Manifestos./
What is a Manifesto?
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.
Postspectacular Manifesto: Rule Making and Rule Breaking./
The Brief./ ‘This Project introduces you to critical design processes and asks you to ask questions about digital culture in general and the roles of producer, user and audience within it in particular. You will explore these questions through the development of a manifesto. You will be given roles (designer, producer, audience, participant, collaborator, user) and will be asked, in groups to develop a manifesto based on your research findings and your response to the contemporary design context. Your manifesto should be produced creatively and reflect its contents. The brief emphasises research as a creative and critical process. The process of researching is a creative process in itself and it can inspire your creative ideas, processes and outputs towards critically aware and informed conclusions.’
Literacy.
Process.
Outputs.
Learn by doing Take away a sound understanding of new concepts learned at the end of each activity. Transform knowledge into intuition. Share your learnings. Experiment to avoid/overcome procrastination. Go further, Carpe noctem.
Use the right tool for the right job - make those tools! Recognize too that each tool has limitations. Benefit from these boundaries set.
Be self-critical to promote quality & positiveness Ask the important, uneasy questions if you’re in doubt. Don’t be afraid to change your opinion if new learnings require so. Your output & process is more important than your brand, let these things BE your brand.
Become literate in systems thinking Create services, and products as artefacts of services. Always consider the surrounding context and environment of your output. Understand, utilize & harness economics of scale, network effects. Often the population (of ideas, opportunities & solutions, your network) is more important than the individual. Again, adopt creation processes which support this approach.
Encourage creative flow in your process Utilize iterative, agile practices. Constant refinement & refactoring. Be part of networks However peers are not main source of inspiration. Apply recursion to your process, but don’t (give in to) repeat yourself: creatively & practically. Allow for recombination of ideas by adopting modular development This applies personally & globally. Acknowledge you’re standing on the shoulders of giants. Become your own giant. Embrace Open Source thinking and practice. Be open to new influences Encourage serendipity in your process. Evaluate new processes, techniques & technologies, adopt them immediately where beneficial.
Breaking it down.
If we analyse the Postspectacular manifesto we can see that it is firstly split into three main headings and then into more sub headings with those. This appears to be an organised method of present the manifesto not only as a visual concept but also so the text is easier to read and digest in smaller chunks. It is almost like factual information which needs to be clear and concise. A manifesto is like a set of rules that a designer or business must follow to create the best outcomes possible. I will need to consider the layout and how to organise the information within our own manifesto.
Benefit from and accept that you’re working towards moving targets (caused by your own doing and that of others) Replace fixed, crystallized, pre-defined specifications with a shared vision as starting point. Be prepared and allow the vision to change. Define inputs as ranges, not constants, thus allowing your creation to be agile. Accept failure as part of your process. However, risk of major failure is drastically reduced in a continuous mode for issues can be recognized and addressed earlier on. Use clear language without hype & buzzwords Work iteratively and think modular. Don’t dilute the essence of a thing by giving in to feature creep. Attempt constant feedback loops.
Attempt to move away from isolated projects towards a continuous flow of activity Small steps, more often.
Participant Role.
Definition Someone who takes part in an activity. A participant role is a relation that persons have to each other with regards to their involvement in a speech event. Types./ Adresse An addressee is any of the immediate intended recipients of the speaker’s communication, as grammaticalized in second person morphemes. Audience An audience is one or more persons who are part of the conversational group but who are not presently being addressed. Bystander A bystander is a person in a participant role of audience or unratified participant. Ratified Participant A ratified participant is one who, in a speech event, has the role of * speaker * addressee, or * intended audience. Source as a participant role Source is the participant role of the referent from whom a message ultimately comes, especially in the case in which the referent is distinct from the speaker. Unratified participant An unratified participant is a person present at, but not a recognized participant of, a conversation or other speech event. Tom Bryant
Postspectacular./
Rule Making and Rule Breaking./ Literacy. Postspectacular is a small London based design studio and consultancy. Founded by
Karsten Schimdt. Karsten Schmidt is a London based computational designer merging code, design, art & craft skills. Originally from East Germany and starting in the deep end of the early 8-bit demo scene, for the past 2 decades he’s been adopting a trans-disciplinary way of working and been laterally involved in a wide range of digital disciplines. With his studio PostSpectacular, he is actively exploring current possibilities at the intersection of design, art, software development and education and applying these in a variety of fields. A strong conceptual thinker and always striving for maximum creative freedom, Karsten’s design approach is based on treating ideas as software at the heart, which in turn informs all other facets of each project. When not creating, he travels the world consulting and teaching workshops about the generative design approach, open source and employing code as creative tool. He’s been an early contributor to the Processing.org project and to various books about programming and graphic design, and his work has been featured in the press and exhibited internationally, including the MoMA, New York and Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ‘To actively explore the growing possibilities at the intersection of various design disciplines, art and software development in a multitude of contexts.’ ‘Working cross-disciplinary with a network of other creatives, our design approach is based on treating ideas as software at the heart, which in turn informs all other facets of each project. We are using code as primary design tool to build unique, highly adaptable platforms, installations, services and systems for some of the world’s most respected and innovative brands. ‘
About.
01/ A step by step Guide 02/ Rules 03/ Manual 04/ Public decloration of intentions and principles
05/ From coming up with an idea too producing an outcome
06/ A method of working
Learn by doing. Take away a sound understanding of new concepts learned at the end of each activity. Transform knowledge into intuition. Share your learning. Experiment to avoid/overcome procrastination. Go further, Carpe noctem. Become literate in systems thinking. Create services, and products as artefacts of services. Always consider the surrounding context and environment of your output. Understand, utilize and harness economics of scale, network effects. Often the population (of ideas, opportunities and solutions, your network) is more important than the individual. Again, adopt creation processes which support this approach.
Work. Objective: To design a front cover for a magazine article called Kinetic Typography
Kinetic isn’t even so much about motion and animated typography as about the process nature driving the creation of letter forms. ‘Type, form and function’ became the starting point for his further explorations.
Continued... The patterns generated range from blurry souplike charactor to alive dot patterns to maze like structures. Everything still essentially happened in the flatland of 2D typography and didn’t really address the ‘form’ aspect of the phrase very well. He used an MRI scan and figured he could use the combined 2D output slices/frame of the simulation to form a 3D volume. Below are some explorations of the customized Gray-Scott simulation combined with the Marching cubes algorithm used to slowly create a volumetric form from the 2D frames.
Output.
From the beginning, the cover design needed to reflect the following for him: the creation process made as visible as possible (that also meant a probably quite raw end result). It needed to be sculptural, use generative form giving and involve some form digital fabrication to indicate the rapidly changing scope and meaning of the word ‘print’...He looked into various possible means and approaches suitable for generating not only typographic shapes, but then later allow us to turn them into (solid) forms too. To be able to do just that, he needed to concentrate on particular, sufficiently generic tools/processes which could be combined and customized for this particular project. Gray-Scott model He chose a process called Gray-Scott reaction diffusion. This model is used in chemistry and biology and is related to the field of Cellular Automatation, although is not rule based and can’t be used for computation.
What we can say.
We can analyse from this is that with design context of today, ideas can have a long and thorough process behind them, which is not often seen by the audience or user. Ideas within design are visual ways of communicating something, so, we can say that in design everything must have a reason for it’s placement or purpose within an idea. Sometimes we make decisions based on purely the aesthetic look that is pleasing and ‘goes well’, however it is important to create things with more meanings behind them. The best designs are the ones with the most development? Is a design ever final and fully developed? Tom Bryant
Manifesto Research./ Nokia Design Manifesto./
Initiative An Internal Comms initiative for Nokia design The Challenge How does a behemoth of the mobile phone category address the fickle and mercurial nature of the average mobile consumer? Especially when their designs fail to meet the toughest criteria of all...being “cool”. This was the challenge facing Nokia’s new head of design Alastair Curtis in early 2006. Not only were Nokia’s phone just not cool, internal teams were becoming increasingly de motivated as competitors like Motorola RAZR, LG Chocolate and Samsung seemed to be gaining cool credentials with each and every new product launch. The Insight Commonsense suggested that consumers would change their view on Nokia design only when they had a cool Nokia phone in their hands. Without that tangible “proof point” communicating to them was quickly seen as a pointless exercise. However, re-energizing and inspiring the internal Nokia design team was absolutely critical. This group would be the architects of the next Nokia design revolution. Beginning with a gruelling series of interviews we set out to define the essence of Nokia’s design ethos and to uncover the elusive brand attributes that had made Nokia such a force in mobile phones. The interviewees were a veritable who’s who of the Nokia design teams across Europe and, not surprisingly, a very vocal and insightful group. The Communication From our internal work sessions and interviews, the idea of a Nokia design Manifesto quickly evolved. A succinct document to synthesize Nokia’s design history and to draw inspiration for the path ahead. A Manifesto could also be easily distributed across Nokia’s global network of design and R&D facilities. Finally it would provide great fodder for Nokia’s recruitment drives as well. The Payoff At the time of writing, the Manifesto had found its way across Nokia’s design teams. Excerpts had been transformed into other collateral like workplace posters to extend the reach of the Manifesto. plans were also underway to include it in a new employee recruitment drive. In the market, Nokia appears to have turned a design corner with the release of coveted models like the n95. Obviously, one communication initiative could not be entirely responsible for the transformation but the Manifesto does highlight Nokia’s commitment to moulding and articulating their vision for the mobile category.
Nokia
I Like the structure of the Nokia Design Manifesto in that it has 5 distinct sections which not only break the information down into an easier way to absorb but also as a visual concept make it more organised. I believe that as a group this manifesto will be useful in terms of structure and context. The manifesto is a corporate one however so an exact influence is not appropriate in this case as we were assigned the Participant role.
Braz Andre Manifesto./ The ultimate aim of all creative activity is to bring happiness to people’s lives. Happiness is an emotion that comes in result of positive experiences and affects human beings. Experiences can happen in the past, present or future. Past experiences must offer good memories as a way of re-living it in the present and desiring it for the future. Present experiences must connect to the mind in its whole, bringing focus to the action being performed and getting the mind to a flow state. Happiness comes from the experience itself and not from the result of it. Future experiences must bring desire to the present, creating a present that is better because of the latent potential of a future experience. Experiences can be based in real life or in fantasy, but reality and fantasy must empower one another in a way that the whole is better than the absolute sum of the separate experiences. Experiences that foster happiness should have the following qualities: * Make people feel confident of themselves. * Make people feel they can do something better. Empowers people to do something in a better way. * Improve people’s lives helping to solve existing pragmatic problems * Make people have an enjoyable and fun time during the experience, thus making life worth to be lived. * Surprises people in a magic way, bringing delight to the eyes and making the mind wonder. * Create an emotional connection between everyone involved, the experience itself and the one supporting the experience (a brand or a person) * Make the world a better place to live * Strengthen relationships between people that live the same experience
Participant Role in Design context./
It could be said that the role is dependant on the type of interaction, ‘participation’ that takes place. for example an interactive piece of technology has limitations to what the participant can do to change it and interact with it. Perhaps more practical and ‘hands on’ types of interaction and more suited to the participant role in design context.
Braz Andre About./ Visual and Interaction designer with a keen eye for the human condition and marketing problem-solving. Experiences must be immersive and sensorial. The more it talks to human senses, the better it will be. They can exist in physical or virtual states. The success of an experience is measured by the amount of happiness it brings to life and the amount of people willing to live the experience, not by it’s individual qualities. All kinds of sciences, technologies and studies can be tools for creating happiness and must be used accordingly. Every effort made to get a better understanding of the human condition and psychology should be treasured, for it points to the right direction and brings enlightenment on how to use the many tools available to create a good experience. Artists are not different than scientists. “The artist is an exalted craftsman”, as stated by Walter Gropius in the Bauhaus Manifesto. “By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.” The Experience Designer is therefore a new denomination for all of those that follow this movement and conjure art, science, technology and psychology to desire, conceive and create experiences that bring happiness to the life of many. An experience designer must love and care about people and the world in which we all live. It’s his mission in the world to proudly spread love and happiness through his creations. Beta Version • • Tom Bryant
Ideas Development./ Lego Event.
This event was organised to show participation. The participants can work together to create the outcome. You could also include that myself as I was filming the event that I was also participating by using camera equipment, on the other hand you could say I was a user and an audience..As a group we realised early on during the research development stage that it can at times be challenging to conclude wether or not a specific role on any given task or event is a participant or user. The participant can only use what is available from the designer to create a limited outcome. The user can not input anything and is only taking away from the task or event and not putting anything back in.
Paper plane flying. Advertising the event./
Paper plane flying. Poster./
I created a poster using Adobe Photoshop so as a group we could advertise that the event was taking place.
Drawing.
For this event we had a sheet of A1 paper for the UCA students to draw anything that they wanted to. We filmed each student drawing for several minutes as others joined in to participate and create an outcome. This event was fun for students to participate in if not a bit simple.
Paper plane flying. Observations./
My role as a participant in this event was making paper aeroplanes for UCA students to participate in throwing them. I was also filming for most of the event and observed the students in the participant role and also how they seemed to be enjoying what was again a very simple task yet brought pleasure to them. They were interviewed afterwards and were pleased that they took part but it was not something that they would like to participate in on a regular basis. However the event was held so that we could research and be inspired in writing our participant manifesto not to observe the enjoyment levels of fellow students. Overall it was a success!
Advertising on Facebook and on the Graphic Design: New Media and Graphic Design forums./
Tom Bryant
Ideas Development./
Developing the Participant Manifesto Developing at Developing and UCA./ sharing ideas and input online./ As a group we began to put together our manifesto for the participant role.
Communicating as a group through Facebook allowed us to share our ideas and input whilst not attending UCA.
Prototypes of the Participant Manifesto.
Process 1. Listen to instructions and advice in context with the participatory event/situation..? 2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, why, where, how, when? 3. Allow events to influence you and allow you to progress? 4. Make mistakes but learn from them! Repeat what works. 5. Be adventurous- feel free to participate in any and everything. 6. Take every opportunity to interact! 7. Experience new possibilities- Step out of your comfort zone.
Prototypes of the Participant Manifesto.
8. Explore! Breakit, Stretchit, Bendit, Crushit, Crackit, Fold it!
Process 1. Listen ? (need a sentence for this one)
Output 1. Be critical of your experiences.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions- how, where, when.
2. On reflection, voice out your opinion - Learn from your involvement
9. Adopt a carefree attitude -but participate with the aim to succeed.
3. Allow events to change/influence you. 4. Make mistakes- repeat yourself. 5. Be adventurous- feel free to participate in any and everything. 6. Take every opportunity to interact -Play! 7. Experience new possibilities - Step out of your comfort zone. 8. Explore! Breakit, Stretchit, Bendit, Crushit, Crackit, Fold it! 9. Adopt a carefree attitude -but participate with the aim to succeed. Output 1. Be critical of your experiences. 2. On reflection, voice out your opinion - Learn from your involvement.
Other points./ Process 1. Listen, read and understand the instructions, as they are the starting point. 2. Recognize that there are limitations, but endless possibilities at the same time. (this can be just before no.7) Output 1. Evaluate the success, don’t be afraid to step Tom Bryant
Final Manifesto & Analysis./ Final Manifesto./ PROCESS 1. Listen, read and understand the instructions, as they are the starting point. 2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions- how, where, when. 3. Allow events to change/influence you. 4. Make mistakes- repeat yourself. 5. Be adventurous- feel free to participate in any and everything. 6. Recognize that there are limitations, but endless possibilities at the same time.
Personal Development./ I have developed in many areas during this project. These are, my camera skills, group work skills, software skills and knowledge, design knowledge, greater knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. I hadn’t realised until thinking about how I have improved that sometimes despite not always being 100% happy with your outcomes due to lack of knowledge or understanding during the process stage that, I have actually developed my skills and knowledge as described above.
7. Take every opportunity to interact -Play! 8. Experience new possibilities – Step out of your comfort zone. 9. Explore! Breakit, Stretchit, Bendit, Crushit, Crackit, Fold it! 10. Adopt a carefree attitude -but participate with the aim to succeed. OUTPUT 1. Be critical of your experiences. 2. On reflection, voice out your opinion – Learn from your involvement. 3. Evaluate the success, don’t be afraid to step back to the process if needed
Evaluation of group manifesto project./ As a group project I feel our final manifesto was a success. We researched into the Karsten Schmidt manifesto and the role of a participant. We carried out several primary research events in which we got people to participate in given tasks. They were a success alone so the context and development of our final manifesto are strong therefor the manifesto itself is well developed for the participant role. The layout and style of the final manifesto also relates to our research on other manifestos. We also worked very well as a group and using each of our stronger points came together and created a good piece of design.
Tom Bryant