Sunday, February 14th, 2010...10:44 pm
project diary
as i mentioned in last post, this is an update on my project idea. feedback is needed and welcome. by the way not having a computer sucks! let’s prey for my laptop, hope it will be back tomorrow.
Ground Rules of Synergy Project:
_More than 2 organizations combine forces create effect greater than the sum or their separate effects.
_1+1>1
_synergy is a process of an end result
_using graphic design to design projects to show the process and end result of synergy.
Projects Proposal:
1. Jenga Building Block—A process of graphic design
Jenga is known as a game of physical and mental skill. Before playing the game, players have to build up the tower and that is synergy. In Jenga, players take turns to remove a block from a tower and balance it on top, creating a taller and increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses.
Graphic designers will often form part of a team working on corporate identity and branding projects. Other members of that team can include marketing professionals, communications consultants and commercial writers. A graphic designer may use typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce the final result.
Jenga has more then 2 organizations : GD has more then 2 organization
Jenga takes process to build up an end result : So does GD!
Using the Jenga to show how many parts in Graphic Design, to show it’s a organization of team work. ex: graphic designer, art director, creative director, production artist, author, client, etc.
Mission:
_Design a set of Jenga blocks made of each positions in the creative process of a graphic design product.
_A user manual
_package
2. Contributing artists
Start a poster series contribute by 5 groups, each group with 10 people. Select a topic (relate to synergy and gd), starts with a person to illustrate, after the first person his/her turn, that person will pass it to next person; and the next person will continue illustrate the poster.
By the end of the process, i will collect 5 posters created by the synergy of 50 people.
Mission:
_create a user manual
_each contributor will be given a limited tool to create illustration.
_package
3. Contributing writers
A series story books create by groups, each 5 group with 10 people. Same idea as Project 2, in literature form. The story will starts off the last paragraph from one famous novel, each contributor will continue with the last sentence of the previous contributor.
By the end of process, i will collect 5 stories written by the synergy of 50 people.
Mission:
_create a user manual
_each contributor will be given to a number of words they have to incorporate in the writing
_package
4. Connect the Dots
In adult discourse the phrase “connect the dots” can be used as a metaphor to illustrate an ability (or inability) to associate one idea with another, to find the “big picture”, or salient feature, in a mass of data.
Each graphic design problem takes a long process to solve the problem, it takes time to connect each dots. In graphic design, the dots means concepts, executions, typography, image treatment, etc; every effort made in the process of creating a piece of work.
Creating a series of posters, from simple to complex, without knowing the big picture, the person who is connecting the dots will learn the synergy from the process, and find out the whole image after finish the whole exercise. The big picture is the key of this project.
Mission:
_choose the iconic typefaces or letter forms to be the end image.
_choose the iconic logos to be the end image.
—–
this project needs more work on shaping the concept and execution. input is welcome.
5. 3 Columns Book–Graphic Designers mind map
I will be interview with 5 Graphic Designers in the industry for their creative process. The designers can pick the project they would like to share the process. I will set a form of questions, each designer will be asked with the same questions. Using the result, I will line up each answers side by side and the audience can see juxtapose the process. Using the answers to create new project idea.
13 Comments
February 15th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Graphic Design Jenga
i think this will work better if the blocks are less about roles within graphic design (as many times the designer takes on many or all of the roles). i would concentrate on the process of design. color (pms 234), style of photography (full color image of a sunset), typeface (bauer bodoni), composition (symetrical), type aligment (flush left rag right and so on.
February 15th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Synergy Posters
i like this (although i think the resulting posters could be a train wreck) but who cares. if the results are bad, it kind of doesn’t matter.
not sure what the manual is for, maybe just select 5 designers and give them a theme for the poster.
set up a simple rule. i participated in such a project last year and it was pretty interesting.
go here:
http://www.sonnoli.com/?p=135
February 15th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
I’m really sorry to say this, but I think everything still seems way too forced.
All of these products could really “do” something involving synergy instead of just taking something that involves multiple parts and comparing it to graphic design. I particularly feel that Jenga has such an arbitrary relationship with graphic design and that comparing them just doesn’t make sense. Not to mention you would just be taking a product that already exists (which brings along with it everyones own sentiments).
In the collaborative poster product you say a “topic related to synergy and gd”, but what are some examples? So far they seem too vague to be well understood. With all of these products I’m having trouble seeing the real connection with graphic design, the connections just come across as being very loose.
I think there is something you can do that would make all of your products reticulate and then they themselves would be synergistic. Maybe you can rethink what makes a product part of synergy and how it could actually involve people synergistically. I also don’t think you have to be so explicit with it being part of graphic design, that will come along with having to design things.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
for me, #s 2, 3 and 4 are exercises i can see being interesting to put out there and curate. the idea of having others combine forces with one another can be synergy if the end result is something worth while.
how can you guarantee your results will be worth while though? i think your outcomes are too vague and this can definitely cause some problems because without this amazing end product/conclusion, synergy was not achieved.
i think you can accomplish this without using graphic design as a backing, also. as grant said, graphic design comes in because these things have to be designed.
this whole idea, as of now, seems a bit contrived and complicated. i think it could be interesting if your project involved this idea of team problem solving, a very specific and unique end result that makes all the combining worth while, and your own hand in curation and maybe producing a forum for your results.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
the synergy stories
i could see this leading to some pretty awful writing, but as with the posters, maybe thats ok. again, too many people contributing.
February 15th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Connecting the Dots
i am not sure i understand this direction. iT seems like this is just like the synergy poster idea no? if not you have to do a better job of explaining the idea.
February 15th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Graphic Design Mind Map
i agree with sarah and grant that you don’t have to treat graphic design as you subject matter. i wonder if this idea is more interesting if you interview people from wildly different disciplines: plumber, graphic designer, teacher, dog catcher…
then if some synergy happens it will be a surprise maybe?
you do keep coming back to making your project participatory. as i have said many times this year, be careful with such ideas as you don’t have time to be waiting around for others to make/react/etc…
you do keep coming back to making your project participatory. as i have said many times this year, be careful with such ideas as you don’t have time to be waiting around for others to make/react/etc…
February 15th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
wait one more thing: what happened to the store? the products?
February 15th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
three things:
about the contributing writers, this could produce something interesting, but I’m afraid this sort of thing has been done before a lot–I have a friend who’s in creative writing, and this is the kind of project teachers sometimes do with their classes, have one person begin a story and the next one continue it. but maybe if the project was something like this: while the ten writers are working on the story based on the last paragraph of a famous novel, give the same paragraph to ten graphic designers and ask them to create illustrations for what might happen next in the story. then your job would be to put the illustrations and the text together in some way.
second, for the jenga game, could you somehow play with negative and positive space, maybe going back to your 25 objects where you were playing with this–maybe somehow, as people are taking away each block, they will create something new through this adding and taking away–in other words, a big gigantic jenga that people could play with.
third, for the mind map, i agree with Paul, maybe interview people from totally different areas but ask them to do the same thing–for example, talk about what they think “love” means–then you can juxtapose the results. maybe they can respond in whatever way they want–how would a graphic designer represent love as compared to a plumber or teacher or construction worker (like my brother, who is in the construction business and would be happy to help with this).
good luck.
February 15th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
sorry, that last comment was from me
February 15th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
The Jenga project is confusing to me as well. It seems that it would show synergy in the beginning as a complete tower, but as you take the pieces out, it undoes the synergy that holds the tower together.
I understand the posters and writing more, I feel like that could work. Would you have a topic first, then give a task to different people (Have someone take pictures, someone else do type, someone screenprint, etc)? Or would the message come later?
I like the idea of connecting the dots, but do you have to be the person that decides what the end is? What if you gave people a random scatter of dots, and had them make whatever they see or want from it? Then your beginning and their end create one thing (or something like that).
February 16th, 2010 at 12:44 am
The Jenga thing seems cheesy to me. If you take away pieces, you’re reversing the effects of synergy that allow it to stand… and making a metaphor for teamwork. It kind of sounds like a motivational poster or something. I also think it relies heavily on something that already exists, which is my same complaint about connect-the-dots. As described, you’re not changing what they are to advance your concept. You’re simply presenting them as something that shows synergy, which I don’t think is enough.
You begin to pique my interest with the collaborative posters and writing, and I think there is potential there for multiple sets of content that converge in the end. The fact that they’ve both more or less been done before does not terribly bother me, because of how you might make them go together in the end. I think it’s because one is strictly sight and one is words… they could be shown side by side to have some sort of combined effect, maybe along with sounds or something.
I also like the idea of people participating in your project without knowing it, though I don’t know if that really interests you. Like if you stand on a street corner and collected the first 5 complete sentences from passing conversations and used them for a written portion of a project.
Hang in there, I think you’re on to something!
February 16th, 2010 at 1:49 am
thanks guys! all the comments are really helpful. especially the ones that points out problem and the ones suggest some executions. i will take all the suggestion in to consideration. i will update more thoughts and fix the way i describe them. sometimes you just need to see what is it look like to understand it. thanks again!
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