::] Las palabras… [::

Great. By Random House Mondadori.

::] An online community experience [::

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Last semester I worked to understand how an online community can be brought together through an online experience. The final project, a prototype of many versions and iterations, tries to bring together students learning software with their peers and faculty members. I already posted this earlier, but now I am able to show how the interactions were an essential piece of the experience.

::] Where do you stand in the form is content debate? [::

A few weeks ago, in one of those paradoxical afternoons where warmth and clarity are mixed with feelings of confusion, Marty Maxwell Lane, in a sudden look-left ask-question sequence, said: “Where do you stand in the form is content debate?“. (What a way to get my attention right?) For about 10 seconds, my agitated cognitive self shuffled through every single project I ever made…anxiety crept in… I almost found myself questioning my existence… (and from Marty’s reaction, I am sure that my perplexed state was being externalized through my facial configurations.)

I finally was able to respond to her query, even though I’ll admit that I am not quite sure what I said. At the time, I verbally articulated an answer while I simultaneously thought about the question. In retrospect now, where do I stand on this debate?

Three landscapes are important to my work: content, concept, and context. One of my design interests lies in articulating the space between the three, in finding overlays and relational patters among them. It’s like being able to identify and work in that moment when one is between being awake and being asleep, when one still remembers dreams. The point is that I am interested in the relation of these, and it is my belief that an adequate understanding of it leads to, and concludes in formal creations. I see form as the subjective outcome of the interplay of these landscapes.

Answering Marty’s question, since I see form as a subjective outcome of the relationship between content, concept and context, form in itself can only be understood as content. It produces and embodies a particular meaning. If some other person where to receive the same specs and assignment that I got for some of my earlier work, I am sure that the end-product would be different, a different piece, a different outcome, and hence, a different content.

:: ] Del.icio.us ][ 10 ][ Recent Links [ ::

• The Offices of Kat Ran Press : Postage Stamps by Type Designers
  Over 300 postage stamps from our collection of stamps designed by typographers. Nineteen celebrated designers are featured on these pages, including Wim Crouwel, S.H. de Roos, Adrian Frutiger, Eric Gill, S.L. Hartz, Lance Hidy, Erik Spiekermann, Reynolds Stone, Georg Trump, Gerard Unger, Julian Waters, and Hermann Zapf.
  (tags: typography)

• The Sprint Widget
  Very amazing interface, informationa and data
  (tags: informationDesign interactive interface statistics)
• House Industries
  Great Typographers
  (tags: typography design inspiration fonts)
• House Industries
  Just amazing environmental typography!
  (tags: typography environmentalGraphics)
• YouTube – Ensuring the Future of Food
  Great animated illustration
  (tags: inspiration informationDesign illustration)

Read the rest of this entry »

::] Una de Cal y Otra de Arena ][ A STEP Readers’ Choice contestant [::

Una de Cal y otra de Arena, Editorial Revés latest publication and my most recent book design, has been selected as a runner-up selection in STEP Design’s Reader’s Choice Contest.

The five entries that receive the most votes in the Readers’ Choice contest will also be featured in the STEP Design 100 March/April 2009 Annual, so all you will receive an email to go vote on the entry soon…:)

Thanks to Jorge Rigau and José Lorenzo Torres for your support, comments, feedback, ideation, and moral infrastructure throughout the short and intense design process of the book… to Robert Ruehlman and Santiago Piedrafita for your e-mails, feedback, critiques, and comments on the layout, structure and typography of the book as I was making design decisions… to Alfonso Gómez Arzola, who came in during two of the most critical days of the process to help with the production of the piece… to Eduardo Miranda, who helped make the cover a reality…and last, but never least, to Eric Jukelevics, who not only retouched 4 of the images in the book, but who always provides me with photographic support when it comes to the documentation of my projects.

::] Social Studies Conference ][ MICA ][ The presentation [::

Photo by Caroline Prietz

On October 18 I had the opportunity to make a presentation in the Time+Motion panel at AIGA’s Social Studies Education Conference, held at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

The panel, moderated by Lily Maya, graphic design faculty member at MICA, included:

Transforming Programming into “Fungramming”
by De Angela L. Duff,
Assistant Professor, Multimedia Department, The University of the Arts

The Language of Motion
Jan Kubasiewicz, Professor, Dynamic Media Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston

and my presentation,
Understanding Interaction through People, Settings, and Scenarios

This was my first presentation at an AIGA event, and as such, I wanted to follow all the guidelines that had been set. The most important one, as you can imagine, was a 15 minute time-limit to my presentation. I followed it, but had to write, re-write, ask for feedback, re-write, and write one more time what I was going to say. Even the night before, at 1am, I was still in the lobby of the hotel touching-up on the final details (Thanks to Cady Bean-Smith for her company and support in those wee hours of the morning).

What is the best part of having done all that? Now I can share with you exactly what I said since I have a slide-per-slide script, but before moving into the presentations, I want to thank Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Marty Maxwell Lane, Cady Bean-Smith, Lauren Waugh and Caroline Prietz for all their support, fun times, photos and memories from this conference.

Click on the jump for the presentation.

Read the rest of this entry »

::] Social Studies Conference ][ MICA ][ Photobooth [::

(from top left to bottom right: Cady Bean-Smith, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Lauren Waugh, Alberto Rigau, Marty Maxwell Lane and Caroline Prietz.)

(from top left to bottom right: Cady Bean-Smith, Ryan Clifford, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Lauren Waugh, Caroline Prietz, Marty Maxwell Lane and Alberto Rigau.)

From October 17th through the 19th a group of us in the Masters Program drove up to Baltimore to attend AIGA’s Social Studies Education Conference, held at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

In the lobby of the event, there was small setup with an iMac running the Photobooh application, so that we could take pictures with our friends to create a visual guest-book of the conference attendees (I so wish we had thought for our symposium last year).

These are some of the photos of us playing around… Read the rest of this entry »

::] Social Studies Conference ][ MICA ][ MFA Panel [::

Rebecca and Marty begin with Cady Bean-Smith’s rubber band typography.

Rebecca Tegtmeyer and Marty Maxwell Lane represented the NC State Graphic Design Masters Program at the MFA panel on the last day of the conference. They did incredible.

The presentation, following a format that I do not remember the name, lasted for 10 mins. In that short time, Rebecca and Marty were able to speak about the pedagogical approach of the NC State Curriculum, explain the structure of the program, delve into projects briefings, and they still managed to show 2 fully developed investigations, culminating in the marriage of everything that had been explained before into well executed pieces.
Read the rest of this entry »

::] Social Studies Conference ][ MICA ][ The event [::

Ellen Lupton welcomes us to the conference.

From October 17th through the 19th a group of us in the Masters Program drove up to Baltimore to attend AIGA’s Social Studies Education Conference, held at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

It was a great conference on many accounts, but most importantly it gave some of us the opportunity to share with students and academics from other institutions.

Having learned my lesson during the Boston conference (where i did not take my camera), I can now tell a selected visual story of the event. If you are interested for a detailed account, see Louise Sandhaus’ blog where she has some very interesting and detailed notes of many of the sessions, panels, and lectures.
Read the rest of this entry »

::] buttons ][ choose your crit face [::

If you would like a set, send me your address and information. I will send out a complete one to the first 50 email requests at alberto[at]estudiointerlinea[dot]com ***UPDATE: All 50 sets have been assigned. Stay tuned to the blog. I will be giving out more design related buttons soon. Thank you to those who wrote.***

Tired?
All nighter?
Falling asleep?
No need to worry… just…
CHOOSE YOUR CRIT FACE
and let the feedback roll in!

This is the first button set I’ve designed. The idea for it came from an inside-joke with Cady Bean-Smith, Sidney Fritts, Marty Maxwell Lane, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Lauren Waugh, and Liese Zahabi, graduate classmates of mine at NC State University.

***Update: Thanks to Armin Vit for having Quipped the buttons in Quipsologies, Vol. 23, November 2008.

***Update: Thanks to Jamie Rose for blogging about the buttons.

::] buttons ][ design thinking [::

NC State Design Thinking button set

So the big question after getting the button machine was: what was I going to do as a first button set to share with others? I decided to make a gift to my classmates, and I made a button out of every single one of the Design Thinking Posters that we each made for this semester’s studio class. The set has all 16 concepts represented.

::] small, shiny round pieces [::

Choose Your Crit Face Special Edition Button.

For a long time I had been fascinated with ping-back buttons, and just like everyone else, every time a new came thru my hands I thought of making one of my own. This cycle, which I thought would end up being just another never-ending thought process, was surprisingly broken a few weeks ago when I acquired a button making machine of my own. Read the rest of this entry »

::] Swipe… review… sign… pay later [repeat?] [::

Swipe… review… sign… pay later [repeat?]
Understanding Martha Augustinos’ and Ian Walker’s approach to schemas and how it can aid a designer frame reflexive behaviors during a consumer experience.

Reflect about the purchases made in the last few days. Did any transactions involve checks, money orders, cash, or even a visit to the bank? Most likely the quantitative answer to this question will be low, if not zero. Physical currency no longer plays a major role in commercial negotiations. Items, information, and services can be acquired, and sometimes are required (try to reserve a vehicle without a credit card), through the use of credit-based-cards in lieu of tangible currency. The benefits of such a system are hard to deny: a credit card is often faster than paying with cash, avoids having to deal with change, offers an ever-present source of funds in case of an emergency, minimizes economically-based social judgments, and serves as an element that grants certain social power.

American critic Frederic Jameson, in Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, wrote: “Any return to the haptic and tactile… seem to hearken back to… the “late modern,” when building materials were expensive and of the finest quality and people still wore suits and ties. It is like the transition from precious metals to the credit card: the “bad new things” are no less expensive, and you no less consume their very value, it is the value of the… equipment you consume first and foremost, and not of its objects.” (Jameson, p.99) The credit card is not only a means to consumption, but it now represents consumption itself, and as such, it has developed its own set of appeals. The credit card is now a must and there is no turning back.
Read the rest of this entry »

::] Design thinking exhibit is [was] up [::

These are some images of the installation that was part of our first semester studio project where the class attempted to define design thinking in terms of a series of thinking strategies and cognitive frameworks. Read the rest of this entry »

::] Simon says: design thinking …but wait… what is it? [::

Recently there has been much talk of corporate cultures —and other disciplines— engaging in the practice of “design thinking“. Such announcements are usually paralleled with ideas of creativity, innovation, and user-centeredness; associations that sound cool and hip but many times result in superficial, inaccurate, and vague information. Wether we like it or not, the buzzword of design thinking is everywhere.

On a recent article in the New York Times, Unboxed: Design Is More Than Packaging, the author, Janet Rae-Dupree, makes an effort to unbox “design” by concentrating on this thing designers do called design thinking. She says: “…design thinking usually involves a period of field research —usually close observation of people— to generate inspiration and a better understanding of what is needed, followed by open, nonjudgmental generation of ideas. After a brief analysis, a number of the more promising ideas are combined and expanded to go into “rapid prototyping,” which can vary from a simple drawing or text description to a three-dimensional mock-up. Feedback on the prototypes helps hone the ideas so that a select few can be used. The results can be startling.”

On another article in the Fast Company website, Design Thinking… What is that?, its author, Mark Dziersk, defines design thinking as consisting of four steps: defining the problem, creating many options, refining selected directions, and picking a winner for execution. He says: “At this point enough road has been traveled to insure success. It’s the time to commit resources to achieve the early objectives. The byproduct of the process is often other unique ideas and strategies that are tangential to the initial objective as defined. Prototypes of solutions are created in earnest, and testing becomes more critical and intense. At the end of stage 4 the problem is solved or the opportunity is fully uncovered.” He concludes the article with: “Design thinking describes a repeatable process employing unique and creative techniques which yield guaranteed results — usually results that exceed initial expectations. Extraordinary results that leapfrog the expected. This is why it is such an attractive, dynamic and important methodology for businesses to embrace today.”

While these two examples, noble in their intentions and approach, describe a bit of what design thinking can be in terms of a traditional object-oriented approach where processes conclude in tangible objects, they do not elaborate on how design thinking operates in this contemporary landscape of information and ever-changing job descriptions. Read the rest of this entry »