the ignorance of my “new friend” upset me, I made a stupid joke, (something about designers as prostitutes) hastily finished my lunch, and removed myself from the table.

Since this amusing little episode, I’ve spent a good deal of time dwelling over this girl’s comment. I have begun to realize that this wasn’t an insult from a malicious or arrogant student, but rather an insult from the uninformed. If she, an art student herself, hasn’t the faintest ideas what a graphic designer does, what does the rest of the world think? I certainly know what the majority of people in my world think: My dentist thinks that I design buildings, my next door neighbor is certain that I design cars, and even my own mother brags to her friends that I make “billboards and stuff.” If design surrounds us, if it truly is everywhere, then why do so few people seem to have an understanding of what it is?

I am less concerned with how the design profession has gotten itself into this predicament, (perhaps I or another interested party will explore that bit of history in another post) and much more interested in how we may be able to change the skewed view of design that many hold. Truth be told, there exists no miniature pocket pamphlet that describes for the general public, in 100 words or less, “What is Graphic Design.” In fact, if such a leaflet did exist, it would be very difficult to sum up the broad, and continually evolving field into a concise and decipherable paragraph. And how on earth, might we be able to present a comprehensive definition of design to the general public, if designers themselves cannot even agree. Conflicting ideas constantly surface among design students and practitioners, sparking sometimes heated debates on almost every thinkable design issue. One only has to look as far as the next up and coming blog to see the plethora of differing viewpoints on a variety of different topics. Indeed there seems to be very few common agreements found within the growing design discourse. Yet, I would defend the wide range of viewpoints, the countless number of diverse voices, and the continual questions designers like to throw at one another. Design discourse must uphold this critical nature if design is to continue shifting and adapting within the existing culture. Disagreement simply comes with the territory.

This, of course, still leaves the problem of defining ourselves to the non-designing public. With the birth and growth of DIY culture (see PERSPECTIVE magazine) everyone can be a “designer” these days. Its plausible to think that someone may design their own logo, stick it on all of their collateral and presume that professional graphic designers do the same thing. Anyone with a design background or knowledge of the profession and its history knows well enough that design has just as much to do with the “why” behind the creation of things as it has to do with the creation of the thing itself. Yet to the general public, this question of “why” along with all of the research and thought that forms the basis of our design decisions, gets overlooked. And really, when you think about it, how could it not? One cannot physically SEE the creative process develop, but they can see the logo you’ve made for them, which was really all they asked for in the first place. The focus rests on the tangible; the logo, book, website, poster, or billboard that you’ve created. The creative process, the inherent part of design that we politely ask our clients and teachers to trust that we’re doing, matters only to the design creator, not the design consumer. Perhaps here lies where things must change. If designers themselves, begin to describe their work in terms of the “why,” the “how,” and the “because of,” moving deeper then just a physical result, then perhaps designers and non-designers alike can head towards a direction of common understanding. Though designers may not all agree on issues of sustainability, or have identical methods in client relations, or use the same typefaces, the one thing that we all share is a common understanding and respect of the creative process. We must move away from defining our profession by the things we make, and instead focus on the significant ways we get there.

We have reached that interesting point in the semester. Time is running out. The semester is ending, and deadlines are fast approaching. As time disappears our days get longer, and before we know it the line between dusk and dawn becomes blurred. We begin to shoot coffee by the gallons and intake sugar by the pounds. Projects must be complete and there is no room for error; not from the individual or from the accompanying machine.

For many of us, these remaining weeks in the semester become the seemingly ceaseless road that we must travel in order to reach the final payoff of rest and relaxation. For others, these next 300 hours are nothing new, as the adrenaline/caffeine fueled routine that success seems to require has been inherent in our processes all year long. We all work very hard, and by this point, we’ve built an incredible endurance and unaltered acceptance, (or at the very least a tolerance) for the grueling routine needed to complete our design educations.

Yet something concerns me. Students in the first portion of their undergraduate education brag to their friends about having to stay up all night. They proudly where yesterdays clothes, as if their unchanged outfits signify endurance, and carry bottles of energy drinks like some sort of weird, rightly earned trophy. (If you’re skeptical of my claim, ride the elevator in the ACB once or twice. Many weary-eye students will boldly tell you of their arduous nights, or just how incredibly demanding their major is, as if they’re the only one experiencing such strain). They haven’t yet learned. But by the latter part of our undergraduate education something disappears. The fun characteristics often associated with sleepless nights turn to fits of rage. The caffeine trophies we once carried proudly have literally lost their effect, and our repeat outfits only remind us that we lack the time to do laundry, adding to the fury. For many, it is here where design ceases to be fun. This is the point where we begin to compare our hectic lives to the lives of our “other” friends, and gripe at the unfairness. We have all reached that point, and simply put: if we’re still awake we’re good and burnt out.

Yet it seems pointless to rant about how much our lives suck or how mind numbingly exhausted we all are. It’s worthless to place the blame on our so-called “unsympathetic” teachers, as they too have rightly payed their dues to the rigor of a design education. I think the question to address is WHY design culture, both academically and professionally seems to always be racing the clock? When did graphic designers become 24 hour slaves to client deadlines and/or self proclaimed workaholics, who would sell their soul if it meant reaching that deadline on time? This isn’t an argument against productiveness or deadlines. One cannot deny that ultimate feeling of accomplishment when you’ve successfully completed a lengthy and grueling project, “on time.” I am more concerned with the seemingly constant demand placed on designers to follow unrealistic timelines.

In her article Cult of the ASAP (http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027657.html), Meredith Davis writes that many designers, “who promise unrealistic turnaround on projects” are at risk of “closing down any time for reflection” on the work they’re creating. Our ability to examine our own work as it relates to the world around us ends up being sacrificed to get the thing out the door. Not to mention, when one works with severe intensity all the time, they’re often sacrificing their own health and well-being for the sake of a project. We talk about better design coming from everyday observation. We discuss the need for designers to pull themselves away from their computer screens every once in a while and focus their attention on things outside of design. But with such high demands expected from designers, who has the time?

Of course to change the face that graphic design has established for itself, will take a lot more then this author’s singular opinion. Perhaps then the key for all of us, in the meantime, is to establish a balance for ourselves. As we leave school and transgress fully into the world of professional practice we each must individually establish our own set of priorities…call them life priorities. Graphic design, no matter how wholeheartedly devoted to, or 100% focused on we may be, is merely a small component of a generally bigger picture. Figure out how graphic design fits into your life…not how it controls it.

This interview originated from the Schools of Thought Conference 3 where I presented on the use of technology in the classroom and how it will change graphic design education. This following exchange happened between myself and the moderator of my panel. Megan and I thought it would be relevant to revisit as she has contributed her own questions to supplement the conversation.

What do you teach?
C: I teach typography, time-based media, visual communications and graphic design history.

What technology to do you use in the classroom during your classes?
C: In the class, I don’t use any particularly special technology. The usual suspects include the erasable whiteboard and digital projector.

What technology to do you use to extend the classroom experience?
C: It’s outside the classroom where technology really helps me deliver content and facilitate community within the classroom. In particular, I use instant messaging, meta-tagging, bookmaking, file sharing, ftp, blogs and remote file storage. Currently, these tools and techniques manifest themselves in programs like adium, aim and bonjour or online communities such as flickr, delicious, feedmelinks and youtube.

Why did you start using these particular tools?
C: I started using these tools out of necessity. I began to realize the ease in which the students were sharing information. I also realized how increasingly frustrated I was getting by using the technology that was available to me a teacher working for a college/institution. I am very familiar with technologies such as blackboard and d2l and how they reflect the best and worst in content delivery. They certainly have the potential to be powerful, but unless the developers begin to acknowledge the lack of intuitiveness and poor design and work to fix the interface, it’s hard to rely on them in the classroom. These online content-delivery systems are not best practice. I am part of a department that teaches students a core of both interactive and print media. Simply put, we need to practice what we preach.

What’s so special about these tools?
C: They are inexpensive (if not free) and the learning curve is short. Most importantly, these tools are peer-to-peer. They don’t need a teacher or moderator to “control” the exchange of information. Rather, the students can interact however or to whoever they wish. Honesty and trust are important aspect of online communities. With someone facilitating the site or community, responses and interest will not be truly genuine: the students might be afraid of retribution.

What exactly are you doing with the tools?
C: I’m an advocate for the sharing of information. I am developing tools that help the students get the information in formats they are comfortable with. I am creating dynamic syllabi and project sites that students can share information. I enable my students to edit my bookmarks while adding their own research to the class content. I am not only sharing isbn numbers so they can buy or check out books, I am sharing online text, bookmarks, videos and images that are relevant to their topics. And most importantly, I am shifting the teacher-student model of learning so the student are more responsible for the content they are learning and in turn, they become more vested in the class.

M: So, it sounds like you rely on new technology more heavily outside the classroom then within. If you rely on these means to “deliver content” and/or “facilitate community,” are your students absolutely required to familiarize themselves with these means in order to “keep-up” or be an active participant in your class? Is it a “necessity?” If so, is it the student’s responsibility to learn how to use these new methods of communication, (if they don’t already) or does it become the instructor’s role to teach these new methods?
C: Outside the classroom, where most of the students work is completed, is an important time for the incubation of ideas and experimentation in form. Students need a sounding board that allows them to seek criticism and validation for their ideas. Online technology allows for such interaction to occur. At CCS, the dedicated students understand this and incorporate it into their process. They also realize that the reality is that there is simply not enough time during class to discover all the answers. The majority of thinking, doing and refining is completed at night and/or weekends. I can encourage interaction by using the tools in class and discuss the power of collaboration, but I certainly can’t force the students to utilize the technology if they don’t care.

Do blogs work for teaching design? Why/why not?
I think blogs are extremely relevant in teaching design. But they are just one form of online communication. As I said earlier, education blogs have a tendency to be a top-down structure. If they are to be used then they must be a safe community that fosters the exchange of ideas regardless of how ridiculous or mundane.

How is it affecting your relationship with your students?
C: As previously stated, this digital approach to teaching makes information delivery efficient and effective. It also allows the some information to be accessible 365 days a year. Without setting boundaries, some students believe that you should be available anytime. For example, I have just recently started to have one hour of office hours a week online. I establish a time and make sure if they want to talk they either send me a link where their images or photographs are located or they send a file directly. This way I can give specific feedback to a project. Otherwise I am talking about an idea that doesn’t exist and that is a waste of time for both parties.

How is it affecting the students’ relationships with each other?
C: This is the most exciting of online tools. Students are growing closer to each other because they depend on communication outside the classroom. Without a shared studio space, interaction is limited. Having surveyed my students online activities and the number of peers they interact with doing homework, I find it very encouraging that students are seeking each other out. And the dialogue outside the classroom is a reality.

Do these tool replace any “face time” with your students?
C: They certainly don’t replace, but they do facilitate the exchange of ideas. I encourage my students to have a dialogue outside of class. Even a simple conversation or quick online crit of a peer’s work will point out obvious strengths or weakness, That criticism, whether good or bad, makes the classroom time more valuable because for example, less time can be spent talking about basic composition problems and more time spent on appropriateness and concept.

Is distance learning viable? Does it really work? What about the quality of this type of education versus the traditional classroom experience?
C: My intention is to use technology to create a peer-driven dialogue. Of course, distance learning has its place and is appropriate for certain kinds of teaching. But for design, the most valuable aspect is the face-to face communication with your student and having an exchange of ideas. Being able to watch how a student reacts to a critique is an important aspect to understanding the psyche of a student. Body language and facial expressions let you truly know how a student is dealing with a problem. Web cameras are a good alternative, but until resolution and bandwidth increase greatly, nothing will replace the intimacy of a face-to-face critique.

M: Do you think students who don’t take advantage of, (or are unfamiliar with) online methods of communication are missing out on a critical part of the design process?
C: Yes, I do. But I do think it’s dependent on the situation. For CCS, our environment is quite transitory. The classroom is the meeting place to present our ideas. But the bulk of the work is completed outside school. Students need a mechanism that allows them to share ideas. If CCS had dedicated workspace then online communication becomes less important. For example, in grad school our communication took place in our studio spaces. Even when others weren’t around we could look at our classmates desks and see what they were looking at and how productive they were. Creative energy became tangible when we were able to see visuals pinned to the desk or taped to the walls. We worked hard and developed a healthy but competitive environment because we didn’t want to be outdone by our peers. Students in grad school who didn’t work in their studios tended to have sub-par work because they were unwilling to share and be an active participant in the creative community. We don’t have the luxury of physical proximity at CCS so a virtual studio must exist. Most students realize that this exists, but whether they decide to engage is up to them.

How have students changed (or not) since you began teaching?
C: Students are always seeking out new technology and they are not afraid of embracing new modes of thought. I don’t think students have changed, I think they have always been adaptable and with the proliferation of technology available at their fingertips, students remind us who the real media savants are.

Do your colleagues use them? Why or why not?
C: Yes. I can’t say all of them, but a good number of my colleagues are willing to try. I think it has to do with time. Just like with any tool, you must learn how to effectively use it. Otherwise, the user is prone to making mistakes. Being unfamiliar with new online tools breeds doubt, but once teachers get beyond the obstacle of learning how the tools work, they realize that good tools can actually speed up the delivery of information. Thus making their job easier.

M: Yes, I’ve had some instructors who encourage these methods of communicating, and several others who prefer more analog methods. In some situations, it would seem that students may have more knowledge or be slightly more “technology savvy” then their instructors. If this is the case, does it become the instructor’s responsibility to “keep up” and learn how to use new technology, so as to not hinder the student’s progression?
C: I don’t think instructors can afford not to learn new methods. That being said, technology is constantly changing and keeping up with software and applications can be daunting, not too mention expensive. But that is the good part about the aforementioned methods, most of these applications are free and easy to use. An effective graphic design studio integrates all forms of media and must be savvy in their use to compete in today’s workplace. The inability to adapt can lead to a complacent classroom. And yes, you are correct, the students consume media and technology at an astonishing rate. Some of the tools I utilize I learned directly from watching my students. They are a great barometer of technological trends and I am constantly asking them for feedback.

M: Do you see any downfalls to student’s excessive use of online communication?
Many students live online and don’t know how to unplug. Others lack the discretion of knowing when being online is appropriate. During presentations or crits, I’ll have students trying to sneak back on their laptop or cell phone to check messages that are not relevant to the class. It becomes a distraction and is disrespectful to their classmates and teachers. I now must stipulate on the class syllabus that cell phones need to be turned off. I also need to instruct students to turn off monitors or close laptops during presentations.
These bad habits are starting to carry over to the workplace. Employers are now starting to stipulate guidelines that applications like instant messenging are not allowed during a typical workday. Work habits are suffering because those who live online, by nature, can digest lots of different information but often are unable to focus for moderate periods of time. Eventually students must realize they need to balance their online consumption with the demands and considerations of everyday life.

I’m inclined to think that the reading habits of students today are headed toward a slow decline. This, I feel, has little to do with the capability of students, but rather, is due in part to the way that information is received. With more and more intelligible information being posted on blogs and other online sites, the internet is becoming many student’s prime source, and often only source, for obtaining information. But with it’s immediacy and ease of access, I’m left wondering if students are really taking the time to contemplate and assess what they’re reading?

It would seem that many common everyday internet users, myself included, find long, densely written texts appearing online to be quite repelling. Though I’ve become increasingly interested in reading such articles, often intentionally searching for them, I’ve always found the need to hit PRINT before I can really start to analyze the text. My vexation in reading online documents has to do with a few key things:

1) I have trouble staring at a computer screen for the extended period of time such close readings often require.

2)I like to be able to highlight, notate, cut-apart, draw connections, or otherwise analyze the text that I’m reading, something that the computer screen (currently) keeps me from doing.

3) And perhaps the most noteworthy: I maintain these constant feelings of anxiety when reading online, that in part, are due to the shifting/updating/evolving nature of the web. (Take for an example a design blog. A blog never looks the same as when one leaves it last. The information is constantly developing or being added, all of which vies for the reader’s attention with each new visit. Compare this to the book that’s been sitting next to your bed for two months; when you eventually pick it up again and turn to the page with the folded corner, it will appear exactly as you left it.)

In her article, “Birth of the User,” Ellen Lupton notes that the “impatient” digital reader expects a different form of reading online, then they do in books. Rather then be in “processing” mode, online readers are in “search” mode. Instead of being “contemplative,” they expect to be “productive.” It is as if the amount of material collected from the countless number of online sources becomes more important then the texts themselves. Yet by casually gathering and bookmarking these sources, we’re really only collecting a pile of synonymous material, and in many cases not giving ourselves the proper amount of time to actually process the information, before moving onto the next latest and greatest source.

My intention is not to discriminate online users from reading. In fact, if you have the long-lasting attention span for it…congratulations. The internet is of course still the best way to distribute information to the masses, giving everyone equal opportunity to publish and/or access the same knowledge. What remains of interest to me is how the reading habits of online users may effect, or is effecting the way that one designs for print. Do our short online attention spans reshape the way that we read books? Are books still the most appropriate place for extended reading? How has the web configured a new generation of users, and in what ways will the reading habits of users/readers effect the way that we design?

Sitting inside Bowling Green State University’s Olscamp Hall, we anxiously awaited Marian to “take the stage,” and deliver for us a mystifying lecture on life, love, and pursing design bliss. That she did. In a typical University lecture environment, complete with rows of gradually descending chairs that magically become desks, Marian engaged her student audience for a solid 90 minutes. The Vancouver residing designer was, to my surprise, a very dynamic speaker, telling the individual story of each piece as it appeared on screen. It quickly became apparent that Bantjes has a profound attachment to her work, though she discussed each piece in a very modest way – an approach that I found to be quite refreshing. Referring to her winning t-shirt design for a Speak-Up competition, (the victory she deems responsible for her growing success), Marian states that “It (being the design) won the competition.” She refers to the work itself as being the real winner, as opposed to saying “I won the competition”, or “MY design was the winner.” This unpretentiousness carried through her entire talk.

In fact, I believe that the designer’s positive attitude may have been the most useful thing for student audience members to take with them. Marian possesses a very grounded outlook, despite her growing success within the design community. Her sense of curiousity and wonderment towards new creative endeavors is an attitude that students can relate to and learn from. As she displays on screen a line of type, set completely in sugar, Marian encourages students to test out their ideas for themselves, trying everything once and not limiting means of discovery. Her best advice: “Keep moving in a direction that you feel is right, and hope that people will follow.”

More on Marian at: http://www.bantjes.com/