Them Bold Types

My pop-up shop project has taken a slight change of direction. Well the topic is the same, but the product has changed. It's no longer a package with bits and bobs. It's now a booklet with stickers throughout the book, which replace the chapter illustrations. It will still have links to my own opensource projects that you can get involved with, however they will be included as a place to get started with contributing.

So why the changes? Well, it was pointed out to me that the target audience was too small and that maybe the audience it was aimed at wouldn't be attending the pop up shop itself. Also, the audience that might care about the content of the book may already know enough about open source that the book itself rendered moot and it would be competing with the countless "Something for dummies" if it was too simple an introduction. So I need to tailor my content and design to a more general audience.

Another problem is that the projects I'm including may be too complicated for someone with no coding background to get involved or even use, and then too simple for someone with a coding background to bother getting involved. So this is another thing I need to rethink. I've been toying with the idea of opensourcing the whole book and allowing people to add to the illustrations, content or just anything to do with the book. That way there is something for anyone to get involved with and no entry level barrier. It also proves a point that anything can be opensourced rather than just code, which is something a lot of people don't seem to understand. We shall see.

I've got a lot to think about.

There is a lot of articles on this subject, not about why I personally want to code, but why designers feel the need to be able to code. It's a subject that seems to get some people's blood boiling, not entirely sure why, maybe some people feel they should learn but are looking for any reason not to. Perhaps "It's not my job as a designer"? I agree with this article by Jon Gold, where he says, you don't need to code.

I know as a designer I don't need to be able to code, but you can't overlook that in today's climate it's very useful to be able to at least handle front-end coding. With that said, that's still not why I do it.

I code because I find it interesting. I may not be at anywhere near a professional level when it comes to back-end coding, but I know enough that allows me to explore ideas from an initial plan to working prototype. Also what's not to love about solving problems with code? Isn't solving problems what design is all about?

Being able to build projects for myself means that I don't have to search for someone to build an idea I have. I can just get stuck in, get a build working and figure out if I truly think a project is worth taking further. I don't have to wait to find a nerd to execute my idea as Daniel Howells covers excellently.

When it comes to coding, the icing on the cake for me is the aesthetic that code produces. I love the look and feel of the stuff. Kristin at 37 Signals compared the similarities between code and poetry in this post and hits the nail on the head. Just pretty interesting really.

In short, I code because I want to and I enjoy it, not because I feel I have to. End of.

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SRC is the title of beautifully crafted booklet and package I will be creating over the next week that will introduce and support open source development.

Why SRC? Well it's just source without an vowels. Simples. Keep watching this space.

Welcome (maybe back, but I doubt it) to my blog of disordered rambling. It's been a while since I've written anything but I figured I would start up again. Partly because I have to for uni, partly because of this article and a little for the shits and giggles.

I wanted something really simple to run this blog. Something that had only what I want/need to include for it. So I created a little markdown powered blogging platform on top of Sinatra and Ruby. It's called Mark This Up and it's freely available for anyone to use. You can grab a copy of it over on Github. I'm sure I've made plenty of mistakes so if you feel like contributing or just showing me where I've gone wrong, then please do.

So what am I upto at the moment?

I'm coming up to the end of my 2nd year at uni, freelancing on the side and a couple of personal side projects. I'm going to quickly break down one of the projects I'm working on at the moment for university. I'll be posting more about other projects in future posts.

— Pop up shop brief

This brief requires us to create 13 copies of something to sell at a pop up shop to raise money for our final year show (next year). I've chosen to create something around the open source community. I know right, sounds contradictory to sell something that is promoting open source? Yes and no. I'm not going to be selling open source projects but I may be giving away physical copies of a few of my own projects – and maybe creating one or two especially for this brief – however the object I will be selling is a little package.

This little package I speak of, will be beautifully crafted – if I say so myself – and will contain a few little bits and bobs. Yup that's right, bits and bobs, as in I haven't entirely decided what I will be including in the packages. But I shall share with you a couple of my ideas:

• Booklet – An introduction to open source for designers, or anyone. Will be nicely designed, unlike a lot of programming related products.
• Stickers – That can be stuck on laptops, walls, or just anywhere. Everyone loves stickers, afterall they're sooo fun and have loads of purposes. Even if it's just sticking on your drunken friends face when they pass out.
• Patches – Show your support of the open source philosophy. The idea of belonging to something is always awesome. It's like joining a club, but your supporting a cause at the same time.
• Projects – Physical copies of a few of my own opensourced projects. These are included as a freebie, they are not being sold, because that doesn't agree with opensource-ness, yes?

A key aspect of this idea is coming up with some kind of symbol that can be used as an icon associated with open source. There is an "open source" logo although I'm not sure how widely adopted it is, and to be frank, it's horrible – but you can see some kind of reasoning behind it.

So all of these needs to be written, designed, programmed, printed, packaged and lovely in like 3 weeks time. That seems a bit tricky if you ask me. We shall see. Watch this space.

End

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To me, design is problem solving, whether it be graphic design, architecture or any other kind of design. It's taking a problem and solving it, but not just easiest way of solving it. It's finding the solution that communicates in the most clear and acurate way.

It's also an ongoing open debate between peers. There is no one person that decided design should be one particularly way. Any "rules" that have developed have done so through conversation between like-minded individuals sharing and debating their knowledge. Any idea of what good design is has evolved through sharing thoughts, it's purpose and to a certain extent it's style.

Everyone has a personal opinion of what design is, and especially what good design is. However, at some level these opinions are not only affected by their personal preferences, but also influenced from an ongoing conversation from within the design community. We soak up the mistakes, achievements and studies that other designers make. Then we pass judgement whether we agree with it. This in turn affects our personal opinion and shapes the work we produce.

My process is a tangled mess of notes, scribbles, doodles, snippets of code, bookmarks and the usual assortment of dog-eared paper. I know people who have a seriously methodic process. They know the exact steps they will take to get from a point A through to point Q. I envy that - being able to find what you were thinking or a reason for a choice at any given time - it would be great. The way I work, works for me. Maybe I can't find a particular article that influenced me to do X at the drop of a hat, but that's not the end of the world. I know what I'm looking for and why, I'll find it, but does our process affect what we produce. Yes. I reckon there's a lot to be gained from a methodical process, and I've decided to take this route myself (well to a certain extent). When a designers takes a certain set of steps that work for them, checking off items as they go, they are able to explore every little detail of a project. They ask questions and answer them.

That's the nature of design for me. To question something and find the answer to it. Whether it's a large question or a smaller question within a bigger picture.

I'm unorganised. Something needs to change, I'm not too sure what it is, but something definitely needs to be done. My note taking is iffy at best and even when it's on form, who knows where I left that brilliantly formed plan of my thoughts. Yes, my organisation is that bad. I often find myself scribbling on scraps of paper (as you do), which are never to be seen by human eyes again. It's an annoying habit that I've developed.

Early this year I read a chapter of Interface Culture by Steven Johnson, in which it touched ground on the Memex.

"The memex (a portmanteau of "memory" and "index", like Rolodex an earlier index portmanteau common at the time) is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the hypothetical proto-hypertext system he described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think. Bush envisioned the memex as a device in which an individual would compress and store all of their books, records, and communications, "mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility". The memex would provide an "enlarged intimate supplement to one's memory". The concept of the memex influenced the development of early hypertext systems, eventually leading to the creation of the World Wide Web."

— Wikipedia

The part of the memex that I found particularly interesting was the idea of the associative trails it could produce. Bush conceived a way of creating a new linear sequence of microfilm frames and creating a chain of links between them, along with an ability to create personal comments and side trails within an initial trail. The idea was to store data in a way that would mimic the way we associate information within the brain. Basically, it could be able create a trail of your thought processes based on the way you associate each bit of data with one another. Imagine all of the research and ideas for a project, linked together by association and relativity in a way that would be easy to understand.

I need a modern memex. A way of storing data in relation to a project, with a clear trail based on association and relativity within an optional chronological timeline. It's possible I'm sure. There's probably already software out there for it, but nothing that has captured my imagination in the same way that reading about the memex does. In my opinion, for Bush to have conceived this system way back in 1945 and it still be a relevant and interesting is frankly incredible, especially when looking at the rate of development around technology.

Having someway of storing all my thoughts, research, plans, etc in relation to a project would be a game changer and solve all my quarrels with organisation. It would be great to see any projects that have touched on this subject of associative trails, so if you know of any please do share.

End

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"You cannot score without a goal.

If you don’t know what you want, then how can you pursue it? Having a goal defines an end point, and subsequently, a place to start."

— The 50 great things every graphic design student should know started by Jamie Wieck

It's true, it's difficult to create anything of great value if you set out on a task without having a goal or rough finishing point. Recently I've begun to notice this more and more. You can stumble upon a hidden gem, but you've probably set out to create something else first. Imagine a game of football with no goals, you'd have a bunch of confused footballers running from end-to-end not knowing what to do.

My disgraceful failure

In the last couple of weeks I started to think about creating a simple web application for creating, sharing and collaborating on lists. The idea of creating lists of books, music, films, events, etc. as against lists of tasks. There are plenty of great applications already on the web for task management and productivity, such as Flow, Basecamp and Remember The Milk. Not to mention the amount of great task management software for desktop devices. Although my idea has become clearer overtime, I originally set out without any clear goal in mind.

Originally, I just decided "I want to make a web app" but had no idea what it's function would be or even why I wanted to make one. I just jumped onto photoshop (like an aesthetically pleased chipmunk) and started working up a user interface for nothing. How can a user interact with something that doesn't exist? Simply, they cannot. Wasted time, which resulted in a destroying of the little work that I had achieved.

Time to simplify and go back to the drawing board. I thought about the online portfolio system that my university has for some reason adopted. It's bloated to a point that simply adding a new page or project to your profile seems like an effort. There's some great portfolio type applications out there and they have a much simpler user interface and feature list. For instance Cargo and Virb so why use bloated complicated applications. It got me thinking about creating a new application with a user interface that users can actually understand. Can it be achieved by employing an interface that is loosely based on pre-existing frameworks that people are familiar with?

Eventually I found my rough idea and got to work on some mockups, but without a clear goal or plan I've come unstuck. I'm at the point where I need to go back to the basics and write myself a brief. Followed by my usual methodic processes. You have to learn from your mistakes and I've learnt from mine. Fresh start, fresh eyes and a clear idea of what I want to achieve.

It's great to have a clear goal at the beginning, but for me I find self initiated projects don't often start with solid footing. They seem to need a bit of room for stupid mistakes first and usually require a great amount of self control to not get distracted.

I'm not going to be a preachy student. I can't really give advice and have no place giving it. I honestly don't know enough myself. I just thought I'd share my experiences of late, plus that particular piece of advice about goals got me started on a bit of rant. Frankly, writing this has helped me clear my mind on the next stages of developing my project, along with talking to some people about the project. So keep watching, this could very well be an interesting couple of months.

End

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It's recently dawned on me that I lack any ability to write something that would interest anyone. Simply put, I can't write well. I know my spelling is terrible and my grammar is worse. But surely those can be overcome using the delightful tools built into any word processor available today. The bigger question is how can I learn to communicate in a way that captivates the reader for longer than one of my usual 140 character tweets? The answer is practice.

Over the duration of the first year of my degree, I officially submitted a grand total of 2000 words and only 1000 of that in a roughly academic format. That is all that was required. Crazy right? Just to clear things up, I'm currently studying BA Graphic Design at Central St Martins in London, England. At the time having so little academic based assignments seemed like a blessing, in hindsight it feels more like a disadvantage. I want to be able to write well.

I've been told that a fundamental skill that every designer should posses is being able to communicate clearly and effectively. If you can communicate something well through writing then surely it can only strengthen your ability to design effectively. I've recently begun to read more blog posts by creatives and it seems that some of the best writers are also some of the best and most successful designers, coincidence? Most likely not.

Two posts in particular have inspired me to try to improve my communication and more importantly my writing. The first is Ten more things by Frank Chimero. As I read over this piece of writing for a second time, I realised that there is nothing particularly profound or immensely valuable to be taken from it, it's lighthearted and intriguing. It's speaks to you in a way that keeps you wanting to read more. It's well written; it's clear, to the point and you can understand what he was thinking as he wrote it. I want that skill.

"Behold! Disjointed rambling! Go, fingers, go!" — Frank Chimero

The second post that has driven me to attempt writing more is I want to write more by Tim van Damme. His recent lack of writing spurred him to blame his lack of writing on everything he could think of, before admitting it was just down to himself. He tied blaming his blog's design with deconstructing the blog's design leaving only the default html stylings. Makes for a more genuine read in my own opinion, nice touch. It's an interesting bit of self criticism, showing that even some of the most popular designers out there aren't always one shot killers.

"It’s the design. I mean, it’s got to be the design; the type is too small and only uses Helvetica Neue, the layout isn’t flexible enough, and that logo? Embarrassing! So it’s the design, why else can’t I seem to maintain this blog? I need to redesign this thing, that’ll solve everything and allow me to write more. I want to write more." — Tim Van Damme

Let's be honest. You've probably drifted off and/or given up the will to live by now. Last thing now, I promise.

Why a blog? Why not just write. Simple really, if I'm crap people can tell me and it gives me more motivation if I put something out there. Having a text document lying around on my desktop isn't really going to help too much, what's the point of writing if no-ones going to read it? The name Themboldtypes comes purely from a domain that I wasn't using, so made sense to do something with it. The blog is a simple Symphony build and if you would like a copy to run for yourself just ask.

End

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