'Personal projects'

It's been a long time since I have posted here, and I make no excuses except to say that finishing a PhD is the hardest and longest process ever! But more on that later...

Today, I felt compelled to post something after a Skype chat this morning with my friend Natalie's MA Design class. This post is not just for designers, but everyone, who seeks a space for themselves that is totally their own. It's not a physical space, but a mental one. This space lets you explore your own ideas, passion and interests. It's what Ji Lee (a Creative Director a Google) calls 'personal projects.'

I first encountered Ji and Ji's personal projects in 2008 at the Graphic Design Festival Breda in the Netherlands (an earlier blog post and some photos can be found here). I was struck by Ji's Bubble Project. And on many levels. The Bubble Project is about giving a voice to the public in the one-way communication culture of advertising and media that surrounds us. Empty white speech bubbles on ads invite the public to fill in their own commentary.


I love the idea for inspiring the creativity of people, of giving them a voice, and also for the fun it evokes (check out some bubbles here on Flickr). A lot of it was reminiscent of the Dott 07 projects and there was no doubt that Ji and his project would be appearing somewhere in my PhD thesis.

But there was another level of Ji's project that interested me. That was the idea of doing 'personal projects.' Those projects where you give yourself the space, time and permission to explore and pursue your passionate interests that exist outside of work. I can already hear questions such as, 'But what if I don't have the time?' so I'm going to leave you for 8 minutes with Ji, and let him tell you a bit about the Bubble Project and explain what he's learnt about doing personal projects, including some thoughts about the concept of time. I hope it helps inspire the creation of your own space to pursue and explore passionate interests, just like Ji did.

Ji Lee: The Transformative Power of Personal Projects from 99% on Vimeo.

Inspiration and Influences

The funny thing about the mind map that I first did for this blog is that it led me to an idea for my next posting here.

I often pass on my favourite articles that have been my comfort food during the challenging and questioning times (only with less calories). I thought I would post links and put references to these here on my blog.

The one that shall always top my list, is a collection of people-centred stories in design by Lauralee Alben, gathered together in an article called At the Heart of Interaction Design. The full article can be downloaded by clicking on the link or going to Alben Design’s website.


*Image from Alben Design's website

The next reference I love to pass on, has fed my interest in always having one foot in a design bucket and the other in a business bucket. It is a fabulous book called Managing As Designing. The authors who put the book together, Richard J. Boland and Fred Collopy, came to recognise the potential of a ‘design attitude’ in a business through their interactions with renowned architect Frank Gehry during the conception, planning, designing, development and construction of their faculty building, the Weatherhead School of Management. The result of these interactions resulted in a conference in 2002 and the subsequent published works are the papers delivered at the conference. It is a great read for both designers and business people. What I also love about Managing as Designing is that it is a demonstration of the transformative experience non-designers may have with design.



Wicked Problems in Design Thinking by Richard Buchanan (which can be found in the book the Idea of Design) is an article which really sharpened my focus on what I wanted to do in design. Buchanan provides for us a framework of Four Orders that designers work in. He uses the Four Orders to encourage our thinking about the potential of design in new and different areas and even today, Wicked Problems offers a rich and colourful seabed which always gets me thinking about design in so many directions.



An article that did precede all other articles, was one by Anne Patterson called Managing Upwards. As a Graphic Design Intern, I was struggling with being ostracised for using the wrong length hyphen (sorry em-dash) and knowing there was a greater potential for design. As we had a lot of down time between projects I would immerse myself in the graphic design studio’s library and one day came across this article which made me see a light!

In Managing Upwards, Patterson wrote about a Designer’s journey throughout their career which begins as a designer and moves forward and upwards into management. She wrote about how Designers applied their design thinking to managing


*An illustration from Patterson's thesis

Last and definitely not least is the thing that began it all- The Design Council. In 2002, a Creative Director I was working under passed me a brochure to read and from that point on, I was hooked!



The Design Council is the UK’s national strategic body for design and have a role in creating the right eco system for design and designers to play, experiment and work in. They are advocates for design and its use in business, government and society. I have been using the Design Council website as a source of inspiration and information for my personal, education and career interests over many years now, so I feel very lucky to be here, in the UK, at Northumbria University and collaborating with the Design Council on this PhD.