Image by Anthony Dickens on Twitpic. Click for a larger view.

Anthony Dickens recently shared, on a Linkedin discussion, a list of Design Truisms written by Tim Parsons. Tim is an Associate Professor in Designed Objects in the AIADO Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was written in 2004 for a Design Mart exhibition at the London Museum. I’ve reproduced it in text form below for our easy discussion and dissection.

A product may be a word in an essay.
Adding another object is not always the answer.
Advertising is design’s spin doctor.
Branding camouflages substance.
Change is good for the soul.
Creativity cannot be taught.
Design education is a life skill.
Every design has a political undertone.
Form without content is waste.
Freedom is slavery, especially within design.
In the mind, a design is never finished.
Independence encourages audacity.
It is a luxury to have time to create.
Marketing is design’s pimp.

Movements decay into styles.
Patenting allows ideas to be imprisoned.
Perfection creates waste.
Post-Modernism was a necessary evil.
Preoccupation with objects is unhealthy.
Pride in ideas obstructs progress.
Providing more choice is a smoke screen.
Real value doesn’t evaporate after purchase.
Resistance to trend is commendable.
Signature styles reveal vacant minds.
Solving artificial problems is cowardly.
There is humanity in mis-use.
Utopia is the only honest starting point.
With volume comes responsibility.

A really well thought out and comprehensive list that has a makings of a manifesto. Unfortunately I do think some of the Truisms take a rather extreme view such as “Marketing is design’s pimp.” I also disagree with “Creativity cannot be taught.”

Regardless, I enjoy such lists as they reflect a growing thought leadership in our design procession. As you can see, this list compliments very nicely with the form focused Dieter’s Rams 10 Principles of Good Design and my business angled “What are your principles of good design?”

Tim’s Design Truisms takes on the angle of what it takes to be a good designer in today’s context. Also notice that the list above focuses very little on form or aesthetic, but covers a lot about the design ecosystem instead.

What do you think of this list of Design Truisms? I look forward to reading your feedback and thoughts.

Jessica Hische has created a nice little flow chart to help designers decide if we should work for free. Jessica has helpfully incorporated into her flow chart many of common scenarios that are used to bait unsuspecting designers. While this sort of thing is often common sense, this flow chart serves as a nice reminder to all of us.

This would make a great desktop wallpaper, no? Thanks Jessica.

As designer Matt Jones says, “don’t keep calm and carry on”, we should instead:

I’m sure many of you would have already seen this, but it is too good to not share it here. Inspired by old British wartime propaganda back in 1939, Matt Jones’ poster is a nice reminder for us to get off our behinds and into a flying start for 2011!

Via: Matt Jones’ Flickr Page
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Hate/Love from CRUSH on Vimeo.

It’s all up to your and your work.

The film taps into an insight we think every creative feels – love for the business when things are going well, and hate, when things aren’t.

Well said. The highs and lows in Design can really make us schizophrenic at times. However, it is how we handle the situation that counts. A glass half full or empty is merely a point of view and this ad portrays this point well. Leo Burnett was commission to create this ad campaign for the 2010 Advertising & Design Club of Canada (ADCC) Awards. Enjoy!

Hat tip to @drewkora and via: Jonathan Moore.

Chuck Close from Wisdom said:

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.

I would say this also applies to design? There are similarities between the creative processes of artists and designers. And as I’ve said before A Busy Designer is Never Stuck. So start your designing now!

Quote from Wisdom via: 9-bits.

As designers, we all have processes, systems and tools that we use day in and day out. Each one employed to solve a specific problem in a specific way. As we attempt to automate our design process and optimize our methods we invariably realize that our answers are becoming more and more generic—formulaic, if you will.

As we utilize frameworks and design patterns to help us move faster, we are accepting that a certain level of our design decisions have already been made for us. And in the process, we begin to bypass the moments that, while often frustrating, lead to incredible discovery or innovation.

We tend to try and automate everything in our lives so that we can achieve more, faster. However, the power of design is its ability to make the inanimate more human. This is not something that happens when design becomes a checklist, a process or a formula. Inevitably, as the designer yields to the design system, we find ourselves faced with products that don’t emotionally resonate with us as human beings.

This is why a Design (Thinking) Process should not be taught in rote. Not only that, this is also why you need to be “doing” design, so that you can learn to walk-through or challenge your process differently each time.

Indeed, the best designers know that every design solution will have a different process required to get there. The trick is structuring this process well, which fortunately gets easier as you age.

via Design Systems Need To Be Challenged – 52 Weeks of UX.

The kind folks of Autodesk heard that I loved SketchBook Pro so much that they extended their Comic-Con only 30% discount to all Design Sojourn readers!

I’m sure many of you know what SketchBook Pro is all about, especially if you have used their Apps on the iPhone or iPad. I have been thinking of getting SketchBook Pro for a while now and this 30% discount tipped the scales for me. So if you are like me, someone that ironically owns SketchBook Pro on all other platforms except on your own PC or Mac, it’s time to get it now.

SketchBook Pro 2011 retails online for USD$80 and after the discount you can pick it up for just USD$56! Get it now at: www.autodesk.com/comiccon and use this discount code: CCWA30CBK. Please note that this discount is for online purchases of this software only. The discounted box set is only available at the Comic-Con.

No funky competitions or games this time as this offer ends sometime tomorrow. Furthermore, there happens to be only a couple of dozen uses of this code left, so I would hurry…

Edit: I thought you guys might want to also know that I bought my copy with my own money. I enjoyed the discount, so I thought you might too!

That’s right people, no fear! Image by StreetFly JZ

When Moo approached me to see if I was interested in some Moo cards for Design Sojourn readers, I immediately said “yes!” These Moo cards are really part of a flexible card printing system that allows you to print anything on card sizes that range from business cards to greeting cards and even stickers. I have used them in the past for small mini cards with images from my portfolio as part of my personal brand. I think you might find them useful for your needs too.

This got me thinking, instead running an “oh hum” boring giveaway, why not make it more fun and interactive by combining the coupon giveaway with an opportunity for designers to share their portfolio with the rest of the world? Good idea?

Here are the rules:

1) I have two free coupons to any (yes any!) Moo products to give away. Up to a $80 value worth of cards to give away, so you get to choose what you want.

2) Any designer or non-designer can participate.

3) I will select winner by using a random number tool where each entrant will have an equal chance to win. But you can influence your chances of winning! This activity is about participation and not about having the best portfolio or design work. However I do hope that this platform will allow you an opportunity to see what others have done and then be inspired to better yourself!

4) To participate and increase your chances of winning you can do the following:

a) You get 1 chance to win by leaving a comment on this post. This comment can be a unique portfolio idea, improvement feedback to someone else’s portfolio, or perhaps how you would like to use the Moo product to further your personal brand. The points are cumulative, so please do comeback and comment frequently!

f) Do note that all chances are cumulative! For example, you could leave a link in the comments section (below) to pictures of your hardcopy portfolio book on your flickr account, and also retweet this post. This would give you 12 chances for winning the 2 coupons.

5) This give away will close on Monday 18th October at 12pm (+8 GMT). The winner will be contacted by email and announced on Wednesday 20th October.

I think that is about it. So please do go ahead and start sharing your portfolio; and don’t forget the more we share to more we learn. Who knows, you might even get talent spotted! We can dream big right?

EDIT: Alright people! The give away is closed. Stay tuned for the results soon!

EDIT 2: Drum Roll! And the winner is SAJID! I will be contacting the winner soon by email. Congrats to the winner and thank you everyone who took part.

Design? from Design Says Hello on Vimeo.

A nice little introspective on how people understand the profession of design in Singapore. Student director N.Ziqq interviews, in just under an hour, a number of multidisciplinary designers and artists for their viewpoint and their struggles. I found it a little long, and it’s no Objective, nevertheless it is worth a look.

We take Design seriously and it’s a profession not a lot of people are willing to take up, especially here in Singapore.

The lack of understanding about Design got the layman confused with Art in turn people perceived designers as someone who only make things look pretty.

I managed to get a hold of these professional Designers from different Design Fields in Singapore sat down with them and discussed the role of Design in business, education, housing, and how it impacts our daily lives which a lot of people tend to overlook.

See Design through their eyes, and hopefully understand better what Design is all about.

Via: Design Says Hello?

Atari 900 Concept

Atari 1200 Concept

Atari 2600 Concept

I really love these old school hand rendered Atari computer concepts by Industrial Designer Regan Cheng. The repeated streaking caused by the marker’s nibs can be intentionally controlled to create a wide range of different textures from wood, to stone, to textured or glossy plastic. It looks like Regan was exploring some really exciting Computer Archetypes back then!

By 1981, Atari’s home computer division began looking into replacements for the aging 400/800 line of computers. Several types of systems were conceptualized and in the end it came down to two routes. One was called the A-300 project which involved a new series of Atari computers which would work as modules and plug together to form a complete computer system. The second was an evolution of the A-300 project that shed all of the expansion and modular design for a low profile, high tech computer system which became the Atari 1200XL Computer System.

Check out the cool modular A-300 concept below.

Ah the nostalgia! I’m now really inspired to break out my old box of well used markers and broken pastels. Aren’t you?

PS: This is the kind of exploration work you would use my Iteration Book for!

Via: Color Cubic and The Atari Museum.