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"Design Thinking" as ipecac

I had the opportunity to chat with Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram and former president of the AIGA, at the Design Observer/Speak Up party last night. I asked him what he thinks of the "design thinking" meme. He remarked that, if he started talking "design thinking" within Pentagram, Paula Scher, another partner, would throw up. He actually stated it twice, for effect. Paula Scher throws up at the notion of "design thinking."

Which makes me respect Paula Scher all the more.

Technorati Tags: aigadc2005, pentagram, designthinking

Quick Thoughts - AIGA Boston

After a poor night's sleep (forget to bring the melatonin), I rolled into the main (massive) auditorium for the AIGA Boston conference.

John Hockenberry is MCing the event, and doing so with an engagingly loose vibe. It doesn't always work (an attempt to have "funny phone calls" live on stage fails because we can't hear the other conversant), but he never flags.

Rep. Barney Frank is clearly a smart, thoughtful guy, but I had no idea what he was doing at a design conference. All he talked about was Katrina and the role of government.

The last-minute Design For Disaster panel (that's not what it was called) didn't spur me to pay attention. Designers can be a remarkably self-congratulatory bunch -- I vaguely remember the discussion involved how signage can help evacuees.

Ellen Lupton was singularly disappointing. She spent a remarkable amount of time making fun of signs that use "dumb quotes," which is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. And she didn't really have a point to it. "Rated R" was a fun little flash film with typefaces battling it out.

Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid gave a coherent talk on hip-hop, remixing, type, and graphic design. It was easily the best public speaking I (or the folks I'm here with) have seen him do. We had two theories. 1) He showed a lot of movies, so he spoke less, and his points were illustrated by others. 2) He just wrote a book, and, in doing so, figured out how to communicate his formerly esoteric theories more accessibly.

Jason dug up a video that Spooky showed and which is worth viewing. "Distorted Minds" by Hexstatic.

Technorati Tags: aiga, aigadc2005, djspooky, barneyfrank, ellenlupton

Rebecca Solnit on Disaster

Making its way across the blogosphere is Rebecca Solnit's essay for Harpers on "The Uses of Disaster," which I'm guessing was written well before Katrina, and so is disturbingly prescient. She added a postscript specific to the recent tragedy.

It's very much worth reading. Solnit's an excellent, and highly passionate and opinionated, writer. She's something of a libertarian Socialist, but somehow makes it work for her.

Battlestar Canadia

So, we've definitely gotten hooked on Battlestar Galactica (the kidz call it BSG), and one thing that we've found... well... just funny is how it is essentially a Canadian production. I mean, beyond being shot in Vancouver, the bulk of the actors are Canadian, and don't try to hide it. I mean, Col. Tigh, played by Michael Hogan, might as well be wearing a toque, and eating ketchup chips, his accent is so strong.

Canadians are definitely proud to have the production in their land.

Anyway, the show's Canadian cast:

Tricia Helfer (pretty evil blond cylon)
Grace Park (pretty clueless Boomer)
Tahmok Penikett (pretty boring Caprica-left-behind Helo)
Kandyse McClure (pretty boring Uhura stand-in)
Paul Campbell (upstanding boy servant to the president)
Aaron Douglas ("chief")
Nicki Clyne (cute chubby-cheeked mechanic)
Donnelly Rhodes (smoking doctor)
Callum Keith Rennie (prophetic Cylon captee)
Kate Vernon (two words: Lady Macbeth)
Jennifer Halley (Seelix)

And on, and on. I've never seen an ostensibly American show so upfront about casting Canadians. I mean, the X-Files, which was also shot in Vancouver, frequently had Canadians in single-episode parts, but for a show's cast to be so Canuck-y. And Canucks who in no way are trying to hide their accents, well, that's new for me.

Special to the Canadians reading peterme: IMDB reveals that Michael Hogan got his TV start as an actor on.... "The Littlest Hobo"! (To Americans: "The Littlest Hobo" is one of those cultural things that makes very clear the distinction between Canadians and Americans. All Canadians know the story of this dog's adventures, whereas you'd be hard-pressed to find an American who'd ever even heard of it.)