03 March 2010

Considering organic design...

I watched Ross Lovegrove's talk on Organic Design this morning on the way to work (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ross_lovegrove_shares_organic_designs.html) and it got me thinking about creativity and design.

Looking at his design lab and hearing how he thinks/develops ideas reminded me of the start of each uni semester during the brainstorming stage - the way I'd seek out all manner of random 'cool' things from all over the place to get me thinking/inspire me to start churning out ideas for projects. You become hypersensitive and really see things in different ways. It can really be fun and quite exciting (once you finally come up with an idea that is - it can be a bit nerve wracking before that with deadlines looming and production time still needing to be factored in!)

At one point Ross was marvelling at some dinosaur skeletons in a museum. He remarked how looking at these creatures was daunting, as such amazing design evolved over a very long period of evolution - how on earth was he supposed to create/design new form in a much shorter time frame?

This sentiment is not dissimilar to lots of thoughts I've been having lately re my own design skills. It has been quite daunting for me to look at the portfolios of other designers/developers and think of how mine places (so poorly!) along side them (even though I'm just pitching at a junior/newbie level, I can't help but compare myself to more experienced peeps - I know employers will be as well...)

I think my best tact going forward is to:
1) use other people's experience and design knowledge that has evolved over the web years to bring me up to speed e.g. sites like Smashing Magazine or the Yahoo! pattern library
2) be patient with myself and understand the knowledge/skill will develop in time

I also think a good plan would be to update the design of the Launch into Fitness website. When I built it, I did so mainly as an exercise in learning how to use different types of code. I've learned a bit about design since then, I think I'd be doing myself a favour by showcasing how I've evolved...

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