Universal Skills in Design: a Common Language

Happy "Post-Christmas" everybody!

With the book now available in the United States, life is good, and I continue to really think about my role as a designer—from a much broader and expansive height.

When I set out on my “design path” I was young—and honestly: design for me was more a way to make some money drawing and being “creative.” Over the years, I have had numerous opportunities to reflect on growing up, and how I have changed. Then today, I read this post and started thinking about the bigger picture.

While co-writing the book “Stories that Move Mountains,” I started to feel like I was finally seeing first hand, how design is really a mindset—part of an approach that drives collaboration and is not just about “specializing” in design. There is Instructional Design, Graphic design, Interior Design and Industrial Design—to name a few, but it starts with design intention, the common desire to create something useful for client AND consumer.

Design IS about the creative approach towards this end-goal, regardless of your specialty area, and at this time in my career I think I am finally seeing that often our specialties just get in the way. We all need to specialize, but the conversation and collaboration are most exciting when we drop the walls of our own specialized languages and look for common ways to communicate the same goals—regardless of final delivery mechanisms.

Let’s just talk DESIGN.

Perhaps it’s about why I got into this to begin with… I liked to express myself through creative means. I never really cared about being a “graphic designer,” and being an “Instructional Designer” is fine too, but sometimes the role just plain gets in the way, doesn’t it?

I like art, learning and being creative—trying new things every day.

This is how I ended up on the path to trying new things in art, music, teaching, etc.

I just liked the topics… I never really wanted to BE the role. I thought I did… or rather thought I ‘should’ have a role to prove something.

It no longer really matters though, is no longer relevant, and is only a matter of convenience, when titles are needed. I’m a person first… with general communication and consulting skills first. Then there is design… a broad area. Learning happens when people are not so quick to label everything.

Design has become a really big deal for me, and less about what anyone would normally think of as ‘being creative.’ A key premise for my blog, for instance, is design from a life approach perspective. I applied some “life design” over the last few years… shifting career focus from college education to corporate training. I did this through a process of analyzing economic niches and needs, as well as what would capitalize on what I enjoyed and did well. I transferred a great deal of strength into new areas. This is at the core of design-focused thinking: transferring key skills across new areas.

My life turned out to be something much richer than just drawing pictures. I became a designer that was relatively happy, doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I led a life of design education and taught in many colleges for almost 15 years.

It fostered a love for learning—my own learning—as well as helping others learn and achieve their own goals (through teaching, coaching and instructional design). I still love to make music and art, but I also design for learning. From a higher level, it follows similar processes across the board.

Whether it’s math, science, engineering, visual arts, music, psychology, sociology…

We can all benefit from design, and design thinking.

Things are really starting to happen, hitting us in torrents in an increasingly connected world, and fortunately, we’re starting to realize the value in design. Reports are finding that “design schools are not only a major source of new talent for the economy's rapidly growing creative sector, but are critical catalysts for entrepreneurship.”

David writes: “Design, broadly defined, is an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving that seeks to develop more effective products, environments, and organizations. At its heart, design is about understanding people and how they interact in the larger world.”

This quote ends on a key point: design from a systems perspective, meaning we design our environment—and everything in it, in a much bigger system. The system just keeps expanding, and more sustaining and successful solutions exist when they take the bigger picture into consideration.

NONE of these issues focus explicitly on art, graphic design, architecture, interior design or any of the “creative professions.” They exist across everything, and signify a way of thinking, not a specific way of doing.

Nigel Cross would be proud, as he has a great body of work encompassing what he calls “Designerly Ways of Knowing.” His work over the last 40 years has developed from the basic premise that designers (whether architects, engineers, product designers, etc.) have and use particular ‘designerly’ ways of knowing and thinking. This continues to expand beyond the professions listed above…

And seeing and discovering that human innovation may hinge on a design-thinking approach that crosses all boundaries to true inter-disciplinary kinship…

Here’s to letting go of job titles!

m

Looking for the “LUL” in the Conversation: The New Design Language

I just had a GREAT conversation this morning with my two fellow co-authors. This book is going to also be GREAT!

Combining the post meeting high, with the endorphins of a fabulous Sunday bike ride around Seattle, and you’ve got me cycling around Seattle in another fabulous creative thought-flow.

My two co-authors have a very different background than I do. We’re all techno-geeks of sorts, but Nick and Martin come from the land of IT and software architecture. We kid, we have fun, but we also get some truly great work done through some equally fabulous conversations.

Why are those conversations valuable? Well, as I focus on the visual interpretation and design of what can often be very complex information, we’re all focused on finding a way to help others tell their stories. The audience for our book is a wide group of people that are interested in the best strategies to build up a case, and convince their stakeholders to take action after viewing their presentations.

SO back to our conversation… Where I’m going here is that this situation is not unlike a situation that any consultant, freelancer or designer will experience. It’s about what happens in the conversation, and what you can do to drive a successful solution to completion. I realized I could actually break it down into a nice acronym—“LUL.”

When in consult with clients, stakeholders or collaborators try this on:

1. LISTEN: Resist the urge to comment and/or jump in as they describe their present challenges that need some change and/or resolution (you'll get better at this over time). Let them tell you their story, and try to be fully present as they describe it. Hear them, but pay attention to everything (verbal and non-verbal). Don’t be thinking of questions you may have while they’re talking—you might miss something in the process!
2. UNDERSTAND: When appropriate, ask questions (of course), and when possible, work some time into the equation.  That way you can come up with follow-up questions you may have after some time for reflection, and there will be more depth to your solutions. Understand what they’re trying to do, and the intent behind it as much as possible. I cannot understate how important time can be—it can change everything. YOU may have some deeper insights, but sometimes (more importantly) your client may too. That, and they may just like to change their mind. But seriously, they may understand their needs better next week! It happens to all of us!
3. LANGUAGE: This last part is really all about relating, but it’s a better acronym with “L” (oh I’m such a crafty devil). As a designer, I have my design-specific language and terminology. This may or may not mean anything to your client, so look for leverage points and intersections between designer, client and the language used. This part of creating dialog is probably the most important, because you’re actually creating a “new language” together, that describes what they need in a way you’ll understand it as well… so that you start to connect it with a solution. Don’t get me wrong, talking about visuals is often not overly productive—so sometimes you just need to try some things, and get them in front of the client—but getting all your ‘ducks in a row’ and getting your homework done upfront will take you a long way.

And it all comes back to creating a “LUL” in the conversation, so that you create the space necessary to really “hear” your client, collaborator, stakeholder, or even your best buddy who’s got a problem—It’s about really “hearing.”

Did this help in some way? If so tell me how, or tell me how you have already doing something like this, or plan on using this as an approach. You may already be doing it—I would never want to be presumptuous—but maybe I simply said it in a way that was helpful.

Be well!

m

Creativity: the enlarged self

“Different personality styles have different creative styles. There is no one idea of creativity that can describe it all. Therefore, in collaborating with others we round up, as in any relationship, an enlarged self, a more versatile creativity.”

~Stephen Nachmanovitch

Freeplay, Improvisation in Life and Art.

Infinite variety in an infinite creative system—it’s so exciting when you continue to reveal the many “layers of self,” and as you do so, you may realize you’re not alone.

My creativity is connected to something indescribable, something felt, something experienced, and something uniquely me—yet something not “me.” Collaborative energy is all about the contradiction of that which is uniquely ‘you,’ and that which you channel with and through others, and through what Stephen calls the “enlarged self.”

Case in point…

I recently had a good friend see one of my illustrations on my website. It was an illustration done a few years back, as a gift to someone I was close to at the time. It told it’s own unique story, with symbolism meant for that person at that moment in time. My good friend Rachel made up a short story around it for her son. I would have never envisioned this, and when she told me about it, I was pleasantly surprised, complimented and honored.

She wants to create a children’s book with this story, and we’re now planning our collaborative effort.

Yes, a second book. Wow, seems I’m all about publishing these days. I’m not even part way through my present book about presentations and visual-storytelling!

Anyway, this one will be quite different than the presentations book, and will finally give me an outlet for a long-time yearning: I way to get back to painting and drawing—YAY!

I am quite thankful that Rachel shared the story with me, and that we are going to have the opportunity to ‘go somewhere’ I never anticipated with this art. It’s a foundation for further expansion, something I never anticipated, and more importantly, it’s built upon collaboration.

Ahhh creativity… I’m very excited to see how this evolves!

m