SUCH RELATION.
Relational Design Process Book
MUCH DESIGN.
Jordan Hu Relational Design RISD ‘15 Instructor: Clement Valla
Table of Contents
Table of Content Introduction 1 Ethnography 3 Event Scores 17 Graphic Design窶年ow in Production 33 Conclusion 45
Relational Design Process Book
Introduction
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Introduction The first few weeks of class, I honestly wasn’t quite sure what I would discover or take from this class. I remember the whenever people asked me how I felt about Relational Design, all I could respond was that it was interesting... and that was it. To me, Relational Design seemed like a continuation of Making Meaning, except it was more directed towards questioning everything about not only graphic design, but everything.
Relational Design Process Book
Ethnography
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Assignment 1 | Ethnography Create a presentation/(visual) narrative about a fellow student as a graphic designer— reflecting core values, skills, knowledge, goals, wants, vision, dreams, etc. as they relate to this fellow student’s position in graphic design. Students will be paired in teams of two and each team member will produce a narrative presentation about the other team member.
Relational Design Process Book
Ethnography
For the past three weeks, all the sections had to embark on a project related to ethnography. Based on various articles assigned to us on the topic of what is relational design and its application to the world we live in, we had to utilize that insight/knowledge within this project. The first project required every student to be paired with a fellow classmate where we were asked to do extensive research on one another. I was paired up with my fellow peer, Juliette Weiss. Based on the research gathered through interviews and stalking, I had to narrow down to a form that would embody her as a designer. However, the challenge was finding the midpoint between her voice and my voice within the appropriate form. The form that I ended up narrowing down to was creating an entire identity for Juliette. I didn’t want to take a literal approach to reveal who Juliette was as a person and designer. So I decided to create an imaginary brewery company, called The Weiss Company.
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Juliette’s own craft beer created and designed as her 21st birthday present
Relational Design Process Book
Ethnography
To see the full publication— http://issuu.com/desfortunata/docs/weiss_style_guide
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Relational Design Process Book
Ethnography
I ended up choosing the form of branding and identity because it embodies Juliette’s design aesthetics as well as personality. Juliette is an entrepreneur/businesswoman along with being a graphic designer. She is constantly branding herself and her work. If you check out her Linkedin, she has over 500+ connections, and even during school, she is working on freelance projects. Going in this direction was rather difficult for me because my style is on the total opposite end of the spectrum. It was challenging to adhere to her design aesthetics and still have my own voice in it. My mentality for this assignment coincided with the way Juliette is as a designer. She mentioned in her interview that the difference between art and design was that design is more about your client, and not about yourself. So, I changed my way of thinking where Juliette was my client and I was instructed to design a style guide that had both the client and designers voice in it. I began to find an overlap as I was starting off designing the logo. The logo is the most important component to an identity because it is the constant that appears in all the promotional work. I viewed the logo as an opportunity to incorporate more of my own voice. The calligraphic logo is inspired by Juliette as a person; she is crazy, outgoing, and cannot be categorized. And above anything else, she is fun. The tagline for the company is, “be Weiss. play hard. work hard.” Conducting my interview with her, I was most drawn to her saying, “I believe that it is vital to find the balance between work and play.” I felt like that quote embodied her so well and decided to use that for the motto of the company. It also kind of played with how she struggles to find a balance between form and concept within her work. Ultimately, the mission of this company is to remind their customers that it’s vital to find a balance between playing hard and working hard through some
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Relational Design Process Book
The promotional work within the identity includes a style guide, a beer packaging label, as well as a promotional card for a hypothetical launch party of the Company. The entire three-week process of working on this project with Juliette was actually really rewarding because in the end, we surprisingly found overlap between two seemingly polar opposite designers and people.
Ethnography
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Relational Design Process Book
Ethnography
Work hard.
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Play hard.
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Ethnography
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Relational Design Process Book
Event Scores
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Assignment 2 | Event Scores
Relational Design Process Book
How do we make process visible? “Scores are a way of symbolizing reality—of communicating experience through devices other than the experience itself” (Lawrence Halprin). When we write/draw/create a score to record an event we construct a framework for conveying human interaction, experience and social context in past, present and future scenarios. Scores are process tools for communication and feedback and decision-making in a socially-engaged design/art practice. What kind of (visual, verbal, sensory) language do you need to create a score that is both open to interpretation and accurate enough to convey some sense of an event’s reality? In assignment #2, you will design an event (an action to be carried out), perform it—and publish a score.
Event Scores
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Delving into this project, I already had a preconceived idea that I wanted to do something related to Social Psychology. This semester, I have been taking this course at Brown University and I’ve realized how much it has affected my work. I see much overlap between this course and this particular project because in Psychology, there are experiments and from the information we gathered, then are they able to make a statistical graph which leads the psychologists to further exploration and conclusions/theories. Due to the fact that this assignment required collecting, I felt it was appropriate to relate to Psychology, a secondary interest, for inspiration.
Relational Design Process Book
Thoughts
So tell me... what makes you N
P
I
A
P
H
Event Scores
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u happy? S
S
E
I’ve noticed that a lot of the Relational projects recently that I’ve seen from peers were placing sheets in the elevators and having people scribble on it. I wanted to just the opposite because I feel that this sort of methodology doesn’t solve anything and doesn’t evoke in the audience anything. It becomes less personal and merely just a place to scribble crap.
Relational Design Process Book
I knew that I wanted to evoke in my audience an emotion through my methodology. I didn’t want this project to be merely handing somebody something, having them perform it and then walk away feeling nothing, eventually leading to them forgetting it. In my opinion, the most relational projects and designs are the ones that are most memorable and have an impact on somebody. Of course, every project and design is never going to impact or relate to every human being on the earth, but the ones that communicate to a broad enough audience end up being the more successful relational designs.
Event Scores
The Experiment
I designed and created two different forms for this experiment. One of the forms is a set of 8 6� x 8� cards that was actually somewhat designed. The other form was a standard letter size paper that is quite obviously poorly designed. I handed out these cards to 9 different people and allowed them to read the instructions and generally finish it without giving them much or any guidance at all. What they didn’t know was that I was secretly timing how long it took for each participant to finish. On all the cards, the instructions tells them to draw something that makes them happy. I chose to ask them to draw something that makes them happy because it is a relatively vague question that everybody can understand and probably has thought about at one point in their lives. Another reason why I chose this prompt was because it is a question that people can either take extremely seriously or treat it like a joke.
Happy Cards
23 This project was inspired by a psychology experiment in which when being interviewed by a proctor, if you are holding a hot or cold cup of coffee affects the way we perceive things or actions. This is related to my concept because my overarching question is if form make a difference?
Relational Design Process Book
Event Scores
Suddenly, the project became more about form. Does the form that we place in the participant’s hand make a difference to their perception?
Do people care less if their is a difference within form? Would people take it more seriously if the form was more nicely designed as opposed to less well-designed? Personally, I have always been one to be attracted towards things specifically form. Of course, there are those that love conceptual designs and art, but I have always thought that in terms of a broader audience, the vast majority would rely specifically on form and appearance that appeals to them.
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Relational Design Process Book
I specifically chose to individually hand out these pamphlets and cards as a means to collect better information. In Psychology, we’ve learned that when you directly hand something to somebody, the more of an increase in them taking the assignment more seriously because you are placing responsibility in the hand of the individual. For the more well-designed cards, I chose a specific sizebecause I wanted to use the tangibility of an objectto my advantage. There is something about the tangibility of an object that is seemingly more personal to me because you are actually interacting with the object. Through interaction, the audience is able to make a connection with that specific object which adds on to the entirety of experience.
Event Scores
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Average time spent— 6:14
Relational Design Process Book
Total time— 49:17
Event Scores
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Average time spent— 2:34
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Total time— 18:68
Event Scores
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Relational Design Process Book
Sukeshi
GDNiP
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Assignment 3 | Graphic Design—Now in Production This spring, the exhibition ‘Graphic Design—Now in Production’ will open at the RISD Museum. The show explores some of the most vibrant and critical contemporary graphic design work being produced today. In this unit we will do intensive research around themes and issues raised by the show about the state of graphic design in 2014. We will ask you to take a critical stance for or against an aspect of the show, a particular work or collection of works in the show, its curation a nd/or its presentation in the space of the museum.
Relational Design Process Book
You will then be asked to design a finished work that allows someone else to experience your stance on the show. From a printed informational hand-out, to an audio guide, to a wayfinding system — this assignment’s final deliverable is deliberately left open for students to explore research-driven, ground-up design..
GDNiP
What if... categories did not exist?
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The exhibit would be one huge
Relational Design Process Book
c
olo colo GDNiP
Relational Design Process Book
orfu or37
GDNiP
l
gradient
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. . .
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GDNiP
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Relational Design Process Book
GDNiP
What is graphic design and how do we define? Do we define graphic design as merely an infographic, a book, or does it take form of a poster? Ultimately, the entire purpose of this exhibition is to show viewers that the definition of graphic design has developed over the years has changed. This assignment was one of my favorite assignments throughout the course of the semester. Being able to do extensive research on topics that interest me, although not directly related to the exhibit, but still able to utilize that information to create a working design was truly a learning experience. It corroborates my interest in using outside sources and bringing it back to graphic design. Through this project, I was able to learn that there is so much overlap with graphic design and that it really isn’t just my predetermined thought going into this assignment of just simply kerning letters.
43 My project for the Graphic Design Now—In Production exhibition is a web-based site for those that wish to view this exhibit online. The extensive research that I did on this exhibit mostly revolved around stereotypes and labeling. The research, although not directly related to this exhibition, I was able to pinpoint what direction I wanted to head towards. The research allowed me to come to this conclusion and solution of categorization within the exhibit. The labeling and categorization of this exhibition is split up into 8 different colors. Having walked around and explored the exhibit three times, I have noticed that there are many pieces that one wouldn’t expect to fit under the category that they are placed in. In fact, you start to realize that many of the Graphic Design Now– in Production pieces fall under numerous categories instead of just one. Ultimately, there is an overlap. This realization of overlap is a question that directly relates to the entirety of this exhibition.
Relational Design Process Book
Introduction
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Conclusion Having finally finished this class, I can definitely say that I have definitely taken something from it. For me, it was a class that helped me both through my designs and personal interests as well. Initially, I really didn’t think this course was going to be informational and helpful at all. However, I can definitely understand why this course is within our curriculum and that what you get from it can definitely be applicable when we go out into the real world. It has definitely broadened my thinking even more so than making meaning had done. I am able to utilize this way of thinking and apply it back into my graphic design.
Relational Design Process Book
I am fortunate to have chosen to go into graphic design specifically at RISD, because I know for a fact that at any other school, I would never have had the opportunity to take a class like this. I guess that is what sets RISD graphic design alumni from everybody else.