credits: VFS

Explore Design Keynote

Educating the next generation of designers.

credits: Mark Miller

Observing

Asking why vs. mere consumption

credits: Mark Miller

Connecting

Open perception and connecting things at their base level.

credits: Mark Miller

Collaborating

Work for someone else.

credits: Mark Miller

Branching

Rethink something.

Fixing

Upgrade / rejuvenate something.

credits: Mark Miller

Questions?

We are here to help.

Last week I spent a few days in Toronto at Explore Design (North America’s first design education fair for youth).

A consortium of educational institutions, associations, and professional groups provided 2 days of interactive exhibits, hands-on workshops, and seminars. Keynote presentations were provided by internationally recognized design professionals and the full range of design disciplines was represented including interactive, industrial, textile, fashion, interior, graphic design, architecture, etc.

My keynote was given in partnership with Sebastien de Castell (Actor, Fight choreographer, Project Manager, and Head of Digital Design at Vancouver Film School). Our aim was to avoid purely touting big brand name clients and talking about how cool it is to design skateboards for a living as we thought the other speakers would have that covered. Instead we chose to use our combined experience to give the students five areas of focus, things they could do that day walking out of the presentation to help them decide if they should continue pursuing design.

Observing
It’s easy to sit back and consume media, laugh at a quirky commercial, glance at a provacative ad. We suggest that students become proactive and analyze the subtext, peel back the layers of the visuals and stories they see in each graphic and advertisement in order to get a greater understanding of our profession, and discover if that type of thinking is enjoyable for them.

Connecting
As creative solution providers we are tasked with a wide variety of situations and client goals. It’s important that we develop our process so that we can quickly take in the main points of a project, whittle them down to the most important elements, find a strong connection, and produce a big idea as the glue for this new message.

Collaborating
Designers help other people communicate. It’s vital that we examine all stakeholders in a given project or process and look at things from their perspective. The correct interpretation of all feedback combined with our visual and editorial compositional skill is what truly makes us designers. “There are no bad clients, only bad designers.” - Bob Gill.

Branching
Branching is one of the greatest parts of being a designer. Week to week we get to learn everything there is to know about high performance engines, premium vodkas, breast feeding, VOIP technology, historic events, all depending on what sort of project we choose to take on. Designers all have a unique path to this profession, some come from telecommunications, some from an art background, some used to be archaeologists, others sword fighters. A motion designer in 2007 can become a book designer in 2008 and no one says a word. Personal development is a key to happiness and design offers many paths to travel in that regard.

Fixing
Design work is often broken. It can be broken because of bad process and development or weak ideas but it can also be broken because of time. Almost every project we take on includes a side line item of “please refresh / tighten our brand” in some way. Every designer looks at the world with a critical eye (regarding visuals and experiences) and getting a head start on that critical perception will aid success in the design profession.

Summary
Our presentation was very well received. We spoke for a full hour and students and design professionals hung around for quite a bit longer with queries about thehappycorp global, lvhrd, and the pursuit of happiness through design. thehappycorp may even get a motivational speaking gig or two out of all this.