Ex 4: Wandering and Wondering
This is my design ethos matrix. I would say it’s fairly representational of what I would like to design, especially at the surface level. As you read each layer further out from the center, it becomes more ambiguous. At some point, as I was completing this exercise, I began to realize the cause and effect relationship to designing tools that deal with complex and complicated tasks and how it can actually make life better for others. This is very idealistic, but designers need to be idealistic (to a degree).
For exercise 4, I wandered around Butler Street in Lawrenceville, Frick Park in Squirrel Hill, and around Carnegie Mellon’s Campus. I chose these environments because they are 3 places in Pittsburgh I enjoy exploring. I was looking for evidence of complexity within these environments. If the core of my design ethos is to design tools that deal with complex and complicated tasks, then I have to seek out the complicated, complex “things” within our world.
It was not hard to find examples of complexity within the 3 environments I chose to explore. The examples I found were either symptoms of a problem, expressions of my “theme”, or examples that represent a deeper, more substantial issue.
