What was your HOLIS experience like?
HOLIS is not just an annual interdisciplinary summer school. HOLIS is a community of people who sees interdisciplinary collaboration as a tool for making a positive social and environmental impact. We’ve reached out to our alumni with some quick questions regarding their experience and feelings.
Zsuzsa Polgár
I work as a service designer at Telenor Hungary with sociologist and business background.
Let’s start with a quick question, what are your three first words related to HOLIS?
Experience, community, sharing
Please, share with us your most memorable moment from HOLIS?
When I was traveling there, before having met anyone, I could already guess whose else on the train would be going there as well.
Could you tell us about what did you learn and gain from HOLIS?
That the more diverse a team is, the more exciting thinking together would be; and to see in practice what really holistic project building was like.
And talk about the other side of the coin, what are those things what should be improved or changed in HOLIS?
The community that formed during the week was awesome, but I feel maybe more could have been done to help keep it together afterward.
Have you ever recommended HOLIS to someone, if yes, for whom? If not yet, for whom would you like to suggest to participate?
Yes, I have recommended it to several friends who I thought could use the huge boost of experience and new connections that holis provides.
If you need to explain HOLIS to someone, how would you do it, in your opinion what is the essence of it?
A perfect opportunity for someone at the beginning of their career, someone who might need a glimpse into how things can be done, to provide reassurance that things can be done right.
What still puzzles you about HOLIS, what do you always wanted to ask about it?
How many times can one re-attend?
Karolina Styczeń
Proud mother of two cats, movie maker, illustrator and graphic designer. Currently work at creative agency in Kraków, Poland. At HOLIS’15, I was responsible for graphic design of our product.
Let’s start with a quick question, what are your three first words related to HOLIS?
COMMUNITY — people who share VALUES, willing to CHANGE, people who all have different backgrounds.
Please, share with us your most memorable moment from HOLIS?
Hard to choose — I think evaluation part, when we looked back at what’ve done during the week was amazing. See all paths we get through to reach the point where we were in the end. Everything we did wrong, every “great idea” we have –
Could you tell us about what did you learn and gain from HOLIS?
First — I try not to decide before the design process about the result. What we did on HOLIS we analyze everything, check every possible hint and then we talk what we can do with everything we collect before.
I ask more questions, than I used to — everything I do (coordinating, designing or something else) is more complicated in the beginning, but it makes whole process easier.
And talk about the other side of the coin, what are those things what should be improved or changed in HOLIS?
As a participant I was happy with everything! Maybe there are questions about marketing and communication (HOLIS quit Facebook… I understand and support this decision, but people use Facebook).
Have you ever recommended HOLIS to someone, if yes, for whom? If not yet, for whom would you like to suggest to participate?
When I speak about HOLIS always recommend it! If I have to do it now — I recommend it especially for students — I never have a chance to discuss design process at the university like I did on HOLIS and now I use all knowledge and experience learned there in all my projects.
If you need to explain HOLIS to someone, how would you do it, in your opinion what is the essence of it?
1+1+1+1= it’s not four, but more! :)
What still puzzles you about HOLIS, what do you always wanted to ask about it?
No idea, hope I can see HOLIS people on HOLIS again!
Maciej Budzisz
I am designer focused on graphic design and marketing. I work mostly for companies to improve their way how they present themselves. I have wide educational backgrounds: marketing, computer science, and cultural studies with new media specialization. That help me in my work at Invenzio Creative Studio. On HOLIS’17 I was working on brand interventions for Spomlek.
Let’s start with a quick question, what are your three first words related to HOLIS?
They are the outstanding interdisciplinary workshop.
Please, share with us your most memorable moment from HOLIS?
It is the last stage of the project when we were preparing our results to present them to people. Our group designed five brand interventions and made prototypes of them, like the yellow cow. You can see them here.
Could you tell us about what did you learn and gain from HOLIS?
For me, the most important part was working in teams, constantly discussing what we were doing, creating new ideas. Great was also to give and receive feedback. Team-working projects for students are not so popular kind of activity in Polish universities.
And talk about the other side of the coin, what are those things what should be improved or changed in HOLIS?
The HOLIS is a great idea, which is mostly unknown. You need more publicity, maybe some articles in magazines. Not only friends recommendations and social media activity.
Have you ever recommended HOLIS to someone, if yes, for whom? If not yet, for whom would you like to suggest to participate?
I recommended to my friends — graphic designers. But I highly recommend it to psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and a lot of others creators and researchers, because it is the interdisciplinary workshop. The results depend on people involved in. With the more diverse group of participants, we can have better results.
If you need to explain HOLIS to someone, how would you do it, in your opinion what is the essence of it?
HOLIS is the interdisciplinary problem-solving workshop with real impact.
What still puzzles you about HOLIS, what do you always wanted to ask about it?
HOLIS is organized in a transparent way, information is clear. Organisers don’t hide anything, even the budget is published on the website. So there is nothing that really puzzles me.
Beáta Tünde Szabó
I’m a PhD student in cognitive modeling with a background in applied mathematics, and my research area is auditory perception modeling. In the year I’ve attended HOLIS the topic was ageing design and our team designed a platform where one’s professional path can be followed in the long run. In this proposed platform the changes in one’s professional mentality are recorded and a feedback method is implemented which then offers a lifelong learning incentive and motivation to discover new professions.
Let’s start with a quick question, what are your three first words related to HOLIS?
Forest
Post-its
Laughs
Please, share with us your most memorable moment from HOLIS?
One night we were having a guest speaker to share some thoughts on his firm’s business model which was somewhat related to ageing design, the topic of that year’s HOLIS. After a while it became clear that his approach was not quite as morally impeccable as he had wanted to paint it for us. Slowly we have realized independently from each other, that this is the case and we’ve started to ask questions that shed a light on the most problematic parts of the speaker’s business concept. Without any further communication among us we knew as a group (at least this was my feeling at the moment) that we are on the same moral platform regarding the base topics of ageing design.
Could you tell us about what did you learn and gain from HOLIS?
Being far from the designer word the most significant concept I’ve gained is the way of looking at the word as a design puzzle. I came to the understanding that many segments of the word can be viewed as a problem to be solved by designing better processes, a different way of life, or simply a more ergonomic or sustainable product.
And talk about the other side of the coin, what are those things what should be improved or changed in HOLIS?
Although there were many talks about our topic and people with diverse experiences were involved as consultants I’ve felt that they’ve represented only a quite small part of the issue on which we wanted to gain a deeper understanding. I would have liked to see more diverse viewpoints, or a possibility to discover those sources during the summer school.
Have you ever recommended HOLIS to someone, if yes, for whom? If not yet, for whom would you like to suggest to participate?
I would recommend it to any designer-outsider who wants to expand his/her way of thinking about the design process in general.
If you need to explain HOLIS to someone, how would you do it, in your opinion what is the essence of it?
HOLIS is a truly interdisciplinary place where people from different backgrounds exchange ideas about the same problem for a week and they try to offer an answer for that issue (or to a part of it) by going through the course of designing a possible solution.
What still puzzles you about HOLIS, what do you always wanted to ask about it?
HOLIS is a 100% self-explanatory summer school, no questions are left behind :)
If you feel like joining us check out the details on our website and apply for HOLIS 2018.
