Dori's Moblog

Going to Santa Fe

On Sunday, Jerry and I go fly to Santa Fe, where we will be spending 2 months writing a book manuscript on design and governmentality called, In Design We Trust. I've rented this cool casita a few blocks from the plaza. I really resonate with the town and will be there during their site-based art biennial.

I'll probably blog from Santa Fe as a means to avoid sending post cards to everyone. But to make it fun, I will try and post a moblog photo each day in the postcard manner. I will probably post pieces of the book manuscript as I am figuring things out.

Zoe Cruz: Women and models of power Part 1

Last night I was reading in New York Magazine about how Zoe Cruz was fired from Morgan Stanley. The story begins with a description of how she went to a meeting with her boss, CEO John Mack, expecting to be named his successor, but instead ends up getting fired. The rest of the story describes how Zoe Cruz was basically, punished by her male colleagues who openly hated her, ignored by her subordinates, and betrayed by her mentor. It also describes how this was partly a result of Zoe Cruz playing too well the game by adopting the aggressive power style of the men around her and the men being bristled by that.

I read the article with distress for what it means to be a women in positions of significant leadership. The lingering animosity towards powerful women 20-30 years older than me affects women of my generation and below. Generational changes will address some of this, so I can partly wait it out. But for the next 10-15 years, when I hopefully have made a transition from emerging leader to just leader, what model of power do I adopt?

Male Power?

Having attended Bryn Mawr College, I've been exposed to women who have adopted a stereotypical male style of elite power. Zoe Cruz would fit into that category as well as many women in their 50s and 60s in elite positions of power like Hillary Clinton. I do not forget that Condeleezza Rice is called the "Ice Princess." In many ways, it makes sense that this would be their survival strategy, when they were so greatly outnumbered and the hostility toward their presence so open.

It is of course a double-edged sword to adopt "male power," because I hear male colleagues all the time criticizing female colleagues, students, and me for being stubborn (i.e. holding strong opinions), self-centered  (i.e. being independent), bossy (i.e. holding people accountable for what they say but fail to do), arrogant (i.e. believing in self more than the low estimation that they hold of your abilities, especially when you deliver on your promises), and cold (i.e. not crying when they do really mean things to you).

Yet, especially as an African-American woman, who comes from a deep matriarchal structure (and not because there were no men, its just the women are awesome human beings), I am willing to hold to my opinions, structure my relationships to optimize independence, hold people accountable for what they fail to do, believe in my own abilities without them needed to be reinforced by someone else's approval, and will not cry if you do really mean things to me (not in public). And in the past, I have been betrayed by colleagues (male and female) for being so. The great thing about being independent is that while your ego can be shattered by these events, they in no way affect your material well being, so you are easily able to regain equilibrium. And once you put your ego back together, you learn.

I've learned to hold my opinions yet seek to find shared opinions with others, remain independent but structure projects so that all can contribute what they do best, continue to hold people accountable and get rid of them if they are not (this is a must), believe in my own abilities but praise the abilities of others, and still not cry if people do really mean things to me. The truth is that I don't know any great models for what I've been doing with power, lately.

I mean I get bits a pieces from people. Praising people I've learned best from Ric Grefe. I think it comes from working with a mostly volunteer effort, so payment is only in affection and praise. Remaining independent but structuring for contribution I've learned from Robert Feldman. Holding my opinions but finding shared opinions I've learned from Ken Friedman. Not crying in public, except when you really need to, I've learned from Hillary Clinton.  And perhaps that is all that you can get is learning bits and pieces from people.

But also having attend Bryn Mawr, there is the Goddess model of power. Tomorrow, I shall explore that more.

Democracy versus Expediency: the Democratic Race

I am completely baffled by calls in the media and blogosphere for Hilary to throw in the towel. The NY Times' Jody Cantor, again  raised the question of whether a long campaign will hurt the Democratic party. But by asking Hilary Clinton to quit the raise, when any where from 40-60% of the people are still voting for her, would we not hurt democracy?

Indiana, whose citizen's votes rarely count in the Presidential Primary because the decision is over by Super Tuesday in February, is going to be relevant for deciding who our next Democratic candidate will be. Montana and South Dakota,  last on the primary calendar, should be relevant come June.

Democracy is good for the Democratic party because democracy reflects the will of the people. If the people are divided in their will that process should be allowed to follow its course. To say that the millions of people should not have the right to make a difference seems worse than any fracturing of the Democracy party that can happen at the August Convention.

Shame on those picking expediency for the political parties over the democratic process of the people.

Neighborhood in the inter-racial zone

This past weekend I rediscovered why I love the neighborhood in Chicago where I live. It's a neighborhood that was formerly Italian, but now has an inter-racial and inter-class mix of old Italian-American families,  loft-dwelling yuppies, Black and Latino young families, students, and me. It's a neighborhood where people hang out at the stores and the shop keepers know you by sight, if not by name.

So this weekend, I went to my local hardware store, where the Italian-American owner in his 50s, and his Irish (40s) and Italian-American friends (60s) were discussing the election. The owner asked me whether I thought that "the blacks," which he apologized for using but he did not know the correct term, was only voting for Obama because he was black. I thus explained the complexity of black America's relationship with Barack Obama. Later a man of Mexican origin joined, and  we all ended up having a pointed but substantive conversation about reparations (we were all against, but for different reasons), whether racism was better now or in the past (most said now, the shop owner said in the past), who has the highest IQ Condoleezza Rice or Oprah (Oprah has a higher emotional IQ, Condi has higher analytical IQ), and about the state of the world today.

Afterwards, we were all amazed by the fact that we could have such a intelligent and in-depth discussion about such delicate topics without anyone getting offended or upset. It made me think that things are much better in the US regarding race relations.

Design policy: viral generations and best interests

Yesterday, I had lunch with one of my favorite people, Randy Mark. We had a very interesting discussion about the underlying assumptions of those trained in economics and generation differences in how we approach problem solving. So he started with the statement that most economists are trained to believe that people understand best their own self interests and thus make decisions that seek to optimize their interests. This in some ways is contrasted to some Marxist positions that imply that people's consciousnesses need to be raised so that they can understand what their true interests are.

As an anthropologist, I always believe that people understand best their own self interests. This is why you seek to understand and represent their experiences on their own terms through an ethnographic perspective. Yet, I also believe that people's decision-making is (1) constrained by the circumstances under which they can make choices and (2) not always rational because there are often conflicts amongst the various "best" interests that one holds. So what the Marxist position addresses is the conditions of the constrained circumstances and mitigating conflicts among best interests. The latter it does but telling you to prioritize your class interests over those of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nationalism, etc. I tend to waiver on the Marxist thing because of the whole "false consciousness" thing. I tend to be more Gramscian, in that you can have contradictory consciousness but not false consciousness. Note: Antonio Gramsci was a philosopher who gave us the terms hegemony and contradictory consciousness. His Prison Notebooks was required reading in almost all of my classes as Stanford in Anthropology and Modern Thought and Literature.

But assuming that you assume people know their bests interests although they may be constrained in acting on them, how do big problems, such as those of policy, get solved? What Randy stated is for his generation (the Baby Boomers), you get a bunch of smart people in the room and have them come up with the solution. This approach made since before the ubiquity of the Internet made access to information more widely available. One could assume that only a few "experts" had access to the right information located in Academies and Think Tanks and thus could be informed to make important decisions.

For my generation, the approach is much more distributed, localized, and viral. You get a bunch of people all over the world with deep knowledge of their local conditions, have them post information in a digital format (YouTube, listserve, email, etc.), and through nodal to nodal sharing inform themselves of similarities and differences in how they should approach policy decisions. This is the basis of the proposal I want to put together for the IFG Ulm designing politics competition. A kit-o-parts for DIY Design Policy that creates a global common framework for capturing, communicating, and comparing design policy issues that respects the local conditions and local knowledge.

Anyway, it was really great discussion, which I hope to be able to have more often. 

Life and Taxes

I don't know if I have been hanging out with the IRS too long or I've acclimated myself to government forms, but I just completed my taxes in about 1 hour and 15 minutes, including gathering up all the supporting documents. More surprisingly, I found the entire process very easy in spite of the complications of now having business income (Requiring Schedule C-EZ) and filing married separately.

For the past 6-7 years,  Mohammed and I had HR Block do our taxes because Mohammed was an immigrant and a student, so there were always complications with fellowships and stuff. So this year was the first time that I had to use the IRS 1040 form.pdf in a long time. It was really simple to use (mostly because I don't have all those crazy deductions and credits that make it complicated).  Yet, there were also cool aspects of the design that made it easy to follow.

For example, the Adjusted Gross Income section was indented so that if you had them, you can do the calculations without confusing you when you get to the total. If you did not have Adjusted Gross Income, you could skip the entire section until the last row in which you could place the out-dented total adjusted income.

Or how in the Tax and Credit Section or Payment Sections, the really complicated calculations are indented, with the final totals out-dented.

Other usable design elements were the listing of which additional forms to attach and where one should place data from those forms, such as the Schedule C for business income or Form 3903 for moving expenses.

So it becomes an interesting problem that it is not the design of the IRS forms that make paying taxes complicated, but rather the tax laws and itemization and credits that make it complicated. I could imagine a situation in which you have several additional forms to complete for different line items. Yet, the 1040 Form is not complicated in and of itself. But again, I've been hanging out with the IRS a long time, perhaps I've drunken the Kool-Aid.

Vanity Fair and Iran-Contra II

Most often of Saturdays, but today on Wednesday, I went to my favorite European Cafe on Halsted and Grand. Part of my post Tai-Chi class ritual is to go to the Blue Iguana for Nutella Crepes (served after 1:30pm) and to read magazine confections (namely W or Vogue).  Now, I do not subscribe to magazines. I read various newspapers/magazies online, NYTimes, Guardian, Salon, The New Yorker, etc. I used to read the Atlantic Monthly, but they did not have a web-only subscription and I don't like collecting paper magazines. Today, I read Vanity Fair. And I've come to the realization, that I really love, love, love, the writing in Vanity Fair.

The writing is smart, even witty, and at a level of investigative depth and clarity that one does not find anymore. I was most riveted by David Rose's story, The Gaza Bombshell,  on the attempted US-supported coup against Hamas in 2007. Rose does an excellent job documenting (with actual government documents) the Bush government's urging of Fatah President Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led government if they do not recognize Israel's right to exist, various drafts of plans to provide Abbas with financial and military support to expel Hamas from power.

Rose details how the Bush administration attempted to hide the military costs by getting other Arab countries to front the weapons and training, while negotiating with the US Congress for non-military costs. He details the "surprise" of the State department about Hamas willing the election, the Fetah-Hamas short-lived agreement, and the defeat by Israel by Hamas. He quotes Condi's statements of "Who could guess that X would happen?" What Rose best documents is the human costs of US miscalculations due to its desire to use Palestine to create Bush and Rice's legacy in the Middle East.

The fact that this is referred to as Iran-Contra II makes me angry that none of the people who authored this failed coup will be held accountable for the instability that they have caused. 

So I appreciate the writing of Vanity Fair, which did have an awesome article on designer Calvin Klein. Of course, there seems to be the standard lack of diversity in terms of people of color and people under 45 years of age. The only person of color, and I mean any color, is Fashion and Style director (illustrator) Michael Roberts, who was hired in 2006. But they still make me want to make an exception to the no-paper-subscriptions rule.

Treatment is King Part II

In the comments, a student of mine raises a question about the statement of designers inability to generate content. Instead of burying my reply in the comments, here is it front and center.

Hi Leilah,

You seem to miss an essence of my point, which is that to apply a treatment to content is not decoration but rather the act of aligning the content to its proper form, which is not the same as generating the content itself like in a Word document.  Yes, there is visual content, but most of my projects have to do with words.

In the projects I've worked on, I define the essence of the experience, write the words to describe it, and often do the information architecture. The designers with whom I collaborate seek to understand and interpret that content, then align it to its appropriate form from an inappropriate form (ie. the Word document). To align content with form is not the same as generating the content nor is it mere decoration. It is just a different phase in the designing process, which in most cases is not the task required of the professional designer because the client provides the content (it's products, it's history, it's brand essence). The client  just don't know what form best expresses it, which is the work of the graphic designer.

I am clear about the fact that I work on highly complex information-rich projects that require in depth research to understand what the content is. In my experience, when I have offered designers the opportunity to create the content (what should be the words said here), they have been unable to do so because they lacked the contextual expertise to know what mattered in that experience and how to describe it in words.

Again, there are "designers as authors" who seek to provide the content as well as the form. Stefan Sagmeister is a good example. But he also doesn't do the type of design I would be engaged to work on. I work  now and in the past with all types of designers, who perhaps are (1) students and thus struggle with the generation of content, (2) can produce content, but are really only interested in the aligning the form part of the process, or (3)can neither write or produce images, but can arrange them in ways that reveal the essence of the content. And more rarely, a bad designer who know nothing about form.

Sometimes it is frustrating for me, because I don't always have time to generate the content, so it would be great to have a designer who can do it when I am trying to juggle something else. And the caveat is that the content they generate has to be as good as something I would generate. But the truth of the matter is, I do "content "extremely well and the designers with whom I work  best are always in the second group -- people who understand how to generate content, so that they respect the craft of doing so, but prefer to do the form work (which I cannot do as well). This makes it an effective collaboration.
 

I know graphic design in all its many forms and embrace its potentialities. I even train students to advance its potentialities. But as I stated to others before, the value add of any designer to me is their ability to give meaningful form to content. The meaninfulness refers to understanding the context over time, and thus allowing the form to resonate. But really the designer has no control over context or time, they are or ought to be masters form first to be a designer. The rest is even more value-add.

Form is not decoration, but it is not content either. I just wish sometimes that designers actually valued what they do so well. Then these movements into other areas would seem less like overcompensation for some lack. What I appreciated about Micheal Rock is that he is proud of being a designer, in perhaps what may seem to be its most limited manifestation of giving form to client's content. And the content is not just the words for the Guilt label, but rather the essence of the luxury shopping and owning experience of Prada.

Purifying water is a treatment which removes the impurity of extraneous matter so that you can get to the essence of H2O + electrolytes. Graphic design is a treatment with removes extraneous matter so that you can get to the essence of the content. Neither types of treatment do I confuse with decoration. But hey, what is wrong with decoration?

 

Treatment is King

Yesterday, Michael Rock of 2 x 4 design gave a lecture at UIC for the architecture lecture series. Bob Sobal, director of the school of architecture, made a statement that he asked Michael to come because he was a designer content with just designing and had not given into the call for research. That ruffled my feathers, but as I listened to what Michael was saying I realized that this was not true. What Michael was describing was the essence of graphic designing, which is about the mastery in which you treat the content that you are provided by the client. 

Michael made a very astute statement about how as a designer you cannot control the content, all you control is the treatment of the content. Beyond cries for designer as author, I believe in most cases that is true. I know this to be true because on almost every project that I've worked on with a designer, I had to come up with the content. My disappointments with working with designers is the inability to generate content as well as form. I think the call for designer as author is tied to the perception that somehow this focus on treatment is being superficial. The calls for design thinking is about proving that the thought process behind the selection of treatment is deep. Which is true, but it is true because good designers are gifted in discerning the best technique to get the essence of the content.

Michael described the evolution of two treatment motifs that 2 X 4 has explored for mostly Prada, but also Brooklyn Museum, the Muhammed Ali Museum, and Chanel. The first was the motif of fauna, where through pixelized patterns 2 x 4 treats mostly walls as interactive surfaces of perspective play. Figures only become clear from the distance of an airplane as in the facade of the Muhammed Ali museum. Microscopic pollen patterns close up becomes rich but indistinct decorative wall paper at a distance. The idea that there are teaming lifeforms that exist if you are close enough or far enough from them becomes both a visual treatment, but also social commentary in the world of high luxury goods.

The second motif was flora, which describes their use of organic flower shapes to comment upon mostly cold modernist structures.  He described the work they did for Vitra furniture where they turned modern chairs into flowers, see case study at 2 X 4 site. The flower logo for the Brooklyn museum, and the really cool flower-inspired Waist Down exhibit of skirts.

What I appreciated is the fact that Michael was confident in his identity as a designer, who uses the language of form to give appropriate meaning to whatever content comes his way.  That is the value-add of design.  So while it is not the kind of design I would engage with because I am more on the information design side of things, it was great to get an appreciation for the kinds of work that 2 x 4 does. And reminds me of the diversity of perspectives in design.

Design Policy and CCBHS final presentations

This week (Tuesday) I presented the final designs for the Cook County Bureau of Health Services project I’ve been working on for 2-years. I could not have scripted a better reaction, which highlights for me what design policy is about.

The Presentation

In attendance at the presentation were about 23 financial administrative staff across the entire Bureau. By their surprised and enthusiastic greetings, I knew that it was rare that these groups got together. I opened with a description of the mandate of the project: design an information system about billing and payment that communicates the values of the Bureau’s mission to provide health care regardless of one’s ability to pay, the patients’ own values of health and health service, while recognizing the need for a model of financial sustainability to support both.

I introduced/performed 6 personas of their different patient types. I walked them through the financial aspects of the registration and financial screening processes, and how each of the designs we created fit into the processes. I role played the way in which the designs mediated interactions between the patients and staff. Then, the team and I  passed out a set of the materials to each participant, who eagerly took them. We followed with a long Q&A in which the CFO basically used all of the arguments I presented to him, which were based on the testing I did with patients, about certain policy decisions to convince the other participants.

What made it successful is not just the beauty and clarity of the designs, our demonstration of a deep understanding their patients and processes, but how through designing we could affect positive changes in the entire Bureau. The CFO said that the project was one of the first steps towards working as an integrated Bureau with a patient-centered focus. CCBHS has never been integrated or patient-centered, so this is a major first step.

About Design Policy

This is what design policy is for me: changing governmental organizational cultures to make them more accountable in positive ways to the people they serve. This is distinct from design spectacles that can raise awareness about governmental dysfunctionality. It is distinct from design futuring, which perhaps is what Daniel’s Metahaven does, which provides alternative visions for the future. Design policy is the often mundane work of transforming that awareness of governmental dysfunctionality into tangible self-sustaining realities of alternative futures. Since policy is the tool of governmental change, design policy is the design of both the formation and implementation of that tool.

Helvetica in White

Last night I watched the film, Helvetica, by Gary Hustwit. While it is an amazing film about typography and provides an interesting history of the Swiss modern typeface, Helvetica, it was struck by the lack of ethnic  and even gender diversity among the interviewees. Of the 22 + interviewees, only 4 were women, 0 were people of color, leaving the rest to be European or Euro-American white males.  Okay,  historically I can see how the designers from the 50s and 60s would be the euro white male, but why were there no people of color among the later designers. Paula Scher and David Carson, and Stefan Sagmeister criticized Helvetica for ideological reasons, but what about someone like Saki Mafundikwa, who could criticize it for its colonial rationality.

I know that diversity in design has a long way to go. But considering the film was done in 2007 in ethnically diverse Europe and the US, you'd think that it would somehow make an appearance in the film. Another missed opportunity...

Crazy Busy

Sorry I haven't been so diligent in posting for a while. It has been crazy busy these last couple of weeks. We are completing the design phase of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services project. We deliver the final products (not prototypes) on Tuesday. Sappi's grant of $50,000 buys a lot of printing. We have 15 skids, yes I said skids, of materials being delivered to CCBHS warehouse on Tuesday. The sad part is that the materials will only cover about 6 months of the Bureau's needs.

I put together an NEA grant for the Designpolicy.org website development. That was really fun (except for the submission part) because it allowed me to really see how valuable work through the City Design Center is and will continue to be. After losing Design for Democracy, to have a organizational infrastructure to write grants, provide visiting research positions, and eventually plant young designers into government agencies is all that I envisioned DforD becoming.

Midterms of coming up and I have lots of essays to read. I am on all of the ID grad student committees (3) and I think 5 of the graphic design, one studio arts, and so far, maybe 1 EV. 

Finally, I am planning the UIC Motorola Innovation Center Innovators lecture series, with Aaron Marcus coming on Wednesday, March 12th. From 4-5:30pm. Before that, tomorrow we complete the reviews of ID candidates for next years grad program and I am hosting the film night for CAPA at the City Design Center on Tuesday.

So its been pretty full couple of weeks. I also forgot to mention the presentation I gave at Motorola the end of February. So that is catching up on all that I am doing. Hopefully, I will be able to blog more faithfully after next week's insanity.

Critical Graphic Design

A few days late, but here is my response to Alice Twemlow's Feb 21 post to the Design Observer, Some Questions about an Inquiry. The article talks about critical design and the Forms of Inquiry exhibit at Utrecht last month. She poses the question of where is graphic design in the critical design praxis.

My response:

Graphic design has always had a critical praxis

From Adbusters; the French organization, Ne Pas Plier, to Design for Democracy; graphic design has been "...design that, through its form, can question and challenge industrial agendas; embody alternative social, cultural, technical or economic values; and act as a prop to stimulate debate and discussion amongst the public, designers and industry" (Twemlow 2008).

As a design anthropologist, the value-add of graphic design to any social endeavor for me is its ability to make critical values and perspectives -- sharpened through iterative editing and evaluation to the clearest and most concise message -- tangible to people at a level of experience that is both intuitive and rational.

In the case of activist collectives like, Ne Pas Plier, graphic design makes tangible to others the critical perspectives of the people through signs that make you feel, think, and hopefully act to mitigate social and economic injustice.

Exemplified in Adbusters, graphic design makes the critical perspectives of our engagement as designers in commerce tangible to us as well as provide models on how to subvert and hack our participation in the industrial systems.

To me, one of the most powerful uses of a critical graphic design to use it to elicit people's critical experiences of deeper social processes. For example, on a project with a government health agency billing and payment policy, the research (not inquiry) participants were people who started off not very articulate about what was wrong with the system. It was when I placed a set of brochures, forms, and signs from a proposed new information system in front of them that they could easily express how "cheap" the institution was that they would use an orange color, or how a confusing layout reflected the lack of professionalism of the institution. We could use that same feedback not just to improve the materials but to go back to the government agency and say that this is how your practices need to change to match the desired experiences of the people as represented in these materials.

To me, the iterative process of designing, based on a human-centered design process, has been a power tool for critical design in the hands of designers and researchers who have a critical perspective and are willing to use it advocate for others.

So perhaps, it is not a matter of creating something new, but rather excavating and promoting what already exists in the hearts, minds, and hands of graphic design and its collaborators.

**************

It is interesting that a Slovenian colleague of mine, Ksenija Berk, was taking about how there is a lot of design theory and critique being practiced by young people, but the "eminent" people are not aware of it, thus keep making proclamations that it does not exist. That's how I feel about the discussion on critical graphic design.

In Texas for the College Art Association Meetings

I'm in Dallas, Texas for the College Art Association meetings. It is my first time going to a CAA meeting. I ran into a Art History colleague, Heather Grossman and U of Minneasota Design colleague, Steven McCarthy. That's the nice thing about what seems to be a really small conference, you run into people you know.

This is an fly in and out conference so I won't see many panels, but it will be fun to present tomorrow on Contemporary Design Theory. I've read all the papers and it is amazing the overlap, but more tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day_9 forms of love

I once read somewhere a long time ago, (but currently found on the dataguru website) that Beverly Fehr conducted a study in which she described how there are 9 forms of love:

1. Friendship
2. Platonic
3. Affection
4. Romantic
5. Passionate
6. Committed
7. Infatuation
8. Puppy
9. Sexual

So as you celebrate love today, figure out which form of love you are celebrating. Or which mixture of loves you are celebrating. Today, (this can change tomorrow), I'd go for a heady "love mix" of 50% affection, 20% friendship,  20% committed, and 10% Passionate love these days. Leave me digital valentines of your "love mix" for the day.

Splitting the delegates

So as I ask around today, it seems I am not the only one who was split between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. In Illinois, you select the candidate but you also get to elect the delegates. I and other friends (even in other states) dealt with our being torn by splitting the candidates. So many this is why the delegate counts seem so crazy on Real Clear Politics table.  Hilary Clinton has 1012 delegates, while Barack Obama has 933.

In Illinois, Obama won 96 delegate while Clinton won 49. I wonder which part of that was based on percentages and which was based on people splitting the delegates. I'm too tired to do the calculations.

The point is I am still undecided about Clinton and Obama even after the vote.

Yes, We Can_Obama and Hope

I just saw the most moving political action in my life. Following a link from Design Observer, I viewed YouTube video of musicians and actors saying/singing the word's to a Barack Obama's speech, "Yes, We Can." Most of the time I would link to it, but I think it is important to embed the video.

This is the "I Have a Dream" action of my generation. It's an action not a speech, because it is the appropriately musical (by Herbie Hancock), accessible, full of beautiful people, and viral aspect of this that has moved me to tears. I've heard Obama speak, and have yet to be moved as I was by this video that makes him into the expression of hope and centers us as the expression of that hope.

Cornell West characterizes hope:"Hope enacts the stance of the participant who actively struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth inequality, group xenophobia, and personal despair".

Until now I have been skeptical. But perhaps it is time for hope.

Deaf Culture and Expressive Captions for TV and Film

As reported in the Chicago Tribune today, PepsiCo has produced a Superbowl Ad based on a popular joke in deaf culture called Bob's House. Think how do deaf people find a house when they have forgotten the address? It was created with the PepsiCo EnAble network of employees with "different abilities." Based on some of the responses on You Tube, it has been very positively received by the deaf community.

Watching the captions on the video got me thinking about TV and Movie captions and how unexpressive they are. This seems especially a shame considering all the possibilities of visual expression in typography. Someone in motion graphics I would think would be on this, but alas it seems not to be so.

A quick Google on graphic design and captions/ typography and captions resulted in finding the website of Joe Clark, a Canadian designer who according to Atlantic Monthly is the "King of Captioning." He seems to be giving a lot of presentations on the subject and has the Open and Closed Project which seeks to write standards, conduct research, and offer training. They are seeking funding from industry, but not government. I wonder why that is so. This is the only research that I could find on the topic.

So I strongly recommend any graphic design students who are reading this to consider this as a thesis project. It seems a shame that no one has really worked on this in the US and it seems a smart way to demonstrate the power of design through universal design and kick-ass typography, as well as dealing with all the technical issues. I promise to serve as your advisor if need be, but someone should be doing this project.

Election information blues

The Illinois primary elections are on Feb 5th. So being a good citizen, I thought I do some research on the candidates and issues. So I got a sample of the Democratic Primary Election ballot, so I can research the issues. Download Dem08_specballot.pdf (PDF). From a design perspective, we still need to work on the non-centered type thing it seems.

The good thing is that sites like Project Vote Smart provides good information about current Federal and State officials. I got good information on the voting records for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (Obama has a lot of Non-Votes in his record), and Senator Dick Durbin (whom I am really coming to like). Project Vote Smart is a good source for State incumbent records, but has no information on their yet-to-be tested opponents.

For example, I have to vote for a State Senator for the 5th district. The incumbent is Senator Rickey Hendon and his opponents listed were Jonathan Singh Bedi and Amy Sue Mertens. I was able to find Bedi and Mertens's campaign websites but they all said the same thing (i.e. I am pro-education funding, pro-ending poverty, pro-safety, pro-CTA funding.) They do not say how they are going to accomplish any of this, at least not in any detail that would help me make a decision.  So not wanting to base such an important decision on the quality of their website designs, I turned to newspaper articles or people's blogs to get a sense of what the candidates will do. Why is it that we base such decisions on what politician's attitudes are versus their behaviors? Even when we get the facts of people's behaviors, we still focus on what they said. I got some issues where there were reports on debates, but I may end up having to vote based on the quality of their website designs. This is not as superficial a reason, because it indicates to me the extent to which the candidate values communication with their constituents, who may not have the leisure to go attend a debate.

What are always challenging elections are the judicial ones for me. I was told a long time ago to visit the Chicago Bar Association who does evaluations on the qualifications of judges. They have recommendations for every election except for this one it. Perhaps, it will be coming out in a week or so. We only have one public question this election, but it pretty straightforward on whether to make it mandatory for the Fed. gov to fully fund the Department of Veterans Affairs.

So if I can get my hands on the CBA's recommendations, I would feel like a semi-informed voter.

So Go Vote Smartly!!!

Files from NCSU workshop

I finally can upload the files from my workshop. They are:
the lecture presentation that I gave, Communitas Digitas. Download communitas_nscu_prez.pdf (PDF 5.4 Mb)
the assignment sheet I passed out to the students Download communitas_digitas_assignment.pdf (PDF 56 kb)

The assignment was to:

1. Select a digital community with various aspects of “learning” part of it. This can be a broad as “learning” about products (ex. EBay, Slashdot, iTunes) or as specific as an educational institution (ex. MIT OpenCourseware).
2. Define the common values (i.e. charter, constitution) of the community and how they are made tangible to community members.
3. Define the major categories of features, functions, and content on the digital platform that make manifest those values and represent the ritual behaviors of the group.
4. Rank on a 5-point Likert scales (from Completely weakens, Partially weakens, Neutral, Partially supports, Completely supports) the extent to which the top 10-15 major features, functions, and/or content support historical consciousness, life goals, organizational structure, agency, and relationships.
5. Visualize the communitas of the community using your scales, categories, and values.
6. Report your findings to the group in a 15-minute presentation. Try to make your presentation capture the essence of the communitas.

I will probably give a review of the student's work this weekend. But suffice to say they produced in less than 12 hours that which would have taken weeks by others. This is the list of participating Masters of Design students and the links to the sites they analyzed using the assignment:

• Kelly Cunningham analyzed Lolcats.com, I Can Has Cheez Burger, I cannot explain LOLcats. You have to see them to believe them.
• Steve Harjula analyzed Fixed Gear Gallery.com, to quote Steve "amateur bike porn"
• Samyul Kim analyzed Croquet Consortium, multiplatform 2D, 3D, network
• Marty Lane (former UIC graduate) analyzed Slow Food Charlotte, local chapter of the Slow Food Movement
• Valentina Miosuro analyzed Children with Diabetes.org, which is a cool site that treats diabetes as a lifestyle not just a medical condition
• Matt Munoz analyzed Plastic.com, which is like slashdot for political news junkies
• Kelly Murdoch-Kitt analyzed Goodreads.com, which is a social networking book recommendation site. Really cool.
• Robert Ruehlman analyzed Last.fm, a music database that we were not sure counted as a community
• Alberto Rigau analyzed Facebook, if you don't know I cannot help you. Tee hee.
• Gretchen Rinnert analyzed Sports Shooter, the online resource for photojournalist.
• Rebecca Tegtmeyer analyzed Our Kids, an art expression blog for parents with children with autism
• Michele Wong Kung Fong analyzed Google Docs, which we were not sure counted as community but perhaps was only a tool for a community

They totally rocked. See what you analysis would be if you follow the assignment. Feel free to post in comments.