Published May 6, 2009 by

AGIdeas 2009 – Day 2

Another bumper sticker day with a marvelous line up. So to decode some of my mangy scrawl (because it’s pretty dark in Hamer Hall when you’re up in the audience):

Highlights:

Marina Willer -graphic designer, shared some pretty interesting branding outcomes quite inspiring especially in regards to letting brands be more versatile, she also had some nice comments on work and play and doing jobs close to your heart

Paul Garbett (Naughty Fish) – graphic designer, really enjoyed where he was coming from in showing how collections and objects under-girds some of his work and also his comment on digging into your background and replenishing that lot of experience and not treating it as an everlasting source. I am jealous admiring too of their lovely work. If they weren’t Sydney based I would aspire to work there.

Scott Schuman/The Sartorialist – surprise guest and a blogger! Oh I was happy. Admittedly I’d never heard of the blog… must travel in the wrong circles (fashion not really being my primary interest) but I love his approach and he had some great take away stuff about blogs and point of view and finding the right audience not the biggest one and the potential in blogs for portraying a brand (ie. self) and also about the evolution of input through blogs. The only really sad thing is that he uses blogspot…

Stanley Wong – a very well known designer from Hong Kong some glorious philosophical stuff, comments on ‘staying local’ and designing for social impact and in an alternate field: justice.

Tobias Frere-Jones – a typographer (one of) who designed typefaces like Gotham which was used for the Obama ‘Yes We Can’ campaign, he shared the stories about the development and reasoning behind it, and the Martha Stewart font. Twas marvellous, got the biggest clap. And he totally looked like a Tobias. I like it when people fit their names.

the others also worth a brief mention:

Philip Millar – a puppeteer of dinosaurs (from walking with the Dinosaurs) and movies like Charlottes Webb (think Pig), it was good fun, quite left of field

James Hackett – the guy who worked on animations for title sequences like the Gruen Transfer and Enough Rope… again very enjoyable presentation

Milton Watkins – I was pleased to see that AGIdeas threw a bookbinder in our mix, he was somewhat hilarious and injected some kind of heightened admiration in me for the craft – and evern more so helped to probably lift the glug in my mind associated with trying to track down people who can turn computer work in to reality, a chore sadly made more difficult by living in the Eastern suburbs.

(and there were lots of other good ones besides those listed)

Something I was thinking about today in listening to those around me was (excuse the crappy drawing, the Wacom is new to me, it’s late and I drew it very quickly) is seed vs swing:

knowledgevsentertainment

And seed vs swing… is knowledge vs. experience. As I listen to some of those around me (and I’m sure it’s a small percentage – but could very well be true of Gen Y) and their comments on which speakers they’ve enjoyed, I wonder if they’re (and myself at times) care more about the experience over the knowledge on offer and that knowledge itself actually plays far less of a role than it should. We kind of assume the knowledge is there (like the tree) and swing off the experience of the conference and the speakers, instead of grasping that start (the cliched seed… which is what that sprouty thing is meant to be) that small birth of inspiration or wisdom or insight. And that friends is as far as that thought has gone.

Blogging Culture Design Social Justice Uni

Published April 5, 2009 by

Boots

l_235119kimonoI am slightly in love with these boots, they will be for sale at Williams during April, in black or olive. I’m hoping they’ll be stocked in the store near me or I will have to somehow work out how to find them.

What I would like to know is: is there anywhere that sells sweatshop-free/fairtrade/ethical boots that are fun like this? Because I think I am finally at the point where I would spend a few extra dollars to go that way (Rather than just being at that point in my idealistic head). Currently I am clueless about where to get that kind of thing and I don’t really want to buy shoes over the internet – really do actually need to try them on. Oxfam shoes (like volleys are really uncomfortable… and erm, I’m after boots).

Life Social Justice Sustainable

Published March 27, 2009 by

Fairtrade t-shirt Take 2

This is the other version (also not quite there b/c at the moment it’s kinda sitting on his neck) with the city more on the guy’s back.

Which is better? This one, or this one here?

fairtrade2

Design Social Justice Uni

Published March 21, 2009 by

Fairtrade T-shirt

fairtrade © Rebecca Matheson 2009
Design for Production requires us to design a two-colour tshirt for a local event. I chose Fairtrade Fortnight – which happens in May. I figured it might be better to pick something I care a little about rather than something on par with the Airshow. Inclusion of event logos has to be limited (or non-existent). So after many very bad vector based ideas (Which I don’t know if I want to share), driving in the car on the way home at 1am something vaguely like this came to my head.

It’s a bit rough, not sure if this is exactly what the final outcome should look like, whether I should remove the overlayed rays or/and add some extra imagery – and I probably need to deal with the bottom edges of the buildings as they look a bit unfinished and cut off. But there you go. Suggestions appreciated.

If I like it enough, I might enter it in this competition.

All images I have used are Public Domain/Royalty Free (some from www.pachd.com).

© Rebecca Matheson 2009

Design Social Justice Uni

Published March 11, 2009 by

Social Entrepreneurship

play-769009In a valiant effort to make homework seem interesting, let me share. My uni subject Design & Buinsess Strategy is a group based initiative related to the development of a business plan and whatever other paraphernalia comes with that – our constraint: the business must be based around Social Entrepreneurship. This is infact an incredibly interesting topic and only dry in the sense that it is 10:30pm and I would rather be lazying around watching a West Wing. We drew the standard blanks last week of an initial group meeting where no two people knew each other nor had very many good ideas OR our ideas were too complex for the comparatively short 12 week assignment.

I spent a little of my long weekend pondering what gap we could fill in society (or at least pretty up), what need we could meet. I was supposed to go away and dig up three ideas about combating obesity – frankly I am really not interested in health issues. Obese kids are often the product of their parents and frankly this culture is full of lazy people (*cough who watch West Wing at 10:30 at night) and you can’t force activity… unless at gunpoint. Parents get far too offended if you challenge their actions or parenting and bang you have a sizzler (think sizzler down the drain rather than mmm sausage) of a business idea. *Note that less lazy people would and will come up with wonderfully creative solutions to help combat obesity, all I’ve hit so far is an arson attack on McDonalds but the project gets huge and illegal and not very viable very quickly.

So I have an idea, it is quite simple, quite feasible and not at all about obesity but rather poverty – something I care a bit more about (At least in theory).  I wont share just yet – incase anyone comes along and smoozles my idea before I float it. (Possesive aren’t I?) – or perhaps it’ll be overshaddowed by something else far more brilliant, in which case you won’t have lost out.

But Social Entrepreneurship. Interesting.

My friend Susannah is currently over in Costa Rica with a group of fellow Engineering students. When I look at projects like theirs – which is around building orphanages (I think) and the other less standard remarkable innovative things that are going on in the larger sphere of the design world it gives me hope.

There is something in design thinking in this sense that offers something quite new to the world. It’s not necessarily about creating something out of nothing but of working with what is existing and extending it’s power for positive social change. Reminds me of a bit of the whole ‘a lie based on truth is more believable’ saying, but naturally far less negative. It just works.

To read a little more about Social Entrepreneurs, I suggest you go check out this.

Create Culture Design Life Social Justice Sustainable Uni

business plan design thinking innovate social entrepreneurship