The Reflection Piece

When I first started this class over 2 months ago, I made the excuse of not having time to create an online blog to share my posts, thoughts, and opinions on the evolution of design. Upon reflection, I realized that creating a post had less to do with sharing my thoughts with the external world, and more with consolidating my thoughts to a central location so that I may come back and put the pieces together to really understand where I am at in terms of graphical evolution. 


Below are a collection of 10 Field Journals entered independently of each other. At the time, there task was to get the post in on time to get the necessary points to pass the class; there was no intentionality of connecting the posts to the weeks prior.


However, as I read through my posts, I realized that there were several key underlying themes that drove my thoughts, and if it weren't for rereading those posts, I would have never made the connection, or be able to competently explain where I stand in terms of design.


Human evolution has always been about survival, and getting ahead of others. Biologically, and culturally, humans have evolved in order to outpace whatever they deem to be a threat, even if it's another group of humans. With design, I see similar themes. Design ideas and processes have always evolved with the intention of getting thoughts out faster, further, and easier than competing thoughts. Whether it be marketing, political propaganda, or religious manuscripts; the one that got out faster, further, and easier always ended up winning, and design was key to that.


I also made the realization that what we have today, regardless of how new it may seem to me, has it's roots in the past. Beck's transportation map was a stoke of genius to me, even though I saw it decades after it was first introduced. Movie posters, architectural designs, computers, cars, etc... all have their design roots in the past, whether it be from the Victorian Era, Modern Era, or Post Modern era. Everything new is rooted in something old. 


I referred to Steve Jobs and Apple in many of my posts. Their design has always fascinated me. I like simple, smooth, and clean designs. Apple, in Steve Jobs' second term with the company, brought that to life. Their products have always been about simplicity, and that is where I see the future of design going. Apple has been able to do so much with so little, you see many other industrial designs following suit: simple, monotone, few buttons, large displays, etc... Even Apple's marketing has gone that route. Simple, yet powerful. 


That is the future of design: Simple, yet Powerful. That is until it becomes too mainstream, and someone with the right vision and tools turns it upside down and we start a whole new era of design. 

Field Journal #10 - Home Publishing

Adobe Software is some of the most powerful, and intuitive software out there. Over the past few years, my husband has taken on some marketing responsibilities for the non profit that he works at. He has absolutely NO MARKETING EXPERIENCE, yet with Adobe InDesign, he was able to create bright, colorful, and attractive flyers for his programs. All it took was a little understanding of how the software worked, and the time and patience to interact with the software.

Along with this class, I'm also taking a photo editing class which relies heavily on Adobe Photoshop. Again, a photography background is not necessary to create dramatic photos. A simple cell phone photo can be altered into a work of art if you have the time to understand the software.

Adobe, along with many other home publishing software makers, have made in home design simpler and more accessible to the masses. There was a time when designing t-shirts, invitations, or calendars meant paying a designer thousands of dollars. Not anymore. However, the price of the software can be an arm and a leg in itself. 

Field Journal #9 - Parking Garages

Living in the South Bay, I've never really had to deal much with Parking Garages. There's always plenty of parking spots in the "parking lot", or spots along the curb. However, whenever I visit larger cities, such as San Francisco, street parking, or lot parking, seems to be less of an option, and large parking garages eventually end up being the only choice for parking.

Parking garages are not friendly places, especially when spots are at a premium. I find that many people often ignore traffic signs, or directionality just to get to an open spot. And with the Holiday Shopping Season right around the corner, I dread the idea of entering a public parking garage.

That is, until I noticed some really cool graphics that started to pop up in larger garages. I thought it was a stroke of genius. Large lettering, painted on the walls and concrete in a style where if seen up close, it would make no sense at all. However, from a distance, such as that of a driver in a car, the painting clearly spells out directionality. There's no excuse of "I didn't see the sign" or "I wasn't sure which way was up or down" anymore. "Super graphics" like these are popping up all over. 

At first, large graphics painted or hung on walls were reserved for advertising: underwear, athletes, brands, etc... They would stretch several stories tall, and span the entire face of a building. There's absolutely no way a consumer could miss that large of an advertisement.

Taking something that was once meant as a form of art or advertising, and transforming it into a tool for public safety shows that art and design can be extremely flexible, and its uses are only limited by the imagination of its creator. 

Field Journal #8 - Brand Recognition

Corporate identity nowadays can make or break an organization. A symbol logo, font selection, color selection, etc... can define an organization's identity and purpose. My husband works for the YMCA, which recently went through a national, "rebranding". The Y took a look at it's hundreds of local branches and recognized that each branch misused the Y Logo, color scheme, and marketing philosophy, thus creating a schism in what the public perceives the YMCA to be. Because there was no unified logo, color scheme, or marketing plan, the general public really couldn't define what the YMCA was about. They rebranded and enforced strict marketing guidelines on all chartered YMCA's that included proper usage of the logo, color schemes, fonts, and voice. They even updated their tagline to include the phrase, "so much more" to get the public to see the organization as more than a Gym and Swim. 

From my professional world, I see things that I never would've seen growing up. For example, I truly believe that children will recognize popular logos before they recognize letters and numbers. My niece, for example, was able to identify the gold arches of McDonald's before she was able to recognize all of her letters and numbers. Logos are a very powerful thing in our society. They define an organization and draw in future customers. 

Field Journal #7 - The Foundation of Transportation

Growing up, I was not exposed to Public Transportation much. We grew up in an area where subways and buses weren't an option. Traveling from Point A to Point B meant walking, driving, or biking. It wasn't until high school that I first experienced Public Transportation. Navigating the different routes was quite stressful. How anyone could decipher the different colored lines and route names and numbers was beyond me.

It was complicated and didn't match up with any of the streets I was familiar with. There no curves, contours, or any type distinguish in the shape of the roads; surely not all roads were straight lines! Yet, the more I stared at it, the more it resonated with me, which only caused me to want to understand it more. And that was when the simplicity of the design came out. Henry Beck had sought out to simplify the London Underground. What he did, however, was simplify public transportation around the world. 

I've been to many metropolitan areas and have ridden on many subways. I've been on buses, ferries, trains, and even taxis, that use Beck's simple design as a way to highlight routes and direction. It's almost a universal language at this point, as traveling on subways and trains does not require understanding the native language.

Recently, I've been on multiple school campuses that have begun to adopt parts of Beck's creation: bright colorful lines painted on the blacktop to show kids where to line up, and where to walk when it's time to walk. Surely, Beck did not see this coming when he sought out to simply his local life.