Gathering by Design

DSers have been out and about with colleagues, comrades and classes. Here’s a recap of some of the wonderful moments.
Creative Director Joseph Nother shared inspiration and thinking in a presentation at a Creative Caffeine gathering of Knoxville chapter AIGA members. His topic, The Course of Creativity, addressed focusing on the dynamic, nuanced and fluid movement that creativity can take in achieving the best human-centered design.

Highlights include these twelve ideas to ponder:

• Start with the end in mind but be ready to course-correct.
• Connect objects to ecosystems.
• Design moments of truth.
• Get intimate with your client and understand their customers.
• Form follows function but both take a back seat to emotion.
• The creative continuum moves from What Is to What If to What Wows to What Works.
• Square the circle.
• Ideas get you noticed. Craft gets you recognized.
• Mind your mannerism.
• How much pain are you willing to sustain?
• Surround yourself with awesome.
• The end is the beginning.

Strategist Josh Loebner as well recently spoke with Knoxville chapter AIGA members and shared that good people skills better facilitate human-centered design and overall longer, more productive relationships. The presentation focused on five points of Differentiating, Openness, Vision, Enlighten and Selflessness, forming the hopefully memorable acronym D.O.V.E.S., the birds that mate for life.

• Differentiate
: Go above and beyond in client service.
Being proactive; not answering client’s questions but asking them.
• Openness: 
Great work entails risk. Most clients do not take risks. If they are going to take that risk, they are much more likely to do so with people they trust.
Openness is about no surprises, and transparency when mistakes happen.
• Vision
: Look beyond the project.
• Enlighten: 
Whenever possible, educate clients, your team and the people around you.
• Selflessness
: Understand limitations; give advice and help with services even if you don’t provide them.
Make yourself available, not just as a skilled worker but as a person.

Designer Joyanna Hirst informed and enlightened as guest lecturer at the University of Tennessee in a higher level English course centered on writing, layout and production of technical documents. Lecturing on design theory and practice, Joyanna shared her thinking on best practices and trends, giving the students ideas and tools to take action. As a recent graduate, Joyanna also gave some orientation to careers and internships in graphic design, mentioning how organizations such as the AIGA help foster connections among design professionals and daily work life at problem-solving at Designsensory.