After watching Elaine’s lecture, I feel as though her insight into culture and the world of design was a valuable concept to learn now, when looking ahead to the remaining years of college, and into the future of a design occupation. I think that the idea to include culture more into the field of design, where cultures would be able to build upon the already existing, predominantly white and male, concepts of design seemed like an objective way to have inclusivity take a more significant role in design. I think time will be the most important factor in having this process evolve, as was said in the lecture, the student body, especially at Parsons is more diverse than ever, and I feel that once the students enter into the design field, they will be able to share personal perspectives of culture, and integrate it into design, weather that be personal or professional. Elaine voiced her struggles with being able to show culture expression through designs in the professional side of the field, but I think since these issues with the current landscape of design are being taught to us currently, we will hopefully be around like-minded people who are eager to have personal and cultural stories be told through their design work; and if not in our generation, then we would take on the role of designers who seek for more representation in our own work and the work of our contemporaries.
I think that Lynn's lecture was insightful in terms of illuminating the inner workings of independent design studios, and how relationships truly are able to build a career. I think one of the most interesting parts of the lecture was when she was describing the inflow of work that her company receives, as it was mostly structured through word of mouth connections. As someone who is looking forward to working in the design field, it was pretty surprising to learn that projects almost solely come through connections for independent design studios, making the relationships that are built in college seem ever more so important. I also enjoyed the section where she discussed diversity in the design landscape and how that influenced some of her large-scale projects like the work highlighting and celebrating women, their history, and their contributions to society through statistics. An area of design that I believe to be somewhat under-utilized is the integration of design into public spaces, and having a desired message to be portrayed through said public spaces; I believe Lynn’s example to be pretty powerful, taking a public space and transforming it into an interactive and educational experience.
Pascal Glissmann's lecture provided interesting insight into atypical design projects, many of which were oriented at aiding people, or bringing people together. I enjoyed learning about the project where he tasked young designers to create a set amount of symbols that would describe the present in its entirety. While seeming like a pretty daunting challenge, I think that the concept can be seen as an exercise for designers to not only attempt to see design differently, but see the world they live in from a different perspective too. I also think that the project is able to begin forcing people to think from different perspectives in order to understand through design which groups they would like to represent and if that representation is accurate. Another part of the presentation I enjoyed was when Glissmann spoke about how some of his students were having trouble thinking conceptually and creating abstract thoughts from tangibilities. I found this to be quite interesting as critical thinking can be inherent to a person, but especially in a design focused education, I believe there should be more emphasis on teaching students different schools of thought, along with nuanced ways to form ideas and approach projects.
After watching the lecture by E Roon Kang & Andrew LeClair, I was able to appreciate the end of the year communication design collection for all the behind the scenes work put into the final product, as well as the result. I think the work ethic of the group, as they described working through different time zones during the pandemic years, was admirable to learn about, as to create something compiling student submitted work, shows true dedication and belief in the program.
The lecture by YuJune Park and Caspar Lam was an insightful introduction into the intricacies of working as an independent design studio. A lot of the topics they discussed, such as working with and developing Chinese typography, was interesting to see, as they used the past to inform their iterations on traditional letter forms, and had intentional design choices that were clearly executed. I also thought that their perspective was quite informative to hear, as they discussed how working as Chinese Americans informed their work, and sometimes, with projects that did not involve their culture, could be used as a strength to provide a new perspective on specific subjects.
The projects displayed by Kelly Walters were all centrally meaningful to her, and displayed a lot of passion towards the history of women, black people, and black women in the United States. I think the first project she presented was highly intriguing, as the wood block not only displayed the systems of design in the past, and what technologies were available to make those systems wide-spread, but also about the position of women and black people in these advertisements of the time. I believe that looking back on design history to make more educated and informed decisions for the future is essential to design education; it is also as important for more knowledgeable figures such as Kelly to share with students.