ALL ART BURNS

The first four weeks of this semester have been a blur of work, travel, red-eye flights, multi-minute fits of coughing in the middle of the night, two bottles of Dayquil(tm), three bottles of cough syrup, morning studio classes followed by afternoons and evenings working. If there were an drug that made people feel the way I have lately, there would be no reason to make it illegal.

We hit the ground running in my studios with projects on showing the evolution of form using only images and relating information about a sightseeing trip using a limited selection of typefaces for the names of the places, lines, and two colors. Cardboard shoes this is not, this is getting into what makes design go. These aren’t “Easy A Art Classes” as a friend of mine calls them, these are “work your ass off and still get it wrong” classes.

You can argue that there is no “right” and “wrong” in the creative space, but in design, there are clearly “rights” and “wrongs”. You’ve used well-designed objects and never noticed they exist and been frustrated with poorly designed objects that you’ve wanted to destroy with a hammer.

So how do you tell “right” from “wrong”? One way Carnegie Mellon’s Design program really does its students a favor is by forcing us to depend on each other for continual feedback during the design process. If I think I’m drawing blue squares and you tell me they look a little too purple and round to be squares, that isn’t saying that blue squares are wrong but that I’m doing a poor job of communicating “blue” and “square”. We go so far as to work on each other’s drawings with tracing paper and explain how to fix each other’s projects.

In my comp sci classes, this level of helping one another would probably have been referred to as “cheating” and we’d have been disciplined. In a design studio, if you walk by someone’s table and see that their perspective is off or that their blue cube looks a bit too green and triangular, you tell them then instead of waiting until they hang the work during a crit or turn it in for grading. Helping each other during the process and being honest with feedback and criticism really improves everyone’s work and their final results. That’s an important lesson — even an Important Life Lesson — that I’d never been exposed to in a classroom.

In the corporate world, even in the semi-egalitarian world of software engineering, this does not happen nearly enough. I’ve close enough working relationships with many of my peers that we can say, “that’s not going to work” or ask for help without worrying about looking ignorant or even incompetent. If I’m in a meeting with someone from product marketing, I can’t say anything remotely like that, even if I put it as politely as possible. Why? Because it’s seen as questioning their competence, and that’s not something one is supposed to do in the workplace. If, as engineers, we can question each other’s work, at what point is not unreasonable for us to question the work of others in our organization?

I’m not suggesting we say, “you suck and your ideas suck” to random people from other departments, but I am suggesting that we start questioning the facts presented by people in other organizations and challenging them to demonstrate the chain of logic that led them to their conclusions. If “%50 of customers think this is an important feature to add”, what do the other %50 think? Are they opposed to the feature? Do they want a different feature? Will it make them like the product any more or any less? How did you determine that %50 of the customers want the feature and whether or not they will want it if it slows down the product? (You did mention to them that this would slow down the product, didn’t you?)

If you’re going to show me a bar graph, be prepared to show me the process that went into generating that bar graph. If I’m going to tell you the new feature you want is going to take N weeks to implement, I need to be able to tell you how I came up with “N”, or at least be willing to honestly admit I picked it at random or padded it with enough time to figure out exactly what it is you’re really asking me to do.

I often get asked exactly what I’m learning, and I often have trouble describing it in simple words. For now, I think I would say that it is the development of “process” as an explicit skill that can be documented and discussed as a component of product development alongside explicit skills like “project management” or “software engineering”.

(And yes, this entry might well have the single most misleading title in this entire journal. )

Technorati Tags: design, process

Here’s why you should be reading pingmag.

(school update coming soon, I promise.)

Technorati Tags: sake

Awhile back I went on about how much I liked the Oxo Uplift Kettle. Three Oxo Uplift Kettles later, I’m not sure I’d consider it The Best Teakettle Ever Made. I think it might actually be The Best Idea for a Teakettle Poorly Executed but Properly Marketed.

The idea is great — lifting the teakettle by the handle and tilting the teakettle forward opens the pour spout. No fumbling around with a poorly insulated hot stopper, no finding a dishtowel to use while removing a metal stopper, just pick up the kettle and pour. Great idea, but Oxo isn’t able to (or perhaps does not want to) implement it effectively.

The first Uplift Kettle we had worked just fine for a few months — then the handle for the lid snapped off, making it effectively impossible to refill the teakettle. The handle was made of plastic and bolted to a metal lid in a way that pretty much guaranteed the handle would break due to the strain placed on the handle near the bolt holes. Oxo was very nice and sent us a replacement Uplift Kettle under warranty, but that took a couple of weeks. As we make multiple cups of tea and coffee every morning, it was two very annoying weeks of boiling water in a pot and trying to pour that into filters and cups.

The second kettle — the replacement for the first — stopped making a proper whistling sound after six months or so. It still made a noise, but not loud enough that you could hear from the dining room, which meant checking back every few minutes to see if the water was ready. One day it stopped whistling at all, boiled dry before we realized it, and got dumped into the garbage. Probably should have gotten it replaced under warranty when it stopped making a noise, but going for a couple of weeks without a teakettle is really annoying.

So, we bought a third Uplift Kettle. Like the second, it quickly developed problems whistling and soon stopped making much of a noise at all. After about a year of use, water started dripping water down the spout when we went to pour water into a cup. In other words, hot water goes in the cup and also trickles down the side, off the bottom, and onto my toes. It looks to me like part of the lip of the pour spout is coming apart and I don’t see any easy way to repair it.

We probably won’t buy another Uplift. I don’t like disposable things in the first place and a teakettle definitely should not be a disposable object. My All-Clad was annoying to use, but at least it didn’t come apart all the time or drip water. I sold it on eBay when I got the Uplift Kettle, now I’m wishing I’d have kept it.

I’m wondering if it’s really so difficult to design and manufacture a teakettle for $30 that lasts for more than a year being used on a daily basis. Maybe the market is such that people don’t mind buying a new one every year, or we’re an edge case in that we use it daily. Oxo has a full like of teakettles, if I buy a different one will it be toast within a year? Is there some sort of failure/repurchase cycle in which I’m supposed to be participating?

So, what to do. I could buy another All-Clad, as they seem to be indestructible. My All-Clad pots and pans hold up quite well under daily use. There are some other Oxo teakettles that look interesting, but I have some doubts about their reliability based on my experience with the Uplift.

For the studio there’s an easy answer: I bought a Zojirushi electric dispensing pot. These are a great solution if you’re going through a few liters of water a day or don’t have a stove/hotplate handy. I brought it home for the winter break and it’s quite handy to have around the house, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to buy one just for home use. It puts out water that’s just-under boiling (208 F) which is great for tea but not so great for coffee, instant miso soup, and other things that call for boiling water. It also doesn’t have any sort of on/off switch, just a “sleep timer” that you hit at the end of the day when you leave work. I’m going to guess that it uses more energy keeping water hot all day than does boiling water 3-4 times a day when I want it.

I wonder if the person (or people) behind the Uplift Kettle use it every day, or if they even drink tea in the first place? Maybe they have a Mr. Coffee or a home espresso machine of some sort.

Or maybe they do use it, have no problems with it, and I’m simply the unluckiest customer they’ve ever had.

Technorati Tags: design, oxo, review, tea, teakettle

Jamais Cascio listed me as one of the folks to take a shot at the One-Sentence Challenge, as offered by Paul Kedrosky:

Physicist Richard Feynman once said that if all knowledge about physics was about to expire the one sentence he would tell the future is that “Everything is made of atoms”. What one sentence would you tell the future about your own area, whether it’s entrepreneurship, hedge funds, venture capital, or something else?

My current area of expertise is one where the future will look back and laugh at my puny attempts at thought. However, I’m studying design and also thinking quite a bit about things like omniscient surveillance and sustainable living using my experiences growing up in a poor, rural part of the south.

I think I might say, “Seriously consider the fully loaded cost to create and deliver each and every thing you consume or discard before you decide to consume or discard that thing.”

Or I could just be lazy and re-write Kant’s Categorical Imperitive as, “What would the world be like if everyone acted the way you’re acting right now?”

Here’s Jamais answer, but it’d be interesting to hear what a couple other people I know might respond to the same question:

Richard Kadrey

Laura Lemay

(note to self: link to their answers)

Technorati Tags: advice, future, sustainable living

School and work is consuming most of my free time. Oddly enough, I have more time than before to read books or study for class thanks to the 40 minutes a day I spend riding the bus. I’ve read a few books for school and work I want to write about, and even though we have a few days off for Thanksgiving, I’m not sure how much book reviewing I’ll actually accomplish.

A bit of rambling about school while I finish my tea…

The freshman design program at Carnegie Mellon is challenging at best, totally demoralizing at worst. I don’t get the feeling there’s any sort of planned attrition or that any of my classes are “cut” classes but the standards are high and the workload is constant.

I’m one of the few people who really had no drawing skills at the start of the semester, however being able to correctly draw abstract objects is a core skill for industrial design. This is one reason why I’m working on a BFA ID instead of an MFA — I have no core art skills. (I guess I could probably get a MPD if I wanted to focus on a management track.) I spend a lot of time drawing things, showing them to others for feedback, giving feedback to others then going back and drawing things over.

Here’s a test for those of you who think you know how to draw. As quickly as you can, draw some 2″ cubes in 2 point perspective. Freehand. With a pen. Now some ellipses. Now some cylinders. Now draw a coffee percolator, a dump truck and a lighthouse. How do they look? Are they all in 2 point perspective? How’s the line weight, are the lines in front darker/wider than the lines in back? If you showed these drawings to someone else, would they be instantly recognizable as the objects you meant to draw?

I probably spend an hour a day drawing abstract objects with a pen. It’s what I do while I’m on a conference call, waiting on a build, listening to someone go on about their social life, etc. One of my professors talks about becoming “unconsciously competent”, that is, being able to do things correctly without thinking about it. One of the skills I’m working on is being able to quickly sketch or render an object, process or abstract concept without having to stop and think “are my lines converging properly on the horizon line?”

Because we’re being taught to work using an iterative, communal process, school work can easily soak up all of our time. I might think I need 3 hours to do a project, and that’s what I’d need if I were doing it by myself in isolation. But working in studio means constant interruptions to check someone else’s work and taking your work around to have it checked by others. There are days I pack up and leave, just because I don’t have the wall clock hours to participate the way I should and still get more than 6 or 7 hours a sleep each night.

This sort of communal work is not something I (nor many other) students are used to. In my previous art classes, it’d probably considered disruptive to walk over to someone while they were working and start giving feedback. In my comp sci classes, it’d probably be considered a violation of the academic honesty guidelines.

Another important skill — be able to declare something finished, walk away, and not look back. If you can’t do this you might have a hard time at Carnegie Mellon. I botched a project awhile back, got the grade I “earned”, but I can’t fret over it or spend time trying to figure out how I would redo it. I need my energy to focus on my current projects so that I don’t botch them as well. Some of my classmates spend hours and hours redoing the same drawing or model with little change on each iteration. If I can’t improve the quality a significant bit with another iteration, I stop. My grades will probably reflect this, but as long as I’m passing I’ll be happy.

Grades. Another area where a lot of students are getting blindsided. A core set of skills are needed to practice design. Either you have these skills at the end of the semester or you don’t. This isn’t like a fine arts program where you get an “A” for improvement or a “B” because you expressed your creativity in an appropriate manner. If you can’t draw, you don’t pass. On top of that, the grades themselves are based on what is expected for the average Carnegie Mellon student, not the average person in a design program. My goal is to get a “C” in Drawing. It’s not that I’m setting my expectations low so I can coast, I am having to work my ass off to get my skills to the point where I can earn a “C”. (By the way, a “B” is “wow, that’s pretty good, not many people do that well” while an “A” is “you’re fucking amazing, we rarely see work of this quality!”)

In the midst of all this, I’m trying to hold down a job. My boss is understanding and lets me work flex time, but there are only so many hours in a day. I’ll work most of the Thanksgiving holiday trying to catch up on all the tasks I’m behind on.

A couple more weeks of school, then winter break, then we start all over again.

Technorati Tags: carnegie mellon, design, personal