“Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely, and to the best of your ability, and that way you might change the world.” -Charles Eames
Before getting too deep into this past whirlwind of a year, let’s start at the beginning one year ago. Here is what I knew: I was burnt out on marketing after nine years of it and needed a change, this internet thing might just take off, everything has a user experience now. What I didn’t know was where my corner was. Looking back on it now, I joined CMCI Studio to help me try and pick that corner and see where it would take me.
Was I successful?
Maybe; depends on your definition of success.
I’m sure that I have a more definite sense of where I’m going now, than I did a year ago, even if not entirely defined. Before talking about what’s next, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past year and reflect on: my biggest takeaways from the program, what was missing, my favorite projects, socially-distant learning, having a kid, and finally what is next.
Biggest takeaways from CMCI Studio
I don’t want to be a UX designer. I do not want to be a brand designer.
Given that CMCI Studio builds its curriculum around these two pillars, it might sound ridiculous and counter-productive to emerge from this program not wanting to do either. However, there is an incredible worth in knowing what you don’t want to do. Yet, I also see how many of the tools and techniques that make up the core of UX/UI can apply to any challenge thrown at you.
I’ve realized over the last year that I am most interested in exploring new and emerging technologies and figuring out novel and creative applications for them. How can we use technology to be more poetic, more creative, tell better stories?
One of the most fulfilling parts of experiments with new technologies is getting things to work and bringing them to life. Through this process, I now realize that I love prototyping and taking designs from the theoretical to a working product. This isn’t much of a surprise, given my past experience in product design, rapid prototyping, and fabrication. However, it was still helpful to confirm that the interest transferred from physical to digital products.
I first noticed this when learning Figma. My interest gravitated towards getting all the clicks, flows, and transitions to work, rather than polishing the wireframes to pixel perfection. This really manifested itself in Jay’s brand design class this semester. All of the projects have allowed me to take design concepts to functional prototypes, including a socially-distanced projection map concept, an AR filter, and a generative vehicle wrap designer.
Through many of the projects this year, I reaffirmed something I already knew: I really dislike the last 7% of most projects. I find myself losing focus and interest once most of the solutions have been figured out and proven. The small details and minutia that take designs from good to finished are not really my strength. However, when working in a group, I found many teammates loved this part of the process, and together we made great teams. Finding the right group of collaborators for future work will be crucial for me.
Before this program, I hadn’t thought much about accessible design. I did my best to include alt text where I could, but it was always an afterthought. After Rich’s accessible design module and spending a day trying to use my phone with a screen reader, I realized that there is no room for inaccessible design. If you can’t prioritize resources towards making things accessible, you should question whether you should move forward with the project. With that said, I now see a vast gap in trying to make my more visual work accessible and I don’t currently have a great solution.
My final takeaway from this year is to try and start with paper and sketch. If you don’t have a firm idea and solution mapped out before opening your digital design tools, you aren’t going to find the answer in your design software, and will likely spend hours noodling aimlessly.
What I missed
For the winter semester, I really should have taken the AR/VR class. Thinking about the creative technology realm, based on recent conversations, I am starting to see two distinct avenues emerging: 3d & machine learning. With little interest in diving into python and tackling machine learning, and a background in CAD from my architecture days, I am gravitating toward the world of 3D. I wish I had more projects in my portfolio that played in these spaces.
Another area I feel I missed an opportunity was taking more of my designs from Figma to code. After working on our final Mind Your Data website for the past month, I am just now realizing the importance of the connection between design and engineering. With a solid coding background already, I should have seized the opportunity to take my designs one step further. My portfolio would have benefitted from having both design and code, and I would have gained a better understanding of the engineering limitations simultaneously.
Overall, the program seemed to lack real-world design projects, especially in the UX classes. Much of what we designed had minimal constraints and requirements, allowing for lots of design freedom. This resulted in many projects feeling a little unfinished, unpolished, and maybe unrealistic, leaving a lot of additional work before they might be portfolio ready.
Finally, I wish the program provided more genuine critique and critical feedback. Everything was a bit watered down and softened. If something sucked, there was a high probability that no one would tell you. I appreciate and understand the need to create such a supportive environment, but see great value in receiving feedback, unfiltered, at face value. There was also an enormous opportunity to engage more industry folks in the critique process and deliver design feedback, especially on the most polished projects, and end of semester capstone events. The critiques began to feel very predictable and stale, and having an outsider perspective would have been useful in pushing our designs further.
Favorite Projects
Looking back at my favorite projects over the past year, four come to mind: Eldora COVID design sprint, RE: Mind Your Data, Machine Learning Mapping, the meander space colonization project.
Eldora — The brief on this was relatively simple; how might we reimagine the skier experience during COVID-19. However, what made this project so rewarding was using COVID as a backdrop to solve skier’s existing pain points. As an avid snowboarder and someone that used to work closely with ski resorts, this was especially rewarding. In the end, I think we were able to solve parking, rental, and F&B pain points while keeping guests and staff safe and socially distant. Just to be clear on one thing; design thinking isn’t going to save us from COVID. Please don’t interpret this project as such.
Mind Your Data — Our year-end entrepreneurial group project for Re: sought to educate people about data privacy and surveillance capitalism. While we got off to a rocky start, not really nailing down a product vision until the last six weeks, this project remains a highlight. We were able to go from the first iteration of a wireframe to a fully functional site in under two months. Additionally, this is the first site I have built from scratch. I was incredibly pleased with the functionality, interactivity, and how close the production site is to the hi-res prototype. This project also allowed me to explore with a new front-end framework, Svelte, and brush up on my front-end skills, especially javascript promises. Check it out: www.mindyourdata.wtf
Machine Learning Maps — For our brand design class, one of our projects was to create an imaginary map, paying homage to Guy Debord. I decided to experiment with machine learning and using StyleGAN2, trained a model on a set of maps from the turn of the 1900s. This model was then able to produce completely imaginary maps based on the image data set. While the fidelity wasn’t as high as I had hoped, it was fascinating to experiment with generating images using machine learning and exploring the edges of what is possible. Check out the video here:
Meander — The project stood out for me because of how malleable it was. What started out as an algorithm in a parametric modeling software (grasshopper), transformed into a sticker cut on a plotter, a design milled into plexiglass, and then a 3d shape milled into wax. Eventually, I ported the algorithm into javascript and made an interactive pattern maker with it. I love that a simple pattern can take on so many different forms, and move from code to 2d to 3d. Here is some of the documentation for those projects:
Remote learning
Sometime in early March, we were forced to move from IRL to distanced learning due to COVID. While everyone did their best to adapt, some part of the design education just can’t be replicated on Zoom and Slack. I genuinely miss those in-person classes, brainstorms, and work sessions. They made the commute up to Boulder well worth it.
Reflecting on what changed as we went online, I think three notable issues arose. First, it’s hard to generate collaborative energy online. Being in a physical space together somehow puts you on the same wavelength, and I have yet to find any platform or tool that allows that to happen in the same way. Next, the default Zoom behavior is for everyone to be on mute except the presenter. Out of respect for others, this makes sense and tremendously improves the audio quality. However, what is lost is spontaneity, good questions, side conversation, and interaction. Quieter or shy voices are even less likely to speak up, limiting the number of contributors. Finally, screen fatigue is real. Staring at a computer screen for 3 consecutive hours is downright exhausting. Zoom is a helpful crutch for the time being, but it is in no way the answer for our remote future, except for maybe short meetings.
Becoming a Dad
We welcomed our first kiddo into the world in April, right at the heart of the pandemic. As a result, many of my habits and work style had to instantly change. Reflecting on it now, I’ve learned two critical things from the experience thus far. First, define what ‘good enough’ means. Every minute spent staring at a screen is a minute I’m not hanging out with my family, and that time is precious. Knowing up front, precisely what needs to be done, and not wasting hours on minutia is now a priority. Second, I’ve become really good at time boxing. Every project now has a dedicated, fixed amount of time. The work that gets finished in that timeframe is what gets turned in. By adopting this process, I finish work more efficiently, mainly due to using my time not in front of the screen to puzzle out and solve the design challenges in my head. When I am at a computer, the work is chiefly execution, with a clear path forward. Once I’m back working, this will be a vital skill to help maintain some sort of work-life balance.
What’s Next
Well, I don’t know.
In an ideal world, I would love to, in Jay’s words, “make cool sh!t using technology” as a small design studio. I envision something closer to an R&D shop than a big ad agency. I would also love to explore how this might relate to live event experiences.
However, I’m also graduating into my second recession in 10 years; creative technology jobs are few and far between, and the live event industry is dormant until we can get through COVID. So likely, I’ll try and get a foot in the door as a front end dev or creative director, continue to hone my skills, and eventually find the right place to make awesome things with technology.
