The REAL Problem

First off I'd like to thank everyone who commented and sent me feedback, both in the virtual world and the real world. Your comments have helped me determine my problem, and I think I've come close to figuring it out completely.

After delving furthur into the topics I'd come up with, I admitted to myself that none of them excited me. Not enough to work on them for 3 months. I know that after 3 months I'll be sick of any project, but I might as well love it for as long as I can. I was becoming utterly depressed and anxious about finding 'the perfect topic'. My problem was that I kept focusing on what the problem I would solve was. I found myself in a rut, unable to come up with anything worthy of my time and energy. I shifted my focus to myself, and my interests. I asked myself, 'if you could do anything (design project wise), what would you do?' What project have I been dying to work on, but haven't had the time to start?

My discoveries have led me to understand a few things:

My problem is me: I've hit a creative block in my life. I'm exhausted, brain dead and burnt out. I've run out of steam, out of creativity and energy, out of motivation and determination. I should stress that it is not this project that's pushed me over the edge, it's a number of things that have happened over the past year and a bit, both in my work life and personal life. This is an opportunity though, not a negative situation. I've found my problem! The first step to solving your problem is knowing what it is, and admitting that you have one.

At the risk of getting too personal and spilling my guts, I'll keep this concise by saying I'm at a time in my life where I've been doing a lot of personal reflection. I'm at a fork in the road, and the future is unclear to me right now. This is something that both excites me, and gives me great anxiety. I'm still discovering new things about myself, which sometimes makes me feel insecure, and sometimes boosts my confidence. As an offshoot of this, I am my own worst enemy. I'm hard on myself, and I doubt myself. I am a perfectionist and I beat myself up when I can't meet the unobtainable goals I create for myself. My design process is self destructive.

So, back to this project. I need to solve this problem of mine, I need to keep my mind challenged, I need to explore new grounds, I need to stimulate my creative brain, and I need to accomplish the project through a new process that doesn't include self destructive. Through this I also need to sort myself out, like a musician uses their music as therapy, I will use this project as mine. I will explore and challenge myself in new ways.

Project Breakdown:

 

Main Topic:

Designer's block.

Design problem/opportunity:

-creativity is gone
-no inspiration
-burnt out
-destructive creative process.
-focus too much on the end results being perfect

Audience:

-me
-anyone who finds themselves in a creative block and has the tendency to be destructive like me may find this project interesting and helpful
-creatives stuck in a rut

Objectives & Criteria:

If this project is successful I will have completed a project through a new linear process. I will have explored new mediums and paths I have not explored before. I will have been organized and managed my time properly. I will have been creatively stimulated and excited throughout the whole project, and I will feel excited and satisfied with the final result. I will NOT have pulled 24/hour work days, no tears, no negative accusations of myself (from myself), no feelings of it never being good enough. I will learn to let go (without compensating the project - I should make it clear I'm not trying to complete a shitty project. It still needs to be successful and brilliant in it's own way).

-Project must be something I've never done before;
     -No books, no posters, no websites, no PSA's etc.
     -It can be a combination of these things so long as they're combined in a way that I haven't done before.
-work in 3D world: I want to work with spaces, 3D objects, something that has a building component to it

Some ideas of what I could do:

-create my ideal space to work that is inspired by the things that inspire & stimulate me, and that function as a design workplace should (to my needs). Break the mold of how a studio functions, and base it on my needs as a designer/artist

-create a number of objects (car, shoe store, airplane, t-shirt, running shoes, chair, purse, coffee mug, bathroom etc) that are inspired by a specific song. In other words, take two unrelated things and combine them. Take the importance of the song, or musician (or something - it doesn't have to be music necessarily, could be typographical), the fundamental basics of what makes that song that song, and apply it to this other object.

That's it for now. This is the beginning of my proposal/thesis. I still have to iron out some details and explore solutions for my problem/opportunity a bit more. Nothing is set in stone.

Thank you!
D

Lateral Brainstorming Day 2

Ok. Still feeling like I'm no where close to figuring out my project.
I started thinking about basic simple problems I've come across, mostly in my interactions with the general public:

1. Many humans don't think, they just do. They follow the media blindly and willingly, without furthur investigation themselves into the topic. Don't be gullable. Think for yourself, speak for yourself. Have an opinion and base it on real research.

2. Many women (and maybe men, though I haven't experienced this personally) jump from relationship to relationship, never learning independence or how to be ok on their own. Their self worth becomes dependent on guys' attention.

3. Kids these days are lazy and unmotivated. Typical Gen Y stereotype: entitlement. You're going to need to understand that you don't always get everything you want when you want it to survive in life.

4. People don't laugh enough. We complain too much. I heard on the radio a recent study discovered that on average Canadians complain for a total of 8 minutes a day.

5. There are no good hang out spots (that I can find) for young adults to sit, drink and have a conversation. Not a club, not even a pub, because they're too noisy. Some comfortable environment to go, drink, eat, and hang out til the wee hours catching up or chilling back with friends.

6. Are designers artists? (I realize this isn't a problem but a question - though non the less I post it anyways as I feel it's a good one.)

Lateral Brainstorming

So I've been thinking about this class over the entirety of the Christmas holidays, brainstorming on ideas for my big project. Now that the class is finally upon me I'm still feeling utterly overwhelmed.

The idea of the class is to create a self-directed project from start to finish, that solves a problem through design. Design the solution to an opportunity in an innovative way. Think outside the box! Make it different! This is communication design so I have to communicate the solution effectively through design. Methods and mediums can be anything that is suitable to the solution, though it is recommended to stick to what you're comfortable with rather than trying something new.

Here's a list of mediums that I have worked with in the past
Books
Films
Boardgame/cardgame
models
website
community project
cothing


Over the past few days I've been jotting down ideas as they come, trying to explore as many areas of interest as possible. Here's my list so far. . .

Redesigning elementary school education

Following the ways of Emilie Pilloton, I am interested in looking at reworking the system we learn with, focusing primarily on elementary schools. I want to introduce more activity in children, and decrease the long hours spent focusing and absorbing. Kids need to run around, the brain stops absorbing after half an hour of learning. Humans have become accustomed to sitting all day where we naturally are beings of activity. Our bodies were created to run, yet why are so many of us "not runners?"And why are so many people "bad at math" or "bad at science"? I believe we can redesign the system so that math becomes fun to learn, and children and kids strive to learn it.

Film codec compatibility

The film world is a mess of different codecs and formats. It's ridiculous that every single camera shoots in a different format, and every computer program reads different formats, and nothing talks to each other. There's got to be a way to make it work.

PC vs MAC in the film world

Again, the film world has too many formats that don't speak to each other. In our film studio we're working with both PCs and Macs. So, any given film will have half the film edited in Mac and half in PC. Yet the final export and render must be completed on a single computer. Yet the world of Mac and PC and Final Cut and Premiere don't speak to each other intuitively. There's got to be a system that would work, a workflow that can be designed to solve the problem.

The politics behind BC's drug problem

Coinciding with our documentary, I would like to explore the real problem behind our drug problems. The systems that have been put in place by the government don't work. There are so many loop holes it's nearly impossible to get help if you've got a problem. Unless you have complete discipline and motivation and go through the process of withdrawal all by yourself, with no help and no home, you pretty much have no hope in helping yourself. The only other option is if you've got enough money to send yourself up to Baldy Hughes recovery center, but that costs about $2000/month. And once you're in, you're bound to staying there a minimum of 3 years, which in total would cost you $72,000.

Font organizing

When brainstorming for ideas I asked myself, 'what are the things in my everyday life that bug me, that I don't have a solution for?' One of these problems is font organization. There's no simple easy way to keep your fonts organized, or to preview fonts (both that you own and that you don't) that would be suitable for your project you're working on. There should be a database that you can browse through with different categories and search engines that pull from the different type foundries and your own personal collection.

Defining Design

One issue I have run into over and over again is describing to a non designer what it is I do. My family doesn't even understand exactly what it is I do, and where my future lies. And it's an industry that is ever evolving and expanding and changing, that it is hard to describe in a single sentence everything that my career encompasses.

Balance

The key to life. Something I have not yet accomplished. In everything in life there is a need for balance:
work vs play
spending vs saving
indulging vs discipline
health vs desire
active brain vs resting brain
(to name a few)

Consumerism

Oh consumerism. This is something that has made me angry for many years now. It never ceases to piss me off how  people just blindly fall into the trap of consumerism, without thinking. It pisses me off how companies control the everyday consumer, and sadly enough one of the latest companies that has pissed me off the most is apple. If they didn't make such damn good products I wouldn't support them. You have to do it their way, you can only buy from them, they charge you up the ass, their costumer service sucks, and they support and promote the linear life cycle that is killing the Earth today. Rather than creating new bits and bobs to add on to your old electronics, they come out with a brand new gadget every few months. And they want you to chuck out your old one and buy a brand new one. Oh, and their company has the highest suicide rates of all.
People need to think about where they're spending their money, because essentially what you're buying you're supporting. And think before you buy, think about the planet, think about the earth, why waste unless you have to? But consumerism supports waste 100% and it's not ok! It just bugs me that people fall into the trap so easily - use your brain people!

Fear

fear of failure. fear of death. fear of being hurt. fearing for your life. fearing for your future. fear of the unknown. fear of being disliked. fear of being unaccepted. fear of hurting someone. fear of amounting to nothing. fear of getting caught. fear of others. fear of losing someone. fear of wasting your life.

Women Warriors (16th century)

Another thing I asked myself while pondering on ideas for this project was, 'what would I like to learn more of?'. . .
Well, I read in a recent book that in the 16th century there were a number of women Amazon soldiers who fought wars and battles and went undefeated for a number of years. Yet there is very little knowledge, if any at all on these women.

Post-feminism

I recently started watching Mad Men and I was taken by the amazing job they did in portraying womens roles back then. It got me thinking about women in the world today, and how things have changed. And yet, they have and they haven't. Women still earn on average, less than a man, and we're still exploited in new ways through sexuality in advertising, porn etc etc.

Recycling electronics

Back to consumerism. I know there are some companies that will take old electronics to reuse their bits and bobs, but it's not clear where to take them. It would be cool if there was a recycling program like your normal recycling and compost pick up every week, or just common knowledge on where to take your old electronics.

Micro Biology

My friend is studying micro biology right now. We had a long talk the other day that absolutely fascinated me. I learned that anti-bacterial soaps actually are causing more problems than not, as they're promoting and catalyzing the creation of super-bacteria. Bacteria reproduces so fast, and it becomes immune to our anti-bacterials that it creates these super-bacterias. Same thing with viruses. It also fascinates me that there is something so incredibly small on the earth, and we know so little about it. They say scientists know about 8000 bacteria in the world, yet there's more than 8000 bacteria in a handful of dirt. It's a hard field to study because they're constantly changing and evolving, and nobody wants to be squinting in a microscope all day long.


As of right now, I'm unsure still which direction to take, though I'm most drawn to micro biology. I need to start diving into these topics and deciphering what the specific problem and opportunity is, and whether it's something that can be resolved through communication design.