The Prepared Mind Discussion about designing human interaction.

I saw this question posed in a thread on the Graphic Design Forum and thought I’d re-introduce it as a new entry and expand the question.

So which is better? Is having a bachelors degree more important or do hirers in the industry care more about portfolio and experience in years? Will having an associates degree affect me negatively in any way at all once I graduate and start contributing to the industry?

This topic comes up quite a bit in graphic design circles and there is hardly a consensus of thought on it. However, I’ve recently been doing a lot of reading about the design industry and the current/future demands on designers from the marketplace and it has raised some interesting points/questions in my mind. (more…)

A very interesting conversation with GK VanPatter of NextDesign Leadership Institute. We discussed the work being done at NextD and the challenges facing designers today and in the future. NextD believes they have the tools to help designers cope with those challenges. Find out how!

Listen to the podcast

Show notes:

• 0:00:50 What is NextD?
• 0:03:17 Disturbing trends in design leadership
• 0:08:05 The reaction of design schools to NextD
• 0:09:57 The need for new design/innovation skills
• 0:20:04 Desginers need better language skills. (NextD Mindscapes)
• 0:30:09 The process of solving problems; old vs. new
• 0:35:00 How design organizations are reacting to NextD
• 0:38:24 Changing methods, NextD Journal conversation with Lorraine Justice
• 0:45:47 Design publications and their effects on design methods
• 0:47:30 Disconnected designers (Dept. of Labor study, APFD study)
• 0:50:46 Design publications
• 0:54:00 How NextD helps designers collaborate with professionals in other disciplines
• 0:59:26 What next? A designers’ plan of action!

.chris{}

In this podcast I spoke with David Heller to discuss Experience Design, what it is and why it’s important.

Listen to the podcast

Show notes:

• 0:01:56 What IS Experience Design?
• AIGA Experience Design
• Interaction Design Group
• 0:13:31 What happens at the DUX2005 Conference?
• DUX2005
• Experience Design conversation with Clement Mok & Terry Swack
• 0:24:16 Companies that craft unique experiences
• 0:30:50 Globalism and new kinds of design organizations
• 0:42:52 Briefly lost Dave
• 0:43:30 The Experience Design process
• 1:01:30 Dave’s Experience Design reading list
• Neuromancer (Remembering Tomorrow)
• The Design of Everyday Things
• Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things
• About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web
• Experience Design 1

.chris{}

I was really surprised to read an entry on marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog where he defends the use of stock logos! That’s right, Mr. Differentiate, the man who condemned the “cult of ‘good enough’” has seemingly contradicted the Hell out of himself in advocating the purchase of logos that are “good enough”.

Obviously aware of the apparent inconsistency, Godin defends his curious position by stating “What I hope you’ll see is that all a logo needs is to be GOOD ENOUGH (I know, I’m the guy who says good enough is a curse). Why is it okay to have a non-wonderful logo? Because the logo is just a placeholder. It gains value AFTER it hits the world, because people associate things with it.”

Wha????? As a fan of Seth’s and having read his books in the past, my immediate thought is “Seth, I want my money back!” (more…)

On the About.com GD discussion forum, designer Neil Tortorella introduced a thread where he brought to our attention a recent issue of Entrepreur Magazine that featured the company LogoWorks.

LogoWorks is far from just another $50 logo shop. They don’t use clip art or software to create logos. They tap our nation’s bloated pool of out of work designers and get them to create logos for between $30 - $40 USD. A tiny fraction of the amount recommended in the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines. (more…)

Just like most of us — whether we admit it or not — can’t help occaisionally Googling ourselves, every so often I check the feedburner stats on the podcasts I’ve done as well as the web stats on site traffic.

WOW!

Apparently yesterday The Prepared Mind’s podcast appeared on iTunes and ever since then, site traffic and downloads of the podcasts have trippled! Welcome, everyone. Due to the success of the first two podcasts, it has gotten much easier for me to get very interesting people to agree to be interviewed for future podcasts, so we have some very exciting content coming up. In the meantime, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and read/listen. Hopefully I’ll make the time taken from your busy schedules worthwhile.

.chris{}

It has been brought to my attention that on our podcast with Ed Gold, some of you had a difficult time hearing Ed’s audio. I apologize for this. We have only done 2 podcasts so far and so there are still a few adjustments that I need to learn how to make. For the next podcast, I will have these kinks worked out so that the audio is much better and it is easier for everyone to hear all of the content.

Thanks!

.chris{}

If it’s possible to hit the jackpot on this, only my second podcast, then I think I have. Ed Gold sat down with me for about an hour and spoke with me about GD certification. I ran into Ed on the Speak Up website when he gave his comments on a discussion about GD certification that was started by Gunnar Swanson. His comments, particularly what he had to say about launching a feasibility study to look into what — if any — benefits to our industry certification may or may not bring, intrigued me. So I sent him an email and asked if he would appear on a podcast and he agreed. SCORE!

Here is the podcast. I think there is some great and informative stuff that Ed had to share, as well as a pledge made by yours truly!

.chris{}

Well we finally got the first podcast recorded and up onto the server! Thanks to Neil Tortorella for recording this with me and I hope to record at least one per week.

http://www.thepreparedmind.com/pm/podcasts/pm_podcast001.mp3

Or feel free to subscribe to the feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thepreparedmind

.chris{}

I was talking to Neil Tortorella earlier today via Skype and we brought up the topic “design innovation”. More specifically, we mentioned how most designers still employ only one revenue stream and that revenue stream is not only completely reliant on their efforts (i.e. how much work they can do in a given billing period) but also on the grand old marketing scheme of sitting and waiting for the phone to ring. (more…)