PHOTO BY: JOE LEWIS

I found the following passage, taken from Jeremy Denk’s writing on Bach, to be particularly thought provoking. My background as a violinist continuously seems to infiltrate my ideas about life in indirect ways, therefore I can appreciate Denk’s thoughts. This passage is an interesting insight into the sometimes ignored nuances of music that are yet profound.

At the beginning of the measure, all three parts are in beautiful E-flat major. By the downbeat of the next measure, the E-flat has been “re-thought” as a part of C minor.



But I like the beat in-between: when the E-flat doesn’t know yet that it has been rethought. Where the melody’s and harmony’s tendencies clash, where the parts diverge, you get a kind of blurred double image of past and future. If you agree with me that Bach is a particularly profound essayist in the nature of time, you might agree with this leap of association: that dissonant beat is the present.



It is neither here nor there. In its in-between-ness, it is the most beautiful, tastable moment of all. Why is it always the moment you want to hold onto, that is passing by?

Read full article at Think Denk »
(discovered via Bobulate)

At a time when the world is faced with rapid and dramatic changes in the economy, technology, and global communication, design can be a powerful agent for positive change.

The SEGD Annual Conference and Expo will be taking place June 2-5, 2010. This year’s theme is Designing Change/Changing Design, which will aim to encourage and inspire a movement of design for social change, as well as shift the approach of the design community towards global problems. Learn more about the conference »

New design approaches must be sustainable both economically and environmentally, must embrace our cultural and economic diversity, and must be accessible to all.

The leading innovation firm Ideo has put together this informational how-to guide (118 pages) and hands-on workbook (40 pages) outlining their ideas and insight into designing for social impact. I found these materials both interesting and informative on how to develop meaningful projects, re-strategize my process, and lead my intentions into successful outcomes.

The guide begins by describing ‘What is Design for Social Impact?’ and is then divided into the following three sections:

• Design Principles
• Modes of Engagement
• Inspiration

The workbook is intended to be used along with the guide as a general framework to help define one’s own process in creating design for change. It is divided into:

• Goals
• Tools
• Plans

These materials contain a vast amount of ideas and exercises, and certainly not all of it is applicable to every design firm or project, however it is a great source of inspiration to get ideas flowing towards design for positive social impact.

Download here:

• Design for Social Impact Guide (pdf)
• Design for Social Impact Workbook (pdf)

ThinkSocial is a new non-profit initiative dedicated to advancing the use of social media in the public interest. They recently announced the three winners of the new ThinkSocial awards, “recognizing three outstanding examples of innovation, featuring – an individual, an initiative and a collaboration between institutions, which together represent powerful models for how social media can be used to address global problems.” –ThinkSocial

The winners are:

• Kiva.org: a peer-to-peer micro-lending web site, enabling entrepreneurs in developing countries to receive loans from lenders around the world.
• SocialVibe: helping brands direct a portion of their advertising budget into branded activities on social media platforms.
• The March 18th Movement: Mideast Youth seeks to expand the world’s understanding of bloggers as de facto journalists, and extend the protections normally accorded to journalists to all those who share information and stories of repression and corruption online.

A special commendation award is also being presented to:

Amanda Rose: the founder of Twestival Global and Local, which is a concurrent series of offline events for charity, organized by volunteers in cities around the world via Twitter.

Learn more about ThinkSocial »

Design Mind (by Frog Design) displays this interesting infographical look at what it means to create meaningful design. I am often asking the question of what makes design meaningful, therefore its interesting to see the visual thoughts of others regarding this topic.

Facebook is leading new initiatives towards promoting peace by using technology as a mechanism towards positive change. They are helping people to connect and better understand each other through social networking.

View the Facebook Peace Site »

1. Good time management

We all know how difficult it can be to balance work, family, exercise, personal time, etc. It may seem daunting to add something else to the list, but even just a few dedicated hours a week can make a successful pro-bono project. You need to decide how much time out of your work day or personal life you can commit. Stick to that number, even if a project takes a year.

2. Not over-committing

The quickest way to kill a pro-bono project and ruin your enthusiasm is to over-commit. Create a project schedule with milestones and stick to it. I’ve found that I can always commit five hours a week. Oftentimes I do more, but I never commit to more. You must be clear with the organization exactly what they can expect when. Also be sure to keep close track of your hours.

3. Choosing the right organization

It is important to work with an organization that you feel passionate about their mission. This passion will make your project exciting and inspiring. Get to know the people of organization. Not only will it make the project more rewarding, but you will make great connections, new friends, and become truly invested in the organization. It is easy as a designer or developer to just work virtually on a pro-bono project. If possible, I strongly recommend meeting face to face.

4. Utilizing creative liberties and doing your best work

It is easy to do a mediocre job on a pro-bono project because you aren’t getting paid and the organization is likely appreciative of whatever you do for them. However, mediocre will not be fulfilling. You have to take the project to its extreme. Pro-bono projects often give you complete creative freedom and you can use this opportunity to create award-winning work.

5. Communication and patience with the organization

Most organizations are different to work with than a typical client and its also a different relationship with no money involved. It is very important to communicate clearly and explain everything. Non-profits are a very passionate and often opinionated group of individuals, yet they may know little to nothing about the design process. Another hindrance can be that everyone in the organization has an equal say in the decision making process. Be patient. Everyone is always happy in the end.

Every so often, I’ll shoot a particular photo that ends up becoming a great source of inspiration. This inspiration can root from a variety of things, such as the color palette, the composition, the content, or even simply the memory of the moment.

In this post, I will present a particular photo that inspires me, follow up with a few design exercises, and then show how a particular theme is reflected around the world by presenting work from other photographers.

Madras Morning

I was wandering through a narrow Madras alley on a very hot morning in January. The sun was beating and colors appeared especially vibrant within the bright light. The streets were
crowded, Bollywood tunes blasting, and intense aromas of spices
and sewage filled the air. Amid the chaos, it was beautiful.

Exercises in Shape, Pattern, Typography and Iconography

Further Inspiration from Around the World

Tracking Suppression of Online Free Speech

“Online journalists and bloggers now represent 45% of all media workers in prison worldwide.”

Global Voices Advocacy has just launched a mapping project called Threatened Voices in order to help track the increasing cases of bloggers being threatened and/or arrested for expressing their views and reporting news online. Many governments are cracking down on bloggers through surveillance, various forms of harassment and arrest. The goal of Threatened Voices is to make these cases visible, and therefore help keep freedom of speech alive on the internet. The website includes an interactive map and timeline providing a clear visualization of threatened bloggers throughout the world.

View Threatened Voices »

PHOTO BY: CARLOS BOHORQUEZ NASSAR

“In cultures like India or in previous times, people had traditions of apprenticeship. They’d want to be a blacksmith, so they’d spend 12 years at the feet of a master. By the time they were done, they became a master themselves. That’s how people learned things in the old days, they would fully master them.”

The above statement was made by Buddhist Lama Christie McNally during an interview with GOOD. The interview discussed the practice of a meditation retreat that consists of 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days of complete silence, no speaking, and no contact with the outside world. Some Buddhist students embark on this retreat in order to truly master the art of meditation.

This lead me to thinking about questions of true artistry. Is this a tradition we are losing in modern times? Are we no longer artisans of anything? Have we lost the ability to focus on and master one thing? Is this a positive or a negative? In the interview, McNally goes on to discuss the negative effects. But in contrast, I wonder if maybe we’ve progressed into something bigger.

Jack of all Trades, Master of None

“In this culture, we dabble and we educate our children to be dabblers. That’s what I did in college. I’d take this psychology class or that philosophy class, but there was no emphasis on going to your full potential. There’s so much potential in everybody, but nobody is living up to it.”

I agree that modern education consists of learning a little about a lot of things. However this should not discount that we do in fact learn something. We study the basics, but then we are pushed to innovate on our own. I had an Anthropology professor, Kathleen Young, who challenged me to “think about the way we think.” This one lesson applied to everything else I learned in college and is still influential in my life. Furthermore, I continue to reflect back on anthropological, mathematical and scientific ideas from college when tackling design problems.

Maybe I didn’t master any single discipline in my education, but I learned how to learn, how to connect contrasting disciplines and how to organize my thoughts into new ideas.

The Ability to Focus

“But in this society, we are anti-concentration: we surf the web all the time and our minds are going from this object to that object in a nanosecond. There’s no tradition for just sitting down and keeping the mind on a single object. “

I agree with McNally here. Focus is something I continually struggle with, and I think is an even bigger problem in our society. Lack of focus detracts from every aspect of achieving artistry. We may not need to master one particular thing, but we certainly must be able to focus clearly to be successful. How can we improve focus in an era of extreme information overload and a rapidly increasing pace of life? It’s challenging, but developing focus should be an exercise we all practice on a daily level.

Mastering Design Thinking

Ideas of mastering artistry are fascinating to me because of my vast array of interests in different disciplines, and I strive for perfection in every one. Unfortunately, perfection is unlikely, but maybe there is something else to achieve by drawing connections, developing inter-disciplinary relationships and problem solving.

I am a designer, but I am far from reaching design mastery. I view design as encompassing elements of every discipline, but I cannot master everything. However, maybe design artistry can be achieved by mastering the way we think about design.

Holistic Perspectives

Fusion of disciplines allows for the most interesting and innovative results. The world is becoming continually more interconnected, and it cannot be denied that viewing from a single perspective is limiting. By taking on multiple viewpoints, we are able to develop a bigger and truer understanding.

In modern times, maybe we are becoming masters in the art of thinking.