_i exist by implication_

Betwixt being and non-being
An ontologically altered perception through the personal blog platform

In developing an individual identity and its consequential representations, a human being, as a cultural, social, and psychological entity, interprets, uses, and garners information from its surrounding environments. In the process, contexts are synthesized and associations are established. The management of these intuitive processes leads to the creation of personal thoughts, views and perspectives which are later shared through various forms of exchange.

The emergence of social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, collaborative online games, digital worlds, and particularly blogs, have transmuted the nature of these exchanges. Introspection has now become projection. Private realities have now expanded into contemporary shared conditions of public life. These outlets of personality provide versatile ways of sharing internal, and beforehand private anecdotal information with others.

The introduction of online blogging platforms during the late 1990’s made it easier than ever to share, communicate and contrast one’s individuality with the ideas of others in similar techno-social realities. As of March 2008, Technorati¹ calculated an estimated 112.8 million online blogs worldwide, a datum that needs to be pruned carefully since online does not equal active. There maybe that many blogs, but that does not mean there are exactly that same amount of active content generators behind them. There is no precise quantitative data on how many abandoned blogs exist, yet the available data does suggest a parallel growth between that of new blogs being published and those being simultaneously abandoned. Due to the free-of-charge nature of the majority of blog hosting domains, most of the blogs, even after being abandoned, remain online indefinitely.

I will try to make that case that through this ever-lasting online presence, contemporary communication platforms, such as the blog, can extend our sense of being, even after we become non-being.
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As the end of the semester approaches, work on the independent study gets more intense.

The current undergraduate graphic design curriculum at the College of Design, like others in the country, introduces its students to the field through a fundamental year of art, form, rules, exploration, and little or basic software use. As the pedagogical experience progresses into sophomore year, students move, within the timeframe of 2 months, from custom methodological ways of working within a handmade environment into an automatized, software dependent sterile digital scenario.

Design concepts are still explored through the making of artifacts, yet this very process now relies on the manipulation of software tools for their very execution. Previous experience on creative software platforms shapes many of the student’s individual experiences, some having an easier time than others. No matter the case, the commonality between all levels of expertise becomes them having to learn it.

Learning software moves to the forefront of the student’s interests. Pressure is exerted on the professors to teach the various platforms required for successful execution. Teaching strategies, ranging from in-class demos, to online tutorials, and even reference books, become a hindrance to the students, while one-to-one gesture based exchanges between them seem to provide a more stable source of growth and understanding. How can online digital tools help with this learning process? Could such tools offer a possible platform for pedagogical reinterpretation? Would a grassroots approach to software instruction lead to a flourishing of its understanding?

The last few months I’ve working around these issues. All of my projects have concentrated around the struggles of sophomore graphic design students at the College of Design as they experience the initial steps of learning software. Community, values, needs and outcomes have been studied, tested… and hopefully address. As final review gets near, now its time to polish the projects into presentable shape. More to come…

Two daily planner page designs, one for a fourth grader and the other for a college freshman.

Last semester was all about the graphic designer’s role in culture. I can’t speak for the whole class, but it would be safe to say that sometimes it would concur, even if for a moment —you can imagine how hard is to get 12 people to agree on an idea—, that owning up to the title of graphic designer not only relates to the things one can make, but also to the understanding and acceptance of one’s role as a gatekeeper of culture. You may or may not agree with this, (maybe it’s a bit too much for you to fathom… A designer is more than just pretty things?), but the following text knows that a (good) graphic designer is not dictated by what it makes, but by a combination of the artifacts with what he or she thinks. Since such is the case, shouldn’t it, then, be part of our social responsibility to design according to how we should, and not according to how we know?
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What the point of having a blog if I am not going to post on it? Furthermore, what is the point of researching blogs and not embracing my own?

I know. I’ve been bad. I have no excuse, other than to say that the semester has been a busy one. Final review is already near (3 weeks down the road) and preparations for it have already begun.

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I’ve began mapping back the work done so that I can prepare for the final event (which will become bearable if denise brings donuts ;)

Soon detailed posts of my work in the past few months will come.

ps. Marty… I promise to get this on the road again :)