Getting more women and minorities into the tech field
Posted by: Alex Schranz
March 10, 2012 at 8:27 pm
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Saturday, SXSWi
| Tagged: design, diversity, networking, Startups, technology
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Preview: White Space: Shaping Nothing for Clean Design
Posted by: Ashley Hebler
March 7, 2012 at 5:00 pm
David Kadavy, author of Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty, will discuss the art of using white space for clean design in his panel at SXSWi entitled, White Space: Shaping Nothing for Clean Design.
The term clean design is often thrown around in the web design field, but no one seems to focus on the tactics used to obtain this goal. David points out, “I think people tend to think that for a design to be ‘clean,’ it simply has to have less stuff on it. But you don’t always have the luxury of removing things from a design. Clean design really involves understanding the essence of what you’re trying to convey, and then conveying it with graphic efficiency. You have to know how to say things about the information by using alignment, size, texture, and subtle control of the spaces between elements.” Continue reading “Preview: White Space: Shaping Nothing for Clean Design” »
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| Tagged: David Kadavy, design, typography, web design
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The Future of Education is Here
Posted by: Sara Peralta
March 6, 2012 at 10:43 am
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| storify, SXSWedu
| Tagged: art, design, isabella hererra, steam, stem, SXSWedu
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Preview: Design. Build. Transform.
Posted by: Alex Schranz
March 4, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Almost everyone remembers their days in High School, going to English and Math class wondering how this might be useful in ‘the real world.’ Few actually get to apply their skills while still going to school, but students in Bertie County, North Carolina, were given that opportunity through Studio H.
Emily Pilloto
n has an undergraduate degree in architecture as well as a master’s in product design. After working in the field for a couple of years, she founded Project H Design, a nonprofit that uses design to empower local communities. Asking her what inspired her to bring such an organization to life, Emily said she “[wanted] to bring [her] own practice back to a place that was more socially oriented, but more than that, that felt more meaningful.”
Starting Project H Design in 2008, Emily states that back then “people were really just starting to talk about social design.” “It was a really new idea that sustainability could be more than just environmental, that there was a huge social component to it; the idea that design could really affect society, and economy, and community.”
A short time after, Emily and her Project H partner Matt Miller developed Studio H, a high school design and construction curriculum. It is a one-year program offered to students in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state. The high school juniors learn design basics as well as hands-on skills. Continue reading “Preview: Design. Build. Transform.” »
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| Tagged: architecture, design, Emily Pilloton, Project H
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Preview: Design from the Gut: Dangerous or Differentiator
Posted by: Alex Schranz
February 22, 2012 at 1:28 pm
We have all encountered it: that gut feeling we get about certain things telling us what we should do. Do we always follow it? No. Is it because we have been trained to ignore it? To find facts rather than listen to our intuition? While the decision to follow the gut feeling might be easier for personal dilemmas, it is a whole other issue for business people trying to explain to their clients why they should go for a certain campaign.
Showing potential clients consumer research findings, hard facts and figures is slightly more convincing than explaining to them that your gut is telling you to go with this campaign even though research suggests a different approach might be more effective.
Laurel Hechanova is a freelance designer based in Chicago, who does design and illustration work as Apocalypse OK and works as an interactive designer at mStoner and Weightshift. Getting started in the design industry, Laurel did poster and merchandise design for various bands, which ultimately led to interface design for startups and commercial illustrations.
I was curious to learn how designers use their gut feelings early on in their career, when they cannot yet show a proven track record that these feelings were right. Not always believing in her own gut feeling, Laurel explains her recipe when dealing with new clients. “I’ve always based my work on what I’ve gotten to know about my clients and their audiences and made sure those clients understood and were comfortable with whatever design approaches I proposed because, ultimately, they’re the ones that have to live with them.”
This panel brings together a wide variety of people to explore the gut feeling phenomenon. Besides Laurel, there are Naz Hamid, who works alongside her at Weightshift, William Couch, software engineer at Twitter, Phil Coffman, creative director of Element and founder of the design blog Method & Craft, and Jane Leibrock, User Experience Researcher at Facebook. People thinking about attending Design from the Gut, can expect a great discussion. “We’re going to lay bare what our responsibilities to our clients are with regards to how much our professional “guts” know versus how much we need to find out each time we take on a new project.”
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| Tagged: design, Designers, Element, Laurel Hechanova, Method & Craft, SXSWi, Weightshift
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