It’s been a sizable chunk of time since I’ve written something for fun, mostly because I’ve returned to school, where my writing is absolutely, unequivocally fun… but more restricted, more determined by requirements and time, and audience. Then again, perhaps that’s the same as it ever was, since that could describe any number of work scenarios, too. And for the foreseeable future, I don’t think I’ll make a commitment to blog more per se, or not until after I’ve updated my portfolio with work examples which I’m especially proud of, or to handle to 18 draft posts here (or over on Medium, which I’m not completely sold on), or to of course keep school front and center
Let’s just say getting into and attending grad school has been an intense experience, but 4 months in, so far, so good. Quick impressions, which will be explored more in portfolio pieces I’ll be uploading shortly:
- Complex Adaptive Systems is my home, for better or worse: Ever since I’ve heard the term I come across them and their difficulties and possible analysis and solutions everywhere I look. It’s both frightening to see so many vulnerabilities, but also heartening to see and learn how design plays a role in addressing the solutions. It’s not just been a process of designing for these fragile, continually complex, constantly adapting systems, but to understand why and how we should approach them. Which leads me to…
- Ethics and philosophy, now more than ever: Having a background in the humanities wasn’t unusual per se, but it’s made getting a Masters in Fine Arts a bit more of a harder, or more complex process. That said, I feel like the ethical grounding of what it means to be a designer is now, more than ever. so important and critical to improve what we design, and having humanities and liberal arts as a background has been a huge boon here especially for more of the critical theory essay work. We need to understand and analyze what we’re doing and be willing to see larger issues and players at play, and not be limited to the easy solution any more.
- Time isn’t a flat circle, it’s a pillow at the end of the day: I could write a few posts about the time commitment, which would share the high and low points of getting back into an academic mindset after a break, and on the circle of ‘living’ within a design school. Even when one manages their time well, there’s a huge difficulty keeping up with the events going on at campus let alone off campus; I could somewhat manage it before school, but after school, the ability to attend random, non-design, but still interesting events is just not…happening. We’ll see how that can change in the future.
- Tool talk: Ironically just as I fell in love with Sketch, I find myself living in Adobe products, and still building Web related products. I’m noticing a shift away from thinking Web first, and to incorporate suites of solutions – products, services, experiences, roles, processes, and yes, even politics are part of what we can build.
- Family: I wasn’t expecting to have or inherit a family of designers, but fellow classmates have created a space where we’re all struggling with the issues of improving our design worldview together. I hope to spend time with non-TransD students, too, as I’m able to take courses across The New School as appropriate, but it’s been an unexpected highlight, thanks to having a small class size (both from the school for individual classes, as well as the TransD program).
It’s been intense – but I can’t imagine it not being there, this journey I am on.
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