80 Works for Designers

Collaborative Concepting, Part 2: Brainstorming/Concepting Meetings

Let's talk about #2 in the chain -- the concepting meeting with your peers.

Unless you're leading a brainstorm, chances are you're going to have to conform to the team's working process. But I can tell you that even if they aren't rigid in how the session is set up, it's going to probably conform to the following template. In a one-hour session, it will likely break down as follows:

Collaborative Concepting, Part 1: Overview + Project Inputs

In class, I'd drawn a chart similar to this on the board:

If we start to question every link in this chain, then we have an opportunity to increase our speed from idea to artifact as teams without sacrificing essential qualities of our practice. Or, to think about it another way: we need to be who we are as people through the process, and preserve that through any method that we consider taking on as a group. Genuine creative sparks should fly, not those of frustration.

In these next few posts, I'm going to talk about the first link in the chain: getting to a great idea through collaborative brainstorming. Please forgive me if this seems on the surface to be a bit rudimentary. There will be plenty of nuance we'll be exploring in class and in our take-home exercises that will require the structure I'm outlining here.

Let's start by unpacking how creative ideation occurs in an agency setting, and how to jump into what seems like boiling water with a confident dive -- or a cannonball...

Say Hello to the Designers

As part of the egalitarian spirit of 80 Works -- in the sense that myself/the teacher and the students are in it together, designing 80 projects on top of everything else in our busy lives -- I'm opening up this blog to posts and designs from the students.

Through the life of the class, we'll be putting up links to resources that are related to projects in process and in-class discussions, as well as work that we're excited about that comes out of the class itself.

So say hello in the next few weeks to Donnie Dinch, Meg Doyle, Mark Notermann, and Claire Kohler as they start posting in this space!

About the artwork: The image shown above, "I am Walter Gropius" by Claire Kohler, is from a warm-up exercise that we did in our first class period called "Bauhaus, Baby." Students had 15 minutes to place a square, circle, and triangle on a sheet of paper. They then passed that paper to another student, who had 10 minutes to write a headline that gave explicit meaning to the rudimentary design.

WORK 07 / Class 1: Lost in Translation

Here's another one of the works we'll be kicking off in class today: "Lost in Translation."

Exercise: Choose one of the provided ads and redesign it with text you’ve written in English. If possible, do not adjust the layout. What will help this ad make sense?

I've selected 11 ads from various sources around the Internet. All of them are in foreign languages: Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, French, Spanish, and so on.

Download the foreign-language ads here.

Want 2 Weeks Instead of 11?

I'd mentioned that my class is adapted from a course method first applied at the Corcoran School of Art. One thing I didn't mention is that the students there only got 2 weeks for 80 works, not 11!

Here's a quote from the artist Angie Drakopoulos about her experience in that class:

"The Corcoran encouraged students to work with many different media and explore new ideas. What I really learned was a way of thinking about art, not necessarily how to make it, but how to think about making it. One of my favorite exercises, in my junior year, was a project to make 80 works in two weeks.  We were given specific instructions on different media that had to be used, or an idea to be incorporated, or a color, or words for a piece to refer to. It was exhilarating; it really opened my mind to the possibilities of making art. Also, because of the project’s size and deadline, you couldn’t spend too much time on any individual work; so you achieved a certain degree of detachment from the end result, which allowed a lot of latent ideas and tendencies to surface. I think that was the first time I experienced art as a mind-game."

I think this a perfect description of the kind of spirit we're looking to bring to this class as we really begin to stretch our talent.

WORK 05 / Class 1: Easy as ABC

One of the first take-home exercises we'll do for 80 Works is one I'd written about a few months back, "Easy as ABC." Here's the final version of the exercise we'll discuss in class:

The exercise: Assemble a 26-character alphabet using only found objects or environments. Letters may be documented for presentation to the class through collage, photography, photocopying, digital illustration, and other appropriate mediums. You may not merge examples of computer typefaces out in the wild, document elements of existing signage, or pull in anything that may be considered a finished letterform.

There are a million number of ways to approach this exercise. Here's a few examples I've seen around the Internet that pay it off, though it looks like these designers spent a good deal of time executing these alphabets. (And the second example had a tad of Photoshop to get things to line up right...)

Hooks Alphabet by Jeffrey Tribe. From SwissMiss.

Type the Sky by Lisa Rienermann. From Mirage.Studio.7.

I'm excited to see what ideas we'll come up with!

Winter 09 Class Overview and Syllabus

Hello 80 Works'ers for Winter 09 --

Here for your downloading pleasure are the 80 Works Class Overview and the 80 Works Syllabus as PDF files. I'll include the overview here as well.

Class Overview

The class has two types of exercises:

Foundation exercises will give us a taste of collaborative working conditions and potential roles that we may fulfill in a fast-paced design agency. It will also allow us to experience the challenges inherent in client-designer dynamics in a controlled and constructive manner.

Stretch exercises. These assignments are meant to cover a wide range of deliverables that a working designer would create across most of today’s prominent design disciplines. They are also meant to give us a taste of the range of approaches we need to take in order to find appropriate design solutions quickly. A small number of these assignments will be revisions of class-created materials, while others will require working in small groups outside of class.

You will not be provided with a full syllabus of assignments for the entire course, as we may be tempted to work ahead a few weeks. A luxury of time is rare in the world of design.

You will help create the class

Many of the 80 Works have been created by me or derived from classic exercises that are required in design school. The rest will created by you. This will allow you to try your hand at designing things that you’ve always wanted to create, but never had a suitable assignment to tackle. Every Thursday after Class 01, each designer will be required to bring an exercise to the class on a range of provided topics. Your teacher will assign at least 20 of those exercises to the class over the life of the seminar. (They need to be challenging, but don’t come up with something too diabolical.) Please craft your exercise within one of the categories shown in the 80 Works Class Overview PDF.

80 Works expectations

1. You should fulfill every assignment and bring it to class, no matter what. Work fast. Turn your editor off. Take as many risks as possible. The greater the risk in the work that you’re attempting, the more important that you bring it to class. You shouldn’t have time to sit around and think about whether what you’re doing is good.

2. Everything gets shown to the group, no matter what. Each assignment will get a quick group critique. Listen to how other people view it, and what they think it can become. This is invaluable input. Don’t defend what you meant to accomplish in the time frame, but just didn’t get there. This class is about possibilities, not finality.

3. Failure on some of the projects will happen, no matter what. Keep notes on what works and what doesn’t work. Learn to fail faster. As we get to the end of the class, we’ll focus on what can be extracted from your best works over the life of the class. When you have some free time, you can start thinking portfolio and polish.

For a good starter on working agile as a designer, take a look at a recent article on Ideas on Ideas.

See you on Thursday! Please be sure to fill out the class questionnaire as well... it's critical for our first class assignment.

80 Works + HOW Design Press = Book!

I'm happy to announce that I've signed up with HOW Design Press to write a book!

80 Works for Designers will be a book consisting of 80 stretch exercises that can be undertaken by working designers seeking to expand their creative repertoire and gain a fuller understanding of the range of skills necessary for a well-rounded design professional.

Readers can attempt the exercises, view compelling visual solutions to the exercises, and read inspiring stories that inform their inclusion, all in the service of helping designers increase their capacity to innovate.

Exercises from the book will be geared towards:

1. Aiding designers in reaching a breadth of innovative design solutions, in various media, within a set time period.

2. Enabling designers to attempt projects along the full continuum of design disciplines, from the bread and butter of branding and collateral to the wild world of advertising and direct response to the user-centered practices of creating interactive projects, with brief forays into wayfinding, editorial design, video and motion graphics, and more.

The core audience for this book will be working and aspiring designers that are responsible for creating work that spans multiple media.

I'll keep posting updates on this blog about the evolution of the book!

Book, Class, and Blog Launch

Here's a quick update of what's going on with 80 Works for Designers...

The Book. I've signed up with HOW Design Press to write a book for working designers! The book will be based off the 80 Works classes I'm teaching these next few quarters. You can get the full story here.

The Class. The first 80 Works for Designers class starts this Thursday, and there's still space for one or two more designers. Read details about the class here and contact me at dksherwin at msn.com if you'd like to participate. Work on certain exercises in the class will be considered for inclusion on 80Works.com and in the book.

The Blog. There's now an 80 Works blog that will let you follow along with the class week by week. You can read it at http://www.80works.com/ and watch how things develop! I'll also frequently post questions for discussion and class exercises for the community to take part in, as well as calls for submission for contributing to the book.

To keep ChangeOrder's focus on business and design process, I will only include news about 80 Works for Designers here as stubs, while 80works.com will contain frequent postings about the class and the book.

Thanks to everyone who's helped support this idea since the very beginning... it's turning into quite a journey!

80 Works for Designers: Class Starting in January!

Over the past few months, I've written about a class I've been developing called 80 Works for Designers. Now it's real!

The Creative Academy at Seattle Central Community College has agreed to host this class from the Winter Quarter onwards. They are one of the best design programs in Puget Sound region and have a gorgeous new facility that we will use for class time. The class will be limited to 12 designers to ensure each person's work gets maximum attention. Students will also get the opportunity for their work to be considered for inclusion in a forthcoming design book (details coming soon!).

Here's the full course description. If you're interested in participating, please contact me at dksherwin at msn.com.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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80 Works for Designers
A new non-credit course offered at Seattle Central Community College
Winter Quarter (11 weeks)
Starting Thursday, January 8th
Meets every Thursday at 6:30 - 9:30 PM
Instructor: David Sherwin
12 people maximum
$350 + materials

80 Works for Designers is an intensive 11-week course for designers looking to make the leap from a design education into a fast-paced, professional design practice.

Course participants will take part in eight conceptual projects a week -- both in collaborative class exercises and through take-home assignments -- under constraints that match the pace of a professional creative agency. As a result of this time compression, course participants will quickly discover where their innate talents exist as a designer, and they’ll be guided by other students and their instructor in order to further tap those gifts. And, of course, we'll have fun along the way!

In 80 Works for Designers, we'll focus on gaining experience with regards to:

How to reach a breadth of innovative design solutions, in various media, more quickly

A deeper understanding of the complementary skill of learning how to properly frame a design problem before it can be solved (and sold to a client)

An exploration of the range of one’s talent by attempting projects along the full continuum of design disciplines, from the bread and butter of branding and collateral to the wild world of advertising to the user-centered practices of creating interactive projects, with brief forays into wayfinding, editorial design, video and motion graphics, and more.

Ideally, students will leave the class with a series of strong, outside-the-box concepts that can be refined post-class into portfolio material.

This class will be limited to 12 participants to ensure that each designer receives the proper care and attention necessary. The work created by all class participants will be considered for inclusion in an upcoming book and may be featured, with student permission, on the soon-to-be-launched 80works.com.

Required: Permission of instructor / portfolio review for participation. To sign up, send samples or a link to your portfolio to dksherwin at msn.com.

About the Instructor: David Sherwin is a Seattle-based designer and art director with a depth of expertise in developing fresh creative solutions for challenging business problems. He has worked for both big creative agencies and boutique design firms and has serviced such clients as Holland America Line, AT&T, Xeko, Audi Bank USA, T-Mobile, and many others. Currently, David is Senior Art Director at Worktank Brand Storytellers in Seattle, Washington, where he leads highly collaborative, multidisciplinary teams for large-scale print and interactive projects.

Easy as ABC? Part 2 of 2

Being a designer is about continual reinvention. About knowing the range of your talent, and playing to both your strengths and your weaknesses. About promising to create what hasn't been created before, and being comfortable with going through the process over and over again, drawing on the confidence that you will succeed no matter what the obstacles at hand may be.

In every designer's career, there's a point where you can't just rely on your education and your computer skills. A paradigm shift occurs in how you view the design profession. During this transition, you move from developing your hard skills -- software savvy, technical expertise in various artistic mediums such as illustration and photography, methods of hand-printing or coding your work in the appropriate delivery technology -- into a more nebulous space. A place where you're asked to achieve goals instead of tasks. Instead of retouching a photo or improving a logo, you may be standing in front of twenty clients, your knees quaking nervously while you attempt to sell them on why Logo 1A is better than Logo 3C. The client may be asking you for your opinion on subjects that range far from your realm of expertise: proper colors of blouse for the photo shoot, whether mahogany or cedar makes more sense for the bar-top, and whether it's a better idea to spend $100k on a Web site overhaul or just go put some more ads in the local newspaper.

Clearly, you can't learn all of this in design school.

You had to sop it up by listening your teachers share war stories, or seek out bold assignments that gave you a tiny taste of what a real client critique may do to your self-image.

You had to learn it in the real world by watching your bosses do the tap-dance in front of their clients -- and seeing how the clients reacted when work tripped and fell over.

You had to bluff your way through business challenges and unfamiliar design tasks until you'd absorbed enough learnings from your clients to gain the appropriate lingo and the street smarts to keep up, let alone get ahead.

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What if you could rewind the clock and go back to school, but when you walked into the classroom, your class resembled something more like the real working world, warts and all? And by the time you were done with that class, you'd know what kind of designer you were going to become?

This is the kind of class I've been developing in my free time. "80 Works for Designers" is a brief, intense seminar crafted to help students and aspiring designers gain broad exposure to a wide range of design disciplines and develop the depth of skills necessary to excel as a working professional. Over several all-too-brief weeks, seminar participants will take part in a dozen projects a week under time constraints that match the pace of most professional creative agencies.

Laced into those assignments are some of the "greatest hits" I've either experienced in school or solicited from teachers and fellow designers. Perhaps you have some you'd like to share?

Here's the one I described at the start of this post:

"Easy as ABC"

Assemble a 26-character alphabet using only found objects. Letters may be documented for presentation to the class through collage, photography, photocopying, digital illustration, and other appropriate mediums. Bonus points will be doled out for punctuation such as ampersands, exclamation points, and the like. You may not merge examples of computer typefaces out in the wild, document elements of existing signage, or pull in anything that may be considered a complete letterform. Your alphabet must be crafted by hand.

Here's another:

"Scruples"

A hat is passed around the class. Teams of three students pick out a slip of paper with the name of a major nonprofit organization. For the next class, each team member will be required to bring a redesign of that nonprofit’s Web site home page, including recommendations for use of interactive elements such as video or Flash.

In the next class, those teams will regroup and critique the work... with a twist. One person will be the designer, while the other two are the client. The designer presents the first “round of creative”, which consists of all the Web site designs. Each client picks out of a hat a constraint that governs the changes they want made to the work: “I don’t like any of these,” “My budget just got cut,” “Pick the most dominant color and say you don’t like it,” “The designer cut you off in traffic this morning,” “When you get done with this meeting, you are laying off 25 employees,” and other drivers for their behavior. The clients and the designer then negotiate which design they like the best and draw up a list of revisions they would make to the work. At the end of their creative presentation, the students share their experiences, motivations, and lessons learned.

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If you're interested in trying out 80 Works at your school, drop me a line at dksherwin at msn.com.

Easy as ABC? Part 1 of 2

S is for string bean. E is for eggplant. Z is for... what vegetable name starts with Z?

My Intro to Design teacher, a forty-years-young art historian and graphic design aficionado, distributes to the class the following assignment: create a typeface out of found materials, document it in whatever medium you so desire, and present it to the class on a single sheet of paper.

One a.m. before the assignment was due, wire basket full of rare and unusual produce at the 24-hour supermarket, I was beginning to realize just how much I'd underestimated the difficulty of the task at hand. The very idea of creating a typeface, which seemed like such a simple activity when I'd read the handout, had become a gut-wrenching effort. And I only had nine more hours until I had to turn it in.

Fast-forward through one of the longer nights of my life:

4 AM: Photo-reducing bananas on the Kinkos color copier.

9 AM: Frantically cutting and pasting the copies onto a 20" x 24" sheet.

10 AM: Running to the art building, barely making it into the lecture hall before the class began, I dropped my fruit and vegetable typeface into the stack for grading and wearily went to my seat, both surprised that I'd survived the assignment intact, and excited to see what new work I'd be forced to create in the coming week.

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A foil-wrapped tube with a die-cut in the middle that shows the wine label. A 4-color printed bag with handles made from grosgrain. Or perhaps a simple cardboard container that has been letter-pressed with the restaurant logo?

2006. Another busy day at the design studio. A kind of controlled chaos.

Our client, director of operations at a firm that develops restaurant concepts, needed to see two packaging ideas for their new wine bar by tomorrow. Meanwhile, we're trying to polish off the home page and secondary page comps for a technology consulting Web site. And we've got two big mailers for a cruise line that are still in process and need a ton of photo research.

I need to get a vendor on the phone, since I can't show these ideas to the client without knowing if they're even feasible in their budget. The photo researchers at the stock agency are calling me back soon to let me know what kind of glacier shots they were able to scare up. Meanwhile, I've still got to design the navigation for the Web site and other designers want to have a quick group critique to make sure we're going in the right direction on those trade show booths that are due on Friday. How could I have forgotten the booth designs? Our account manager extracts a deadline out of me, knowing that another project will have to give as a result.

I sit back in my chair for a moment, just letting it all sink in. Somehow this gigantic pile of work will all get done -- and to an exacting artistic standard. Our clients will love the work, and we will get paid for it.

80 Works for Designers in 7 Weeks?

If you were to take a class called 80 Works for Designers in Seven Weeks, what kinds of projects would you expect to tackle in that intentionally ludicrous timeframe?

One of my first roommates post-college was a graduate student in poetry. In the summer of 1999, I recall him being excited that he had signed up for the class "Instant Thesis, or 80 Works in 7 Weeks," which was being taught by the eminent poet Peter Klappert.

Dozens of late nights and weekends later, neck sore from hunching over his computer and notepad, nerves shot by a bold overdose on black coffee, he was a complete wreck... but a more powerful writer as a result, by an order of magnitude.

Many students found it to be one of the most revelatory creative experiences of their lives, expanding their writing ability in ways they hadn't imagined possible through traditional workshop methods. After working through several stages of nervousness, failure, physical and emotional stress, intellectual stretch, loss of self, and high anxiety -- often in rapid succession -- they broke through many artistic barriers into something profound. The entire class explored collage methods, blot-outs, concrete poetry, metric/fixed forms, linked verse, anaphora, dialogue, satire, visual shape, collaborative writing, fixed and loose rhyme schemes, musicality, tone, and dozens of other approaches in the pressure cooker. They had also accumulated hundreds of exercises, generated by the class, that could feed future work.

After spending a number of years being in the fast-paced environments of both small design firms and imposingly large agencies after a somewhat middling design education, I began to think back to my roommate's experience and wonder:

Would it possible to cram 80 wildly divergent design exercises into the course of seven weeks, forcing a student to expand the full breadth of their abilities in a finite period of time? Would design students in such an environment become better designers at an exponentially faster rate, with substantially better portfolios?

What I hope that design students would get out of (barely) surviving this designer-focused course would be twofold: 1) an idea of how to reach a breadth of innovative design solutions, in various media, within any set time period; and 2) a fuller understanding of the complementary skill of learning how to properly frame a design problem before it can be solved.

I'm not sure if Peter Klappert has repeated his course since, but a record of his working process still exists, which was adapted from a Corcoran School of Art class. From his methods, I've been attempting to extrapolate a similar bare-bones approach that could be attempted by design teachers and students.

I'd like your help in determining what those 80 Works for Designers could be for an initial seminar. Everyone whose exercise gets used will be credited, and I will put together a Web site that disseminates the class methods and lesson plan for anyone who wants to inflict this idea upon an unsuspecting design institution.

Since the 80 Works class will generate hundreds of exercises, this initial seeding of starter exercises will grow into a very large body of work very swiftly that many people can use for their own creative growth (I hope).

Feel free to post your ideas here as comments or email them to me at dksherwin at msn.com. And thank you, in advance, for the help.