Victore, or Who Died and Made You Boss?

This past Thursday a couple of my classmates and I hopped in a car and headed to Kansas State University in Manhattan to attend the James Victore lecture. James doesn't like to identify himself as an artist or a designer so there's no easy way to describe him except that he's a man who puts baby chicks on books, bunnies on girls and has an awesome mustache. Take a look!
 

 
 
The lecture was framed around his book, Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss, which covered his early book designs where he admits his struggles with Typography to his later pieces for the MOMA. His work is unconcerned with perfection, but strongly believes in always making a statement. According to Victore, perfection stops us from starting projects and finishing them, it slows down our progression as an individual and makes our work uninteresting. Throughout the lecture he stressed the idea of never working for money because the money will come and always ask for more, whether it be money, creativity, time or a letter for your mom from the MOMA. There was one other point Victore made that really resonated with me. He had mentioned something along the line of if you don't put your all into your work, then you're giving up the gift that was given to you. Overall, his confidence, energy, and personable nature as a speaker was very inspiring, it was definitely worth the drive.

Intro Active: Session 1

One of my goals this semester is to get more involved and take advantage of all the design lectures and events that will help to expand my horizon. Surprisingly enough, on the first week of classes an opportunity already arises. Jamie Gray, who is one of the assistant professors here at the Kansas City Art Institute is developing a lecture series for AIGA Kansas City about the state of web design in present times.

The first session focused on the current stage of online culture and social media and how designers can utilize these technologies in their own practice. Joe Grigsby, Director of Emerging Media at VML and Lisa Qualls, CEO at Fresh ID and President of Social Media Club Kansas City were the speakers for this first lecture. Both speakers did an amazing job, the were articulate, informative, and really held my attention throughout. As a young designer this lecture was extremely beneficial. Although the state of web design may change in the future the concepts they covered during the lecture are timeless, it's very much design thinking. For instance, Qualls had spoke about the necessity of relationships in human behavior that's why sites like Facebook and Twitter are so prevalent. As I mentioned, the web may change, but how can we as designers reinforce this behavior in our designs with the current technology. I was really wanting to write about a point that Griggs made on the Why's and What's, but I'm drawing a blank as to what they were right now so if anyone remembers please refresh my memory and leave me a comment. Anyways, I want to end this post with a quote from Griggs in honor of our current Typography assignment:

"The concept of design is creating a purposeful journey"

Also, if you guys didn't attend the previous session, I highly recommend going to the next one. I'm sure you'll learn a thing or two, I know I did.

McCoy Lecture and Panel Discussion

As part of my commitment to write more thoroughly about something pertaining to design, I've decided to talk about my experience at the McCoy Lecture and panel discussion this past Saturday. The first part of the morning consisted of a lecture about the future of graphic design by both Kathy and Mike McCoy. To be honest, it was difficult for me to comprehend some of the topics they covered, but the points I did understand really resonated with me. One point that Kathy stressed about the future of design is that it is becoming more complex and cognitive. Because of this change, amateur professionals that are coming out of school are quite valuable to companies because they are more relevant while mature professionals are struggling to keep up with the change. She also mentioned the possibility of an increase in the amount of years it would take to complete a degree in visual communications.

The second half of the morning was the panel discussion, which really held my attention.  When Chris  Chaplin began the discussion he wanted to have an open dialogue between the panel and audience. Chris also made it a point to hear from the students, which had us squirming uncomfortably in our chairs. Anyways, what I found most intriguing about the discussion was the dialogue between the various fields of design and also hearing them speak about their personal practice. Another great aspect of the morning was the diversity of age in both the audience and panel. There were two points that became apparent to me while following the discussion. First, was the idea of collaboration  and teamwork that Jamie has been trying to reinforce in us all semester. As Kathy mentioned earlier about increase of complexity and cognition in design, it is almost necessary to work as a team for the best outcome. It is really a difficult concept for us beginning designers to understand that we don't have complete ownership  of our work in practice, which leads me to my next point. The panel also discussed the idea of agreeing upon a philosophy or a concept when beginning a project. When everyone buys into the idea, in a sense, you still have ownership over the project but as a team.

I was excited when Jessie Wilson had the last word in the discussion. She asked the entire panel what they wished they would have known when they were our age. Everyone gave us great feedback, however Mike McCoy's comment stuck the most with me. He told us to always retain the mindset of a student. Even after we graduate we're continually learning because it is one of the most important attributes for a designer to continue to feed our minds. After the lecture and panel discussion, I felt moved. I think I learned a lot from the experience, maybe even more than I imagined. In the future I want to continue to attend and participate in events like this.