Design Altruism Project

Recent Posts

Classics

The Strategy
by David Korten

Design for Democracy African Style
by Wendy MacNaughton

Arguing With Success
by David Stairs

English and Palinese
by Victor Margolin

Agenda for a 21st Century India Report
by Arvind Lodaya

First Name Basis (Part 2)
by Wes Janz

Riots By Design: Blaming the London Olympics
by Daniel Drennan

Introduction to the Fourth World
by Olon Dotson

Can Non-Europeans Innovate?
by sumandro

Apple-vs-Design
by Carter Scholz

Categories

Links

This work is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 United States License

D-A-P in Print

Join Our Team!

Serotonin Tee - Own it!

NEW! Multitaskers Tee

Non-Algorithmic

July 1st, 2019

David Stairs

Since when did coding corner the market on the definition of “smart”?

I recently attended a UCDA design conference where Helen Armstrong was one of the keynoters. Ms. Armstrong, a multiply-credentialled academic with deep ties to the AIGA, talked about Big Data, and how designers can/should employ it to their benefit.

Yellow-cyan-indigo paint scheme non-algorithmically determined

Armstrong began her presentation by asking the audience how many had interacted with data that morning. Of course, nearly every hand in the room shot up in a classic example of techno-enthusiasm. As an instance of the apparent ubiquity of computing technology, I suppose the question is inescapable. But as an example of putting convenience above discretion, it was more telling still. I too, had recently visited the Amazon site. I’d nearly been tempted to sign up for a no-charge Amazon credit card, which would have saved me $50 on that purchase. I had the forms all filled in when I thought better about the personal info I was about to relinquish to big data. It seemed more valuable than $50, so I cancelled the transaction.

News stories about the ways that ubiquitous computing, cloud computing, big data, or smart phone apps are changing our day-to-day existence have become relentless. More of this techno-triumphalist cheerleading is certainly unneeded and unwelcome. It is not surprising to find it seeping into such vulnerable audiences as those at design conferences who, generally, are “techno true believers” and “early adopters.” But when you stop to consider what is being compromised, the gains lose a lot of their luster.

Armstrong cited some of the most famous applications of Big Data, like autonomous vehicles and facial recognition. To her credit, she also mentioned the down side of ceding control, citing examples such as the Cambridge Analytica data breach, or the implications of retailers like Walmart employing universal recognition surveillance to determine the “happiness” of customers. But I propose that the problem goes much deeper, all the way to the core of what it means to be human.

Ms. Armstrong also talked about how Google uses images from its geographic recognition software as “captcha” instances, the better to employ everyone’s involuntary participation to improve their location algorithms. I asked Armstrong if she was encouraging us to help make machines smarter while making human beings dumber. She averred that it was “a conversation that needed to happen.” Unfortunately, as evidenced by the Facebook CA debacle, such controversies are only mooted after they become public, and it is in most corporations’ best interests to stonewall public inquiries into their proprietary assets. Just ask Mark Z.

The other end of the human equation that I hear people talking about has to do with the huge experiment in behavior modification corporations are running on our youth. Educators are constantly complaining about how students don’t write as well, can’t remember as much, don’t exercise memory without access to technology, and generally seem less capable than once-upon-a-time. Granted that academics are accomplished bellyachers when it comes to the “younger generation,” but I’m still concerned about the way traditional skills are being eroded by superficial gratification and ephemeral convenience.

My standard example of self-reliance is way-finding. As a point of pride, I do not use GPS when I travel. Typically, I prepare for a journey by researching the route, understanding directions, etc. I’ve left for a multi-car field trip and beaten students to the destination because their GPS sent them in the wrong direction. For the UCDA conference I drove 700 miles in an unknown direction to a part of the country I’d never visited. When I got lost in the western reaches of rural Virginia I stopped to ask directions, which I’ve also done in downtown Detroit and the heart of Africa. If I’d been using GPS I would have subbed Siri’s default voice for the soft gentle twang of the local Virginia dialect, which was a definite improvement. Armstrong told me that one of her daughters, who is autistic, benefits from using GPS to navigate in her own neighborhood. This left me at odds, wondering how Helen Keller ever survived, let alone prospered, without the benefit of an app.

Different times evoke differing solutions, I suppose. GPS is only one possible example where I might invoke a memory of Helen Keller. When I try to use voice recognition software to transcribe subtitles for film, the mistakes are so legion that I might rewrite the text from scratch in the time it takes me to correct the transcription errors. Conventional wisdom recommends that I search for better software, maybe something Google has crowd-sourced from the public without permission, but the Luddite in me recoils.

Of course, there are adverse examples, too. I did not have the details of the venue I was to present in at UCDA Tennessee because the conference organizers, assuming everyone is phonetech savvy, spent more effort developing a conference smart phone app than being clear in their emails. This was a distinct disadvantage for a person who does not carry a phone. Granted, mine is an outlier position in a society obsessed with the mobile internet, but even the internet has been superceded by proprietary apps, which, apparently, no one seems to object to.

My young son Luco pointing the yellow-blue way

As reported by the AIGA website, the Pentagram collective recently hired data visualizer Giorgia Lupi as its 24th New York partner. Described as a “digital humanist,” whatever that means, Ms. Lupi is a living reminder of design’s latest addition to its capitalistic toolbox. And it is things like this that make me want to open a studio called Non-Algorithmic. In that business, partners and clients alike would be required to check their smart phones at the door, and employees would spend at least one afternoon per week finding their lunch by aimful wandering. I think I’m on to something, but it’s definitely not digital, and it won’t require a certificate in coding from Google U. Wish me luck.

David Stairs is the founding editor of the Design-Altruism-Project

Posted in Ideas | Comments Off on Non-Algorithmic

Branding Academia

May 24th, 2019

David Stairs

While most people these days don’t think much about cattle when they discuss branding, they also probably don’t focus on Apple’s iconic 1984 Superbowl ad as the catalyst for a whole new generation of brand differentiation. Yet, the upsurge of interest in brand fascination is traceable to the 1980s and its emphasis on supply-side economics.

CMU’s Centennial Sculpture, by Charles McGee (installed 1992; relocated 1999; birds voluntary)

When I finally became part of the academy in 1994, my land-grant institution had recently celebrated its centenary. To mark this occasion, it invested in two things: a sculpture, and a logo. For the centennial sculpture, a committee commissioned Detroit artist Charles McGee, whose black-and-white enameled steel “Gateway Sculpture” was later moved from the center of campus to a small island in the middle of a remote pond. The centennial logo, later referred to as “the outhouse,” fared even worse. A variation on the “Old Main” trope of university logos, the campanile of Warriner Hall marque, gone and all but forgotten, was replaced less than a decade later with a word mark.

Central’s Centennial logo, the “Outhouse” 1992

About two years after I arrived on campus, a new marque was created by a student of mine who moonlighted as a work study student at athletic marketing. This marque, later referred to as the Action C, was an extra-bold obliqued sans serif cap C with speed lines and the drop shadow that defined so much design of the late ’90s.

The Action C, 1996

Earlier in the century, Central’s mascot had for a time been known as the Bearcats. At some point, this designation changed to the Chippewas, named for the local band of Anishinaabe people, the Saginaw Ojibwas. This created a marketing problem for the school by the PC end of the century. The Bearcat logo had been a cap C, and the Action C reverted to this style, updating it while allowing the school to retain the Chippewa nickname with tribal consent, so long as it was used respectfully and did not promote stereotypes.

Central’s old “Bearcat C”

My only connection to any of these marques was to the 2001 university word mark. In the midst of a contentious public discussion, where the Associate Vice President for Marketing was taking heavy ordnance over outsourcing $12,000 for a new mark, I suggested the typeface that ultimately settled the debate, Emigre’s Fairplex. This experience taught me that the public holds a pretty high estimation of its own design taste, whether or not it owns the knowledge or expertise that goes with it.

The CMU Wordmark, 2001

A decade-and-a-half later, a new AVP, herself a CMU alum, embarked on a scorched-earth branding campaign in an effort to control all secondary marks on campus. In addition to the wordmark and Action C, the university occasionally used a great seal, and many on-campus entities had made their own logos. Her solution: make everything bleed institutional colors, in this case maroon and gold. Thereafter, every webpage, poster, sweatshirt, coffee mug, and publication assumed a predictable sameness, and designers working for the university had to learn to dream in PMS 209 (maroon) and 123 (gold).

The university seal

These days, most universities adhere to a rigidly protectionist policy toward their property, including logo and color palette. After all, such simple things are the stuff of nostalgia for thousands of alums, hence, potential donors and purchasers of university branded clothing and swag. Never mind that none of this stuff is produced by universities, but by a large echelon of licensed marketers and secondary producers with university branding agreements.

An example of current university branding

Yet, I can’t help but think that something essential has been lost in this rush to proprietize the university’s image. Perhaps it can’t be offset by the monetary gold PMS 123 bestows on CMU, but the rigidity imposed by such “branding standards,” while state-of-the-practice, reduces flexibility, and ultimately forestalls potential creativity. I know because my department’s efforts to develop a not-maroonandgold website to try to compete with other arts institutions was completely shut down, with the resultant university-imposed website one horse-snort shy of hilarious. The irony is that enrollments are tanking in the era of Trumpification. Michigan is bleeding population and jobs, with the pool of available 18-year-olds every institution is competing for accordingly reduced.

Architect’s rendering of Central’s proposed Alumni Center, with an Action C sculpture out front

I can’t say if/when this will ever improve. I’m biased to believe it may accompany a loosening of brand standards, and a return to unfettered creativity. Only time will tell. Meanwhile, all hail the Action C.

David Stairs is the founding editor of the Design-Altruism-Project

Posted in Ideas | Comments Off on Branding Academia

Design Is Not Always Elitist (thank god)

April 13th, 2019

David Stairs

The editors of MIT Press and Design Observer have compiled a collection of essays to celebrate that weblog’s 15th anniversary. Culture Is Not Always Popular sports the same title as the presentation Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel made at the 2003 AIGA Power of Design conference in Vancouver B.C., which was delivered the very week the Design Observer website launched, at the time a marketing slam dunk that quickly garnered a captive audience for the new site. Yet, despite the title’s heady aspirations, this anthology reveals DO not for what it has aspired to be— avant garde, but what it actually is: largely bourgeois.