They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words … “  Nowhere is that more true than in the case of the following chalk-talk with renown designer and illustrator Milton Glazer. Here, Glazer, Fulbright Scholar and founding partner of the celebrated Push Pin Studios, discusses the codependent relationship between drawing and thinking while sketching a portrait of William Shakespeare.

In his book, “Drawing is Thinking,” Glaser suggests that all art is a form of meditation and that drawing is “a primary way of encountering reality.” He addresses societal reticence around the arts and the individual’s resistance to drawing (“Oh, I can’t draw … my drawings look like they were done by a 3^rd grader … “) as missing the point, asserting that the value in drawing is not about “making things look accurate,” but rather drawing is a way of “becoming more conscious of what one is looking at” and “expressively interpreting the world. “

Comments on Glaser’s theory hearken back to the cave drawings of primitive man,

“ … art started as a way of noticing things, focusing on them, fixing them in our minds, … that when our ancestors drew animals on the walls of caves, it was a kind of sympathetic magic … If they could draw them, they knew them, and they could control them. “

Fast forward to the digital age, where Michale Sankey discusses the effects of changing nature of “visual literacy” as it applies to education and curriculum design,

“In contemporary western culture, particularly the youth culture, visual mediums and genres are becoming increasingly popular at the expense of other mediums, in particular the written word (schirato & Yell 1996). Others suggest that the constant bombardment by visual images from so many quarters is already shaping [the youths] lives, influencing their attitudes and tuning their responses. As media simulations become more popular and persuasive they will increasingly encroach upon life experience to the extent that new senses of reality will be formed and media representations will in fact become our first order reality (Walker & Chaplin, 1997).”

New York Times Weekend columnist Brad Stone (1/10/2010, p. 5) observes that his three-year-old daughter’s world view and life will be shaped by myriad technological advances and gadgets, “ … digital books, Skype video chats, … toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone … she’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.”

Stone goes on to discuss current research which suggests that “the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development.”

This phenomenon could only raise questions around Glaser‘s dynamics of drawing and foster an increased impact on what our own Cecily Sommers describes as our “associative fluency” – taking in information in multiple ways (seeing, hearing, moving) – a mechanism which serves as the foundation of creativity and innovation. The act of drawing or dancing or interacting with digital media (?) opens new pathways in the brain, shaking things up and creating opportunities for new connections to form. Until the age of eight or so, children are able to learn and absorb large quantities of information, forging extensive neural networks to handle the massive influx.

Conversely, over time, under-trafficked neural connections, thought processes and information that see little action, are unceremoniously closed down. Eventually the adult brain winds up using only the most well-trodden neural pathways as a short-cut default system (read: old people stuck in their ways). It continues to be our challenge then, to maintain ample neural capacity such that we are able to “encounter our reality” with resolution and vigor… lest we find ourselves in the cross-hairs of a virtual Wooly Mammoth with only a sharpened pencil to our name.

As in a medical examination or a structural audit on a construction site, the function of the stupid question is to thump around in the context of a product or issue to uncover, understand and test underlying assumptions.  Designer Paula Scher talks to Mau about the value of approaching a problem from the perspective of an outsider,

“When I’m totally unqualified for a job, that’s when I do my best work … If you have too much expertise—if you think you know the answers already—you won’t be as open to offbeat possibilities. But if you’re a neophyte, you’ll ask what would seem to be obvious … From ignorance, you can come up with something that is so out of left field that it has been ignored or was never considered a possibility.”

Mau points out that, “The fear for so many people is that, in asking these kinds of questions, they will seem naïve. But naïve is a valuable commodity in this context. Naïve is what allows you to try to do what the experts say can’t be done.”

Outside of the realm of design (which I believe is a debatable distinction, since most problem solving activities can legitimately stake claim in the category of “design”), this approach can facilitate reconsideration of the foundations of a situation, provide a different perspective on the world, and help us “regain focus and retackle old, entrenched problems.”

Cut to the White House Situation Room – In what has been described as a “head-snapping” moment, high ranking members of President Obama’s Afghanistan review team realized that his approach to emerging military issues in the region was not simply a matter of “updating” his previous strategy, but essentially “starting over from scratch.”

Over a three month period, President Obama engaged U.S. military experts in an “intense, methodical, rigorous, earnest and at times deeply frustrating process for nearly all involved.”  The decision-making exercise became a “virtual seminar” driven by the President’s “insatiable demand for information.” Not only did he invite new perspectives and challenge competing view points to debate, he also listened and asked probing questions a la “college professor/cross-examiner.”

Taking a page from Gordon M. Goldstein’s book on the Vietnam War, “Lessons in Disaster,” President Obama concluded that “both President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to question the underlying assumption about monolithic Communism and the domino theory – clearly driving the Obama advisors to rethink the nature of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

Over the course of the analysis, Obama challenged the veracity of long-held assumptions about nearly every aspect of the Middle East scenario. By adopting the open, imaginative mind-set of the naive outsider/learner, President Obama engaged the U.S. military advisors in a rigorous design thinking exercise.

National security advisor, General James L. Jones spoke to the exhaustive inquiry, “From the very first meeting, everyone started with set opinions. And no opinion was the same by the end of the process.”

Well this year, there’s a whole new option for those wishing to express themselves with jewelry. In 2008, four “opportunity architects”  from  the Royal College of Art, London’s department of Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) got together to form the 1234lab. Sarat  Babu, Stefan Dzisiewski-Smith, Guillaume Drapier and Hermann Trebsche combined their expertise in product design, design strategy, product development, electronic engineering and material engineering to develop products that can ”translate sound into physical objects.”

The 8hertz concept jewelry from 1234lab is a unique combination of “input, algorithm, 3d printing and fine handwork” designed to translate the “nuance, tone, timbre and timing” of the individual human voice into a one-of-a-kind three-dimensional form cast in precious metal.  (Think snarled wire dipped in white chocolate.) Here’s how it works:

“A recording is made of an individual’s voice, sampling every nuance, subtlety and accent. This high-definition representation is then translated via a custom algorithm into a three-dimensional form. The form captures the essence of communication. Each piece is individual and unique to the person who created it. The piece is then realized in precious metal in order to capture the moment in a timeless, durable icon representing the unique nature of human interaction.”

In this case, a short video is worth a thousand words:

So, there you go — whether the folks on your gift list have been naughty or nice, a unique 8hertz necklace can express your holiday sentiment like nothing else. I guess my only questions are — Is there a spell check? And, … how accurately calibrated is the 8hertz method? … i.e., what is the discernable difference between “I love you” and “I loathe you“?

Designing for reality: people won’t be hanging up their cell/smartphones anytime soon inside (what I refer to as) their traveling telephone booths. Microvision is working on ways to integrate social interactions while keeping your eyes on the road. It doesn’t help to focus attention, just your sight lines.

“You look radiant!”

London-based designers, Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz, created the dress, incorporating 24,000 full-color LEDs under the label of their interactive clothing company, CuteCircuit. The dress, now on permanent display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, uses the smallest LEDs available, just 2 by 2 mm, hand-sewn into layers of silk and crinoline which diffuse the light and “can move like normal fabric with lightness (!!) and fluidity.”

The Galaxy Dress is designed to run for up to an hour on tiny iPod batteries sewn into the crinoline. The areas without LEDs are covered with more than 4,000 hand-applied Swarovski crystals that range in color from clear to bright pink.  “The dress looks good even when it is switched off,” say the designers.

As for other bright lights on the horizon, designers Hussein Cahalayan and Moritz Waldemeyer have created their own version of Wearable Electronic Haute Couture – garments that incorporate a “complex set of micromotors and individually controllable LEDs” capable of displaying messages or even video imagery.

Talk about making a fashion statement! … The video below shows the CuteCircuit Galaxy Dress in action.

“Synthetic biology has been called the science of the 21st century. Rewriting the genetic information of micro organisms allows scientists to create new genetic machines that can perform extraordinary tasks.”

And, perched at the crossroads of biology and engineering is the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition wherein multi-disciplinary teams of undergraduate students from all over the world (112 teams this year) come together to dabble in scientific exploration of synthetic biology concepts with an eye toward real world applications.

According to the iGEM site, student teams are given a “kit of biological parts” meted out from an official Registry of Standard Biological Parts (yikes!) which they use as components to “specify, design, build and test simple biological systems.” Participants present their findings in an annual Championship Jamboree/finale forum.

Beakers, lab coats and pocket protectors aside, this is no activity for lightweights. Successful involvement in this impressive competition requires a winning combination of funding, equipment, research space, expertise, leadership, team work and commitment.

“As the premiere undergraduate teaching program in Synthetic Biology, iGEM attracts the current and future leaders in the field. The competition format is highly motivating and fosters hands-on, interdisciplinary education. Biology students learn engineering approaches and tools to organize, model, and assemble complex systems, while engineering students are able to immerse themselves in applied molecular biology… Students are given access to some of the most advanced synthetic biology tools currently available in the hopes of developing students into the best genetic engineers of tomorrow.”

The 2009 Jamboree took place last week at MIT and the Grand Prize winner of the Biobrick Trophy was the Cambridge team for their work on sensitivity tuners and color-generating devices that can detect and measure levels of contaminants in the environment. An eclectic group of graduate fellows, researchers, and honorary lab rats from the London School of Economics, the Royal College of Art, (and a guy whose “work on synthetic meat was recently featured in Wired magazine”), served in an advisory capacity to the Cambridge team.

Students participated in a series of workshops designed to “catch everyone up on the details of Synthetic biology” (I know I’m a little rusty), brainstorm, hone presentation skills, and encourage thinking around bioethical issues such as the far-reaching implications of a project involving live bacteria.

Daisy Ginsburg and James King from the Royal College of Art, organized a Colors Future workshop, exposing students to the behavior of various pigments from the natural world. The group explored many interesting scenarios around the use of pigmentation as an environmental indicator, engineering E. coli to be sensitive to “environmentally significant compounds,” including arsenic, mercury, lead, cyanide, etc. These genetically engineered biosensors worked on a color “dipstick” model wherein live bacteria changed color when exposed to various chemical pollutants.

“We envisioned a marketable product that reports the concentration of an inducer by colour. Each strain is sensitive to a different concentration of the inducer. The concentration of the inducer in the test solution can be determined by reading the pattern of pigmentation. Think litmus paper using live bacteria as the color change agent.  “Colour can be a meaningful but simple output solution for biosensors, adapting nature’s idea of warning colouration.“

The simple sensing mechanism created by the Cambridge iGEM team came about as a result of  multidisciplinary thinking at the juncture between science, technology and art. Their discovery has the potential to change the lives of tens of thousands of people living in remote areas of developing countries where pollution looms as an increasingly significant threat.

Seems like whether we’re doing it or watching it, fun is … fun, and according to the fun folks at Volkswagen, the experience of fun can be designed to influence human behavior.

Such is the theory behind the German automaker’s aptly named “The Fun Theory.“  According to the initiative’s website, The Fun Theory is all about doing good by having fun, and seeks to encourage innovations around that theme through “The Fun Theory Award.”

“The award recognizes those thoughts, ideas and inventions that help prove the fun theory — that fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.”

Judging by the 5,561,328 hits on YouTube, The Fun Theory is a big hit:

For those who are game, The Fun Theory competition is running through November 15th, 2009. The first prize is 2,500 Euros (why not a brand new, very fun VW Beetle??).  The best entries will be constructed and placed on public display.

Founded in 1959 by Richard Coyne and Robert Blanchard, Communication Arts — known in art schools and design firms everywhere by its initials, CA — is the largest international trade journal of visual communications in the world, featuring excellence in graphic design, advertising, photography, illustration and interactive media. CA currently publishes six issues a year; conducts five juried competitions; and hosts two websites, commarts.com and creativehotlist.com.

Word on the street is, “Communication Arts magazine is a great source of inspiration, with profiles and features on top designers and work.” It’s a well-designed magazine that keeps up with the latest trends, showcasing excellence in exhibits, styles, designers and design firms — work from both established Big Dogs and pink-cheeked up-and-comers. Even B.C. (before computers), CA Magazine and its competition annuals were held as the Gold Standard of good design. Students would pour over its starkly laid out pages finding inspiration and intimidation all in one swoop.

Starkness by design - Rather than be a designed element itself, CA’s senior management believes that the magazine’s role is to unobtrusively showcase the work of the designers as a “museum of visual communications.”  This could be a big part of the reason why its pages carry themselves as solidly now as they did in the early days. The magazine, like premier designs of eras gone by, has been able to maintain a presence and integrity, communicating on a level that is as fresh and relevant as the day the first perfect bound edition rolled off the presses. Editors note in a section on CA’s current homepage that “[while time and technology have changed many things], they haven’t diminished the power of a compelling image.”

So, the Q&A session was well under way when a student in the crowd asked,

“So, what’s next in design?”

Coyne didn’t skip a beat and replied, pointing directly at the guy,

“You are. You are what’s next; and I can’t wait to see what you’ll do.” 

He went on to talk about how technology has brought design tools to everybody, … about how anybody can produce a flyer, newsletter or website, … and how the consequence there is that designers are forced to bring value to their clients as strategic thinkers instead of just image makers.  He reassured us that this is a good thing; what used to be primarily communication through graphics and language has become something bigger, deeper and more complex. 

Our own Cecily Sommers ratifies Coyne’s point suggesting that design is rapidly expanding from “things” (the arrangement of visual elements) to “experiences” … from experiences to “perception” … and from perception to “meaning.”  The designers of “what’s next” need to be fluent in the language of meaning … metaphor … symbol … archetype.  Sommers points out that at the structural systems level, a brand, when it works, becomes a steward for a territory of meaning.

“The well-designed brand says, ‘We have a point of view, … we invite you into our world, … a world where experiences, perceptions, objects, humor and tone will be consistent.’  The job of designers, businesses, artists or whoever, is to build a portal that opens up into a world that is designed and engineered to support and promote a continuity of meaning. They need to be able to communicate an experience and its underlying meaning to the marketplace such that people are able to make it their own, to feel that they are a part of a community. If you’ve done a good job, you become a trusted and frequented resource. You can bundle your products and networks with your preferences and P.O.V. … and the whole shooting match reflects your world and the values held therein. You become a curator … a steward of that territory of meaning.”

Curator … the Oxford dictionary defines it as “to look after and preserve” … the NY Times Magazine Sunday Style section defines it as … “a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded.”  Previously confined to exhibition corridors, the modern curator moniker tags anyone who engages in activities that involve “culling and selecting” …

“Now, among designers, disc jockeys, bloggers and thrift-store owners, curate is code for ‘I have a discerning eye and great taste’ … Even news-aggregator websites like Tina Brown’s Daily Beast, promote themselves as cultural curators … sifts, sorts, … Putting things together in a certain way is a creative activity in itself … things like structure, flow and revelation are considered an art.” 

As Coyne and others suggest, in today’s design marketplace, the “what’s next” curation/juxtaposition of variable elements is the new value add. Indeed, even our PUSH Institute “Drill Down” bills itself as “a highly-curated sort and analysis of global trends and issues.”  Looks like what’s next is what’s now. 

Finally,

You bet your wireless digital stylist there is!  “… 16 cities … 256 international competitors … 48 champions … competing in 2D, 3D, and Motion Design” for fun and fabulous prizes. In the spirit and tradition of celebrating independent design and creativity, Cut&Paste presents the first ever global design championship, a culmination of the best-of-the-best from the Digital Design Tournament 2009, slated for October 16th in New York City.

“With the broad geographical reach of an Olympic event and the nervy psychological gamesmanship of the X Games, the championship approaches design as a spectator sport and amps it up like never before … As with the Cut&Paste city tournaments, the global championship will feature a tech set up that registers every mouse click and tapped command emanating from the designer’s workstations and projects them live and in real time on large-scale displays.”

Ladies and Gentlemen take your seats, as designers wait behind assigned keyboard/monitors in the darkened arena for the competition to begin. Like a heavy-weight boxing tournament, blaring music and a fast-talking MC transform the usually pensive and internal practice and process of creative thinking into a bawdy, white-knuckled, right-brain design-slam. Contestants must withstand the palpable pace and pressure as judging eyes watch strings of monitors and the minutes tick on down to the final hoorah. No stress here.

This past spring, the Cut&Paste competition traveled to design-centric locations around the world – the circuit, a where’s-where of all things hip and cool – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Boston, New York, Toronto, Chicago, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Milan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney, with sponsors that include Autodesk, IDSA, Motionographer, IdN Magazine, Stash, Flavorpill, Wired, Scion, I Amsterdam, Adobe, Wacom, Nvidia, Converse and Pantone.

In addition to fame, glory, and the esteem of their peers, the fastest-on-the-draw will win grand prizes which include a contract with 55DSL to design an exclusive limited edition of their Capsule Collection (t-shirt, sweatshirt and dress) to be sold exclusively at yoox.com … the best-in-show in the motion-design category will receive an opportunity to collaborate with Converse on a special, to-be-announced project. Woot!

And, I must say, Pantone has really rolled it out since the days of the post-holed PMS (Pantone Matching System) flip book. Their push into digital media is fierce (there’s even an app for that) and involvement in the C&P championship, deep. The colorful Pantone ”MyColor/MyIdea” promotion brings each of the 48 designers into the mix — 2D design contestant Allison Torneros from San Francisco (below), for example, is matched with Pantone color #103-1-2-C.  We also get a link to her website, email address, sample of her work, and a glimpse into her own personal “inspirational idea” — “cosmic creativity”. (Sorry, no astrological sign.)  To check out the match on the other 47 designers, or to explore the “1000 most recent color ideas” go to the C&P site.

As with other mediums of design – industrial design, graphic design, architecture – innovative fashion design walks the fine line between creativity (wow, that’s so edgy and cool) and commercial appeal (will a twenty-something in Iowa buy that?). This season, influential designers shredded and draped their way around the latest synthetic/organic fabrics to bring us “tribal gothic” and “young, fun, disheveled.” Apparently, the function and value of all of this lies deep in the human psyche, reflecting both the aspirational style of the wearer, as well as the essence of the cultural zeitgiest. (What does it say about our cultural psyche when NHL player Sean Avery, seen front and center at the Marc Jacobs show, interns at Vogue and signs on as a design consultant to a men’s label? Probably don’t want to be sitting in the front row for that collection.)

Speaking of animal print, no discussion of recent runway trends would be complete without mention of the new leggy creatures strutting their stuff at this year’s Minnesota State Fair. Conan O’Brian’s white chocolate bust (with bacon hair) can’t hold a candle to what was going on in the livestock tent. Llamas, those long-necked pack animals from the highlands of Peru, ditched their trekking gear and donned “accessible American classics” for the fair’s annual 4-H Llama Costume Contest.  Lucky you – here’s a front row seat for the show:

Clearly, it’s all about attitude.  Models, and the designers who adorn them, must have a certain inborn sensibility, a panache, a plucky stance that tells the world that they – flashing the eau current fashion P.O.V. – are so all that.