"Imagineer"

"Imagineer"

       In today's Concept Development class, we have talked about "Imagineer," but what was in my mind immediately after I saw the word was "creativity." There are thousands of competitors working in the same field as we do as graphic design. The "contest" is unbelievably tough because whoever comes out with an "outstanding idea" will get the "award." The problem is that not so few designers were able to take the award. Especially, what Stefan was talking about on the TED show was the "time off" or "Sabbatical" for creativity to develop. 

       Importantly to recognize, people often are so busy about what they are routinely doing everyday and forget about their actual goals and intention. As a graphic designer, creatively thinking should be the routine work. I was not paying attention at all right after Professor Jimmy Moss started talking about the Reality vs. Creativity. I was thinking about how I am going to spend the time for the summer this year. Should I go back to China for the summer? like last time which I spent lots of money and had too much fun. Or, Should I go back to China to seek for freelance jobs. Obviously, I believe spending time on creativity is much valuable than being relax. Sabbatical provides opportunities for minds to develop creativities if the free time is properly being spent.

       Secondly, we had done the activity as we come out with slogan or phrase to change the meaning, moods, and emotion of an object shown as picture. That was fun. But, it also reminds me about the differences in design between China and America. I can often see some symbolic advertisement in American than in China. I remember there was the online video company named "Potato" just like Youtube. Its logo is always looking either is a real potato or much like a potato. I am just so obsessed about that because that is so boring! It's like I would never look at a banana as a banana but American Born Chinese. I would say that is a really great practice of training our mind to think creatively not literally.  

Teamwork

Teamwork

       Today, we did some "teamworks" in the Concept Development class. First, we were asked to sit in order based on our birthday from January to December. Second, we needed to arrange all the comic assignments in order from the best one all the way to the "worse," or the least criteria. Last, the entire class was divided into four groups. Each of the groups had to use found objects to create a story and tell the rest of class. I found it interesting not because we did the activities; it is the practice of teamwork that makes me interesting. 

       The first activity was easy because everyone just needed to tell others his/her birthday so that he/she would know where he/she is going to sit. But, the problem came as we was doing the second activity. All of the assignments should be arranged by satisfaction of criteria within 20 minutes. I think someone has to be quickly elected as the leaders by the rest of classmates so conflicts when choosing the best way to filter (or decide) the assignment would be less. I did not suggest it during the activity I think because I was shy. I believe that these kind of teamworks will become regularly routine tasks for graphic designers because none of us wants to work alone. How are we going to "design" something quickly in order to solve a problem? I think the first skill that we have to gain is "critical thinking." If I were to solve the second activity again as a leader, I would look at the problem in a simplest way. Because we needed to come out with criteria, so the more we came out with the harder for a group to go through within the timeframe. I would say we only come out with one criteria to rearrange all the assignments by the number of votes on each one. 

       The last activity was storytelling. I think creativity and teamwork are involved in order to create an interesting story with clear plot, setting, and characters. Each of the group members was assigned to a particular role of the story. I think the activity was more about creativity rather than teamwork because interesting stories are usually those unpredictable stories so that audiences would become interested in what's coming next.