'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.

Design in Alternative Futures at the Design Council

It has been at least 6 months since the design community I know convened as we did at the Design Council last night.

The design and public sector community came together at the Design Council to attend an event called Design in Alternative Futures. The invited presenter was Dr Alex King from the Horizon Scanning Centre, a Government department that research, among other things, future scenarios to inform policy.

King’s presentation was interesting for a few reasons but mostly (for me, especially in consideration of my research) for the methodological side. King presented and characterized 4 future scenarios of where society could go (if not already there):

• Perpetual Motion: An open and individualist society contextualized by free markets;
• Shaken Open: An open and collective society, such as those common to Europe;
• Self-service: A closed and individualistic society which perpetuates a focus inwards and toward family;
• Protective Collective: A closed but collective society which advocates national identity.

Scenarios were certainly talked of in the Dott 07 projects. A regular question asked throughout the programme was ‘how do you want to live?’ and many of the projects proposed new and different scenarios dealing with issues in health, education, food, mobility and energy.

Designers commonly research, project and communicate future scenarios. Consultancies such as Sense Worldwide forecast trends using design-led research tools and my PhD buddy Ben is currently undertaking research that deals with future scenarios in post-crash worlds.

Skills and tools possessed by designers can help inform strategy, policy, planning, brands… and it was interesting to see King’s approach to such research and extrapolations. King’s scenarios work was undertaken over an 8-month period and included:

• workshops
• interviews
• online brainstorms
• stakeholder meetings
• research (am guessing desk and literature) and
• expert meetings

We had a great Q&A session afterward. You can always bank on designers to ask the good questions. Some asked: How were the scenarios presented to Government? How much impact did the research really have on policy development? Was the research used as reflective and learning tools in Government? And how do we, as designers, use this kind of research in our own work?

The last question I felt was probably the missing link for most of the audience and I wondered if King’s work, which intervenes and informs at the policy level, was a mismatch to the level most designers currently intervene in business, society and Government?

King presented fascinating and well-delivered research on future scenarios that got most of us thinking- what and how could designers contribute here? I don’t know if we are quite at the stage of informing policy yet. Though I suspect we should be in the future.

Here are some other reflections on last night's event:
We are: blogging