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Writing sentences. Day by Day. Trying to make something. Piece by Piece. It is not actually SAD. Hopefully it will be HAPPY -- or at least HOPEFUL/HELPFUL.
License: The text in this document is licensed with the creative commons by attribution share-alike. You can use this text for whatever you want as long as you cite where it came from, like linking back to this repo or merely stating that it came from Kristian Bjornard, and you must also license/share whatever you make in the same way -- share and share alike; let us create a freer and better and evolving culture!
20190101 How to move towards a more sustainable graphic design practice? 20190102 My GNU/Linux experiments are one such effort. 20190103 Reusing old design ideas another. 20190104 Now, is spending hundreds of hours trying to learn things about GNU/Linux sustainable though (the general open sourcery as a whole)? 20190105 The GNU ecosystem is fully into reusing old ideas -- just reusing ideas period. 20190106 Free software allows for creative waste to become creative food. 20190107 Does that make free software as a whole more sustainable? 20190108 The ecosystem for libre tools is more like a natural ecosystem: you see darwinian style evolution; variations due to minor differences of philosophy or habit or desire. 20190109 If the way our tools are built and subsequently evolve is more like nature; more like natural cycles/processes; does that make those tools then fit into our lives, society, culture -- whatever -- in more "natural" ways? does it allow for more natural ways of using them? (natural meaning finding harmony with nature; being more "a part" of nature rather than "apart" from nature... (something about Eli Heuer's open source over estimates your skills, so you have to learn and grow and try harder? -- https://twitter.com/eliheuer/status/1081627442220068865)) 20190109 Github is my new dropbox. but should I switch to gitlab? that's open... oh, should I run my own gitlab server??? 20190110 How about the ideals? 20190111 Do the ideals of F/LOSS align better with the ideals of sustainability? 20190112 Does "all humans and other life should flourish" fit into F/LOSS as an ideal? 20190113 Or rather, does F/LOSS help achieve flourishing more than proprietary software might/will? 20190114 What I am really trying to suss out here is where and how do my interests in Design serving a flourishing/wellfare of all life agenda and my interests in F/LOSS design overlap; how are they additive; how do they serve each other. 20190115 The other direction this goes, is why do any of this at all? why design? why compute? why care about liberated tools? why be a designer -- why am I not just a farmer or garbage collector or something? 20190116 Okay, reasoning: our current capitalist constructs DO NOT improve the wellfare of all life; the origins of F/LOSS are also anti-capitalist -- or at least anti valuing making a buck over being good to your neighbor -- so, if you have to use software, F/LOSS is more likely to AID you in helping all life flourish than proprietary/non-free softwares. 20190117 Is this provable? or measurable? 20190118 Waste = Food; what other ways can I find that this is true for creative kinds of waste? As I mentioned before I think that in some ways F/LOSS improves upon this equation. 20190119 The philosophical issue I run into here is, well, what exactly is my goal as a designer? what do I want to design? is designing solving any of the problems I am pointing out -- did it just create them in the first place? 20190120 The Libre Designer; The Sustainabilitist Designer; Are the tools the connection? are these things the same? It feels like a synergy... 20190121 Is this also how vernacular patterns/building come into the picture -- are free/libre open models the new vernacular (is that how I make my designing today more like the way say a Cape Cod house comes together?) 20190122 It is good to experience other spaces, other realms, where what graphic design is used for is different (and how graphic design looks is understood differently). 20190123 Dunne and Raby propose that design should explore activities and outcomes that question and challenge status quo industrial agendas--however! for the most part the designers doing this are still using status quo tools! Sustainability (at least the flourishing variety I am interested in) is NOT the current status quo; so if I am challenging the assumptions of contemporary design and capitalist consumerism, then I need non-capitalist consumerist tools to do that with--enter F/LOSS. 20190123 F/LOSS seems to be hard for traditional designers to break into though. Why? 20190124 Web focused designers HAVE for the most part embraced the open source ideal -- work is on github, there are at least many designers using things like bootstrap, react, etc. And plenty, though less, committing to projects and making their own new ones (jxnblk & mrmrs are good examples). 20190125 Even more traditionally print designers; or just designers designing for the web even if they aren't capable of building/programming are aware of plenty of open projects and open source fonts (google fonts) -- so what's the hard part to migrate designing tools??? 20190126 An issue may just be that while the web is built on open standards, our traditional desktop computers have not. So, while you might be used to thinking in SVG and JS and HTML and CSS and Wordpress and Drupal and React and Node and whatever other F/LOS kinds of things in a web realm; you aren't necessarily thiknking about making those things w/ free/open tools. 20190127 Creating graphics has for the most part been a proprietary environment -- one had to buy fonts, or at least access to the fonts (you had to buy a case of type; you had to buy sheets of letraset; you had to pay a phototypesetter for the type you wanted set and they bought their font photo-negatives from the foundries, etc.), and when the creation of layouts moved to the computer... hmmm, losing my train of thought here. 20190128 Generalization: designers are tool users not tool makers? so we use what we see is available; when we're shown the Adobe stuff and see that mostly the rest of our colleagues are using it; it makes sense to do that -- the file formats don't port, so we have not much choice. 20190129 Why have a process? What is a process? what is process? How do you define process? 20190130 Does "Switch to libre tools" count as a process? 20190131 Do you have to change your computer, your operating system, your software; or are there just free/libre
201920190201 Sustainable Graphic Design is a mindset, not necessarily a checklist of "the right" materials -- now, it can't be the wrong materials either, but it's not just the right materials... 20190202 If you have the right mindset, but still use the wrong materials, does it matter? 20190203 If one uses better materials, but for the status quo aims, does it matter? 20190204 In what ways can I change how I work and live to yield immediate results? 20190205 I now have 3 iMacs, 5 Laptops, 3 raspberry Pis, & 5 Monitors of different sizes and ages (one is the sweet 1999 original Apple LCD in translucent turquoise). Is that too many computers? 20190206 Documentation of my libre attempts are a must. I need to find the time to actually get down some of the things I've tried and learned. 20190207 Is writing or audio/video recording better for that? I'll do it faster as audio recordings; but its more accessible as text right? 20190208 Waste = Food is a great idea to apply to more things than just the natural world. Here's a great prompt: the earth's major nutrients are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, & nitrogen ... what are graphic design's major nutrients? (and! how can they be cycled and recycled into new graphic design indefinitely?????????) 20190208 Oh man, I need to setup a repo of just my fav libre fonts. then I can easily keep all my installs mac, gnu/linux, whatever, in sync. 20190209 As I get into this liberated OS, fonts, tools, etc. I realize that there have been more convenient, more helpful, more useful, whatever systems out there -- and most of us just never knew/didn't realize??? 20190210 Some things are easier. Some are harder. 20190211 What the f is up with crappy weather days. 20190212 I have this idea -- sustainable graphic design does not exist. Now, that might mean "there is no such graphic design that can count as sustainable -- its all wasteful garbage that does nothing good" -- or -- and this is the cool part -- sustainable graphic design doesn't exist meaning that it comes together to serve a communication purpose; deliver a semiotic message; and then redistributes back to whatever energy and matter it was before. 20190212 Maybe try to write some more about that in another doc or repo or something? Reference my MFA work; what else can I find that is exemplary of that idea? 20190212 That's more than just reuse for packaging or something; that is about harnessing a more entropic way of being. 20190213 What the hell am I doing. 20190214 What is romantic about sustainability? should we focus on that? are the facts and statistics and whatever else too scary? too boring? too real? 20190215 If there is a crisis, why aren't we hearing about it more? why aren't there more restrictions? 20190216 Sustainability is about knowing what you want to sustain. Libre tools are about a person's freedom to do what they want. If I don't want to sustain our moderno-techno-capitalism, then I should probably use libre tools while creating alternatives... what do I want to sustain though? It is easy to say what I don't want to sustain; less clear to say what I do want to. 20190217 I just spent the evening at an event that showed me why all is F-ed. I feel bad that I was a part of it frankly. So then what am I going to do to do something about that? 20190218 Designer as Activist. Designer as Farmer. Designer as Politician. Designer as general good doer out in the world -- not in the social design-y way, but just as regular person doing things to improve the contexts of their time and space. 20190219 What good do any of my design "tools" do me if just being a general good citizen; a general good human; is what I am after? 20190220 A designer needs to know a lot to really be good these days. I don't mean good as in makes formally pleasing work; I mean good as in really improves things; really exemplifies other ways of thinking and being. So how does one get this way? is this something to be learned? something to be taught? Is pedagogy buildable from these thoughts? If i teach in a graphic design program still rooted mainly in typography and static, flat, two-dimensional printed forms, can I do what I am proposing/asking here? How do I learn enough about materials, behaviors, situations, philosophy, history, physics, energy, biology, sociology, anthropology, politics, etc. ... 20190221 If sustainable designers don't make design; what do we make? 20190222 I talk to much in my class. How do I make it more about doing! more about action! and not my doing and actions; all of our doings and actions! 20190223 How to fill up class time with action? preparation for action? how does Graphic Designing lead to action? 20190224 What am I trying to sustain? how are all these other actions and design choices and hardware swaps and whatever doing anything actually? 20190225 Toward a slow technology. How to slow down everything. What can I get rid of? abandon? disown? disuse? what can I use better? what can I change? how do I change? Number one. no more streaming video? does that matter? do I just need to actually get out and act -- stop reading and thinking and debating and procrastinating and just do... 20190225 This is also getting a little diary like? maybe try to refocus on sentences that point towards action that points towards something done, something changed, not just pose personal questions? 20190226 Define design ethics. 20190227 Define sustainabilitist ethics. 20190228 Machine learning neural network layout instructions robot. How to come up with this? how to train? what is it good for? does it only take in/out put instructions? are they just text? any visuals at all? do humans try to interpret the instructions themselves literally perhaps?
201920190301 So, if a robot can help write; can a robot help design? 20190302 I don't want to have a robot replace me; replace us -- I want a robot to help me reuse old ideas; resurface past options; find interesting combinations of things I wouldn't have thought of or tried. All from my own existing detritus. How to train a machine on all my existing output to help create new output that takes its source material as the old? Sort of a conceptual, material reuse project? 20190303 I have so much stuff; so many public domain and otherwise images, typefaces, drawings, layouts, whatever, already created; how can I put them to use on the enxt stuff I do? how can I get into the making things look good part and speed up the basics? well, the goal isn't even to speed up the rest it is to help with creative and intellectual burnout. 20190304 Where do I start activating these ideas for my project? Who cares about these things? do I need a client that cares? do I just force it upon everything? 20190305 Also! who do I need my next clients to be? If I am all in on the sustaino-libre stuff; what are the kinds of things I must investigate? And, how does being a "graphic designer" play into all this when/if/as my projects become more about software development; more about building bicycles; more about actions or interventions; more about proposals and plans? 20190306 Well, it is proving to be the case that I can make what I want (at least mostly look the way I wish based on what I would be making otherwise) so, so far, experimenting will continue forward. 20190307 Is it important to remix other culture into my cultural creations? does reusing and remixing create new metaphors? new ideas? better analogies? more interesting connections? richer futures? 20190308 Quality is essential because quantity is impossible. 20190309 Sustainability is essential because there are no other options. Is it about sustainability. What do we want to sustain? Is sustaining really the point? how do we make it improved over time; how do we make it restorative over time. 20190309 Do more with less. Do the most with nothing (do everything with nothing?). Sustainable graphic design does not exist. 20190310 How do I actually do all that? I know I like to say how the sustainabilitist principles project exemplifies "sustainable design does not exist" since the objects came together to be a sculpture for an exhibition and then went back to being the objects afterward -- but how does that work for other kinds of projects? can I work with clients and still pitch that kind of solution? 20190311 Why worry about this; is just doing defaults suffice? 20190312 Except I do care if things are "good" or not ... so just defaulting it up without any know how isn't a panacea. 20190313 But I do acknowledge that mostly what is good is what is familiar. 20190314 Whew. So I have some cyclical thinking. You need to make a lot; look at a lot; think a lot to really understand goodness. You also need to have varying levels of goodness and badness around you to really comprehend good vs bad. You have to have tried a lot; experienced a lot; been open to researching many things; many ways; etc. 20190315 How does one really then make good design? what is definitively good? I think there are good and bad behaviors; how does that translate to making of visuals? 20190315 Maybe I shouldn't feel so weird being declarative about things... 20190316 Less is More. More is Less. Less is a Bore. Boring is less exciting. Is more stuff then more exciting? is that the point of designing? Do more with Less. What does that actually entail or imply? 20190316 What does sustainable design look like? should it look intentionally different to tell everyone that its not the same? If the paradigm must shift; then the styles should probably shift as well to be clear that they are in all ways different? By just using different tools and typefaces and image sources do you do this? does it need to be more extreme than that? 20190316 So; on the extreme side; there is this "Sustainable graphic design does not exist" idea I've had for a while. The point is not that literally you can't make it (though that is sort of what I was thinking at first), but that a graphic designed thing that is sustainable comes together to communicate the message it needs to communicate; and then can dematerialize back to its initial parts once the communicative need is over. How does "signs on a substrate" translate to "pieces coming together for a determinate amount of time and then returning to their constituent pieces" -- oh man. 20190316 What should we be making? who should we be making things for? Does being a graphic designer (does being a web/digital designer) affect the way I answer these questions -- would I answer them differently if I were making "industrial design" type objects instead; if I were making buildings instead??? 20190316 Make an object that lives forever. 20190317 Graphic Design a thing that lives forever? 20190318 Sustainabilitize a graphic design so that it lives forever? wait, is this the point? If sustainable graphic design doesn't exist -- meaning that things come together to server a purpose then can go back to their original constituent parts -- does a piece of GD need to live forever? perhaps this is better put through the lens of perennial agriculture or permaculture or no till or something? what is perennial graphic design that is restorative to culture -- that protects and builds cultural health (the same way that prairie grasses build and protect the soil health of the plains?). 20190319 Sleep more. Do less. Do More with Less. Can we be of help to the planet? Is doing more with less useful? should be just be doing less period? being workaholics is probably bad for earth not just us. 20190320 I must do a better job inhabiting the correct state of being. My current "form" isn't doing my hopes justice. 20190321 It is the first day of Spring. How might I spring into action on ACTING on some of these impulses? How does graphic designing give all of its raw ingredients the most respect possible? 20190321 what the heck did I do to nano? why aren't there any line wraps working as I desire? everything looks horrible. I guess I need to a) write a theme for it? and maybe figure out some more things about the config files? or do I find something else to utilize for writing and editing and such? vi? vim? wtf. 20190322 So, if I am not graphic designing then what am I doing; what do I call myself? how can I keep teaching? 20190323 I don't need to practice what I preach; I need to preach even if I don't/can't yet practice it -- keep things moving forward faster and better even if I myself am not yet capable of fully embracing it all. 20190324 Real people. Real projects. Real progress? Real success? Real what? 20190325 What should design do? 20190326 What are we designing? who are we designing for? what people are to be helped? what services to be provided? 20190327 Missing a few days. 20190328 What is so enticing about a catchy tv show or a website or an app or a drug? how could that be harnessed for good -- is harnessing any "addictive" aspect of something bad by default? 20190329 Finish what you start. There was a thread here but it has been lost -- tiredness? too much other stuff going on? 20190330 Is any design good? Is any design meant for commercial consumption good? 20190331 Why do I design? Maybe that is a good question to focus on?
201920190401 New month. New thoughts. 20190402 Start to explain the reduce/reuse/recycle exercises from Sustainable graphic design: why was it useful? what is it good for? how do those things help with design processes generally? 20190402 Time to get writing more than just a sentence a day. Keep this going; but get some of these other thoughts down into their own essays too! f tv watching. just write! and sleep! 20190403 Real people and real projects. IS that what SGD is missing right now? why I feel so unsatisfied? all we've done is talk... students have read a lot learned a lot talked a lot -- but have we not done enough??? 20190404 What does "doing" mean? is "doing" making more meaningless designed things; or does being wiser count as "doing" design? 20190405 What is there to talk about when you don't talk about what something looks like -- how do you talk about what a design is like 20190406 What does that even mean; what design is like? 20190407 This gets us back to the form <-> content <-> context kinds of discussions I get into. 20190408 So I want to talk about what design is doing: who is it for? why does it exist? what good does it do? etc. 20190409 That is important to me sustainability wise too -- restorative design wise? -- but that I need to get more towards real projects; real people; and real improvements… 20190410 But what does that mean? what is "real"? 20190411 Real as in things that affect regular people's lives? can it still be utopian AND be real? is this where the pragmatic utopianism comes in? 20190412 How can a new idea for a design classroom be realized that does this better? Something like a 18-20 something designergarten? 20190413 Froebel's gifts for designers. 20190414 What good have I done today? 20190415 A responsible designer. A socially responsible designer. An environmentally responsible designer. 20190416 How does one actually do this all? What is a responsible designer??? 20190417 why can't I just go to sleep. 20190418 What are the implications of designing in the crisis filled era we find ourselves? what does "graphic designing" do to heal and restore the world? how does can making anew unmake all the old? And what the fuck does my practice have to do with any of it. Why can't I make anything useful myself??????s (this is more than a sentence). Okay. So what am I going to do. (and why be so open in an open source readme?). Why is it so easy to do nothing; and not the right kind of nothing. 20190418 Froebel's gifts for sustainabilitists. this 20190419 There are a lot of ways perhaps that designing isn't the outcome of the sustainabilitist process; its just part of the proces -- that one must design something to communicate something else or cause some behavorial change or whatever. 20190420 I found a lot of interesting material studies in the Why Materials Matter book (by Seetal Solanki) -- so many interesting experiments; so few help me think about "graphic designing." Maybe do another flip through; focus on the paper substrates; the inks? Is carbon black made from exhaust/smog really a sustainable direction though??? 20190421 Bjorn means better materials. 20190422 What are local and reusable materials I could start playing with? making my own paper? creating sheets of remade plastic "paper"? digging and making my own clay to make tablets out of? firing pages that way? what do I produce with those things? plates to print from? stamps? seals? do I draw and compose right into clay? what else allows me to put "signs on substrates" in a meaningful way that continues to let me "graphic design" but really does something about material usage; education; communication; etc??? 20190423 Design experiment. 20190424 What is an experiment? what is a design experiment? 20190425 Am I a sustainable designer? or am I a sustainable person that happens to design -- everything I design is thus influenced by my sustainabilitism. Designing follows one's personhood? 20190426 What are the raw materials of graphic design: how do I "recycle" my old works to create new raw materials to build new design from? do I need to recycle -- can i just reuse? 20190425 What does success mean for my practice. What does success mean for sustainable graphic design. How is design sustainable. What new words better describe what I am talking about. Flourishing. Regenerative. Adaptable. Praxis. Resiliant. Systematic. Interconnected. 20190427 Weird. 20190427 I've lost my train of thought. 20190428 Life is hard. Designing is hard. Sustainability is hard. Restoration is hard. Maintenance is hard. 20190429 What are we doing? how do we help each other? 20190430 Is trying to write every single day in this fast way smart or useful? what have I captured that is worth it?
20190501 I have 145 lines of stops and starts. 20190502 Form is king / no! content is king / No! CONTEXT IS KING! No! Queen? No! Benevolent dictator! Yes! Context is the benevolent dictator of a project!? 20190503 How do you teach that? what is the history lesson that readies one for that? how is context supreme and let to be freed and learned about??? 20190504 Still so many questions. How can everything I write about or think about or try to tackle always be a question; lead to more questions; not be a fact or answer or clear, end result? 20190505 What is experimental graphic design? what is a design experiment -- I am still thinking about this from a meeting a few weeks ago (looks like 20190424). Should sustainable/restorative/flourishing design require that it be experimental? what hypothesis is a design proving or disproving? is that a real metric for a formal exercise? 20190506 Speaking of hypothesis; is that the problem with our current designing? we don't have any hypotheses -- we just replicate answers from before that never really were experiments; they weren't readily tested or smartly planned; just done and then repeated ad infinitum. 20190507 Experiments: how many different ways can one hide/show or min/max a menu? what do we use to determine goodness and badness in this experiment? How did the famous roadsignage design projects pan out -- what were their starting hypotheses and how was designing iterations part of a real experimentation process? did it really yield superior design? What other examples and successes/failures am I aware of? What is a control in a design? 20190508 Write a song. Is that also a design project? 20190509 If a song is a design project; what isn't a design project? 20190510 What is the goal of "designing." If everything is a design project; is making new forms important; isn't just fixing what needs fixing an example of "good design" -- does the solution need to be novel? (I'm saying, if I design and sew a travelling silverware roll using salvaged cloth and found random silverware is that any less of a design project than designing a new folding "hobo knife" ???) 20190511 IF the answer is no, it's not different, then wtf, what am I do, what am I teaching? If the answer is yes, it is different; do I want to be a "designer" then? Why not just a vernacular crafter or maker or builder or whatever? 20190512 Is this counterculture modernism? Whole earthers did some things like this right? Zomes? Papanek's coffee can radio? A lot of reuse; but with the goal of making things people need in the moment? Still new things; but a repurposed or reconfigured materials based on what is at hand; what is readily available? What is design: making things we want? making things we need? Solving problems? what problems? whose problems? What does it take to make "sustainability" or "restorative design" or whatever you want to call it to take on in mainstream culture/society? does it need to be more of a religion? more of a political party? Do there need to be more movies or kids shows or whatever that fully embrace doing something about climate change as their theme to affect a change? Regular TV news? obviously the current journalism does little. What else can I speculatively brainstorm? science fiction books are a plenty. Even scifi films are plentiful. Why don't people get it? How to cause this sea change? is it because of the hopelessness? the helplessness? the monumentality? Can we make this a WWII like "war effort" to fight the evils of climate change? Reframe everything in the context of us against the greenhouse gasses -- C02 increasing is the same as the Nazi's winning Europe? What other ways of framing this are there? I need to try more! That's another potential win for Graphic Design -- communicating this in as many ways as is possible. 20190513 Meeting re: a community project. What is the correct way to design for a diverse group of people that aren't you? that might not have your tastes or contexts? how does one understand them? what is design that speaks to not me? that is historically and culturally "correct?" 20190514 What is a "professional" tool? Does this mean a mac? does this mean adobe creative suite? does this mean a specific programming lanaguge or framework? Is professionalism a set of tools; or is it the wisdom, skill, and care necessary to make the best possible thing no matter what tools one is using? Is it making your own tools???? Is a visual designer who uses GNU/Linux and F/LOS design software no longer a "professional" -- is it really the output that matter? that I can produce press ready PDFs, is that what makes me a professional? is it knowledge/skill in form, typography, composition, balance, color, etc? What skills or tools differentiate a professional designer from an amateur one? 20190515 How does graphic design take carbon back out of the atmosphere? what can communication design; what can signs on substrates; do to get carbon back into the ground? to keep carbon bottled up? does making bricks of plastic and then shaving them into paper help? does making my own paper from used clothes and scrap paper help? what else can I do??? just picking risograph isn't enough. Just buying some renewable offsets isn't enough. (though I guess I need to get on that train again just to be safe). How does this bake into designing generally? to design pedagogy? to society at large? 20190515 Make your own tools. Ala Kiel!? Ask a lot of questions. 20190515 What else can I learn about a design from its contexts? 20190515 Stabilizing the climate isn't about reducing emissions, we have to zero our emissions; & actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. Driving an EV doesn't cut it.... replacing a car w/ a used bicycle & your lawn with a permaculture garden is a better start. 20190516 Some confusing territory; why is it so hard to write a learning outcome? 20190516 Relational ontologies of graphic design. 20190516 Why do people have houses? All they do is fall apart. 20190516 Okay, Signs on Substrates. Carbon capture. What the hell am I going to do? 20190517 Can an identity made to help parks and rec also help the planet? 20190517 What reasons do I have to make one thing one way or another? why should we make a thing one way or another? 20190518 I ordered a thinkpad. is that going to make being "liberated" easier? it for sure looks different than my normal macbookairing around. 20190518 Who do I need to ask about carbon capture? what materials? what do you do with the carbon once you've captured it? 20190517 embrace the speculative? embrace the irrational? embrace the new or strange or different or experimental? 20190519 Decolonized design should probably use liberated tools. If you are still designing with Adobe and Macs you aren't decolonized. They're cultural colonizers -- bringing their way of doing things; their technologies to every place they visit and decide to set down in... 20190520 That last thing has legs; but I need to think it through a bit more. How am I not a design colonizer? 20190520 Avoid solely hanging out with other designers in pretty spaces. 20190520 to change a system; intervene in small ways around the edges ... at some point that system will react to those changes and be made to change ??? is this true? can this work? small is not less important than big in a complex system. 20190520 no one said "hey, lets see if we can F up everyting on this planet" BUT it is what we did! 20190520 If innovation & creativity & growth & modernity & progress & development are all so "good" -- why is shit so fucked? These are neutral words; not default "good" words. If you are applying "innovation" to the wrong thing it can be bad... 20190520 Life centered design. 20190521 What's my honest, authentic way of designing? What's my honest, authentic way of being and how does that then influence my designing? 20190522 What is the node/map/tree/cloud/whatever structure that ties all these things together? 20190523 Is that a good "next thing to do with all of these ideas" see how they visually/conceptually interlink and try to "graphic design" something up from them? that then shows me the next thing to do; the next thing to write down? 20190523 Designing Tomorrow's World Today. 20190524 New trains of thought almost everyday. The downside to this project. 20190524 Inaction is still an action. 20190525 It was a good time prepping my design is x or y or z and this is what you should do "lecture" for the parents graduation weekend. I should try to write more lectures; do more talks; do more real writing down and explaining of my points of view. Maybe that will then help me actually implement it on something? 20190526 There is a real internal conflict raging in my practice (practices? praxis? or is it that it isn't yet a praxis that is the problem?) -- why can't I do a better job of DOING the things I claim to think/believe in/promote etc? I so bad at ACTION. 20190527 Running out of time. Design needs to cause massive cultural shift; massive action FAST SOON IMMEDIATELY. 20190528 What design does this; what did the messaging around Ozone depletion look like? What about carson's silent spring related anti-chemical rhetoric? what about WWII "we need you" type things? Oh man, that's a great resource -- war time propoganda posters. Does that stuff work now? what is cultural convincing design now? what is design that causes people to follow and just do? 20190528 There is a difference between living and living free. 20190529 Should we use the status quo against itself? do most people really just do what it seems everyone else is doing? The downside to that is I don't think its really in the ethics of "sustainability" to just shepherd along the masses blindly -- I don't want to recreate a status quo where people just do whatever eveyrone is doing only now the default "normal" things are what I think are good... I want people to really think about their actions; change what "convenient" means; believe in something; value something. Value it because they've asked themselves why is x better than y really? What does that look like? is that restorative design? restoring a person's ability to think critically and make an actual choice? 20190529 What if you are good at something that doesn't appear to have any use to your society? 20190529 Nothing is permanently our own. 20190529 Survival of the most generous interconnected groups. 20190529 Individual and collective freedoms. 20190530 Life affirming design. restorative design. sustainable design. entropic design. adaptable design. designing as flourishing. 20190531 I do like this life-affirming design thing. How do I get more into that? or rather how do I frame any and all projects moving forward from that vantage?
201920190601 Month 6. Woah. Is this life affirming? 20190602 Does it matter what GNU/Linux distro I install? Should I focus on maximum Libre-ness? Usability? designerly-ness? 20190603 Does it matter what laptop I have? is there something useful about having a slightly out of date, refurbished thinkpad? Should I try to use my raspberry pis more? Or why not just force my MacBookAirs into service? Is focusing on Maximum-Libre-ness the important part? I guess being able to have only linux installed will be fun/useful on the thinkpad... 20190604 Tomorrow's Ideas for Today's Culture. What does that mean? Is that useful -- how do I make my vision of tomorrow understandable to today's society? 20190604 People cry out "should designers code?" but what about "should engineers design?" 20190604 Do something. do something to that. then, do something else to that. 20190604 Do you want to design objects for businesses to be owned and sold and controlled or design a commons? services for all owned by no-one (or alternately everyone) 20190604 After seriously using inkscape, scribus, gimp & a few other libre graphics tools for a while... I need to write something up... inkscape is a great tool; I'm still trying to do illustrator-y things out of muscle & mental memory; but it's the easiest thing to just use so far. 20190605 Help to make the Baltimore Inner Harbor swimmable again. More trashwheels. Get rid of the mall. Rebuild wetlands. Make stuff from the plastics collected by trashy -- and then sell that stuff in special kiosks? 20190605 Interesting thought: How does graphic design better understand itself in the full ecology of things. Architecture often sees itself as part of a larger set of systems, energy and material streams, nature more broadly. How does a graphic design practice also become an ecological practice? Also, how does a graphic designer see opportunities to not make the default objects? a publishing proposal results in a book ... well, what else could it result in instead? a song? a conference? a race? (instead of every architectural problem needing to result in a building; how does graphic designing deal with this same set of problematic pre-decisions). 20190605 Every graphic design problem's answer is not a book; or a poster; or an identity... it is not necessarily a visual design problem; or rather some superficial 2D surface decoration isn't the answer to every problem -- though the thinking of a designer might reveal an interesting solution still... Can it always be framed as signs on substrates (signs on surfaces?) even if not a visual "answer"? 20190606 The struggle for pragmatic utopia. 20190606 What am I doing? How do I better use my time and my talents? why such frivolous pursuits? 20190607 Idea: A book printed in an ink that acts as a carbon sink -- the book's text only shows up gradually; it has to absorb the carbon to become black!!?? 20190607 Why designer's do not open source: too many options (what distro to pick???); too confusing of options (why does this only do A I need A+B do I really need more than one application for that? why doesn't this work the way I expect?); bad UI -- there is the "if something looks better I'm more will ing to think it works better even if that isn't true" problem; more tk. 20190608 The job of "politician" isn't to be excited to be a politician – it's to care about something & choose to use your time to do something about those things you care about; just like any job; you shouldn't just be excited to produce design as a designer either... how does "designing" or being a "designer" allow you to further what you care about????!!!!! 20190609 WDDOP: Cognitive bias: this doesn't work how I expect; it must be bad; forgetting that they've spent years or decades using a specific way of making/thinking & now trying something new is hard... 20190610 Seriously what am I doing to reverse climate change. 20190611 How am I using design; not just being a graphic designer. Not applying technical skills; but applying some concetual ability to whatever "problem" comes up? 20190612 Designer as concerned citizen; how am I using "designing" in all my actions, not just doing graphic design as my job? 20190613 Be better at action. Be better at deceminating information. 20190614 be better at writing. Be better at thinking. be better at meditating. 20190615 be better at ignoring the bullshit. be better at not caring what others think or do. be better at doin what you think and desire and believe to be right. 20190616 how does using this new computer make my designing better? how does it make it purer? is it more sustainable if no one else (well, none of my other design colleagues), can figure out how to use my computer? (Manjaro + i3 is pretty rad, and install was easy, but its not a "normal computer" experience anymore). 20190617 Do the suburbs need to exist? is that a design solution to a problem that we really still have? was it ever actually a design solution? or just a design to sell land and houses and cars? 20190618 For real, why do designers not open source??? so far there are plenty of benefits; most of the cons are because other colleagues don't work this way... and some superficial stuff based on if the utility of a tool is "good" or not. 20190618 Why is Ways of Seeing on my mind again? What ways of seeing climate change might be useful to think about? what contexts and reimaginings are useful to aid understandin? aid action!? 20190619 does using libre software do anything about conserving carbon or reducing impacts of climate change? should I just be a farmer? a carbon capture farmer? Permacapture. Restorative "design" by way of doing everything else other than designing? So I am using and reusing old computers, but I still have a fuck ton of them -- and I also have a ton of new mini computers -- so what the hell am I going to do with all of them? how do I get othre designers to not get new stuff too? how do we move away from all this shit? I am writing this on a computer. I am using github to make it easily shareable and accessible. That means its on many more computers. Its shared -- but is anyone using it for anything? 20190620 What good did I do today? how do we ask ourselves that everyday and have good answers? The free software foundation bulletin came today; that's a cool thing. Interesting stories. could use some design love. In what style does one design free as in freedom print items? 20190621 How have I spaced so badly? why is my mind suddenly blank? 20190622 I'm torn between designing; designerlying; and just getting back to life: farming? growing? constructing? designing becomes the background rather than foreground? 20190623 Where in all of this is my planning? where are my cool projects? where is my relaxation? 20190624 how did I get so far behind. 20190625 OMG I have to work with Patricia Johanson on my crazy water front harbor wetland idea! 20190626 How to subversively make all of my gd projects about climate change? So something about climate change? 20190627 Is lecturing about open source stuff also about climate change? I mean, can I make talking about open source also a talk about climate change? or fixing climate change/minimizing? what!? 20190628 how does one just up and start politicking??? is that it, you just do it? do I have to become a politician or a lobbyist or a government official to affect/cause/envoke change!? 20190629 what am I going to do? at the same time it appears that shit is fucked AND that shit is hopeful! how do I help with the hopeful stuff before the fucked stuff becomes permenant!? 20190630 More action less goofing off. No streaming. No alcohol. No meat. No flying. No new clothes? What do we say yes to though?
20190701 I've made some cool connections lately; have some cool ideas. How to turn them into action and new projects? where does making cargo bikes and plastic recyclling and fabricating machinery fit into my design practice? how do I collaborate with people in SF, Utah, Champaign, New york, Paris, Richmond, etc. in a low energy and high impact way? 20190702 Power my practice on solar. How? what do I need to do? is sleeping more a good option for saving power? can I turn off the internet at specific times of day? how do we all just generally use less; waste less; be more smart and responsible. Why are everyone's wifi routers on all day and all night when we mostly aren't even in our house or using them???????? 20190703 I must abandon my current projects. Only do new climate change solving projects (CC in some way; it could be ciruclar economy; passive house; parks and rec; water quality; whatever...) 20190704 so I have too many ideas though; there is so much to do. what the fuck is up with all these fireworks? and all these trucks? this is crazy. 20190705 plastics. yes, we have to start locally doing more with plastic recycling, reuse; whatever. If we are really capturing it and reusing it is it okay that its petrol plastic still? 20190706 seriously; who do I talk to about the harbor wetlands project? 20190707 lack of awareness of emotions does not mean that emotions are not part of a process -- I wrote this down; did I steal it from someone else??? 20190708 collaborate more with others. share more. do more. 20190709 how does graphic designing remove carbon? can a book recycle plastic? what logo captures the most carbon? what typeface uses the least energy and/or ink? what aesthetic is the most decolonizing? whose bias am I perpetuating? does designing matter? is building a wetland better than building a website? is using solar power better than writing all this shit down? should I just be a farmer in south dakota? 20190710 if sustainability is a totally cyclical, restorative, resilant, flourishing, non-anthropocentric, anti-entropy, maintenance-based, stewardship, co-existing thing...... what? you cannot expect everyone to understand what you mean by sustainability -- so do we need other words; or do we just need to say that we mean all those other things when we say sustainability. it is a shorthand sign for all those other words... 20190711 man what an amazing and long meeting and conversation with jenna frye today. I need to double down on the precious plastics plan; on the everything. let us really do something. change something. make something. 20190712 what good does today hold? how can my designing do something? is this really the last website project I'm going to do/take??? connect with more people at hopkins who know something about materials, wetlands, whatever. Can I build a "turn people's wifi routers off" machine that we can rogue go by and kill power to things? how to guerilla fight vampire power, etc. at more places than just my own home (which shit, I do still need to do -- hypocrite). Who else is a potential partner/ally in Bmore? More broadly? 20190713 well, what the hell is next. 20190714 Sustainability I guess must become the message of every cultural medium? if you are an actor or director or writer for tv or movies -- everything you write or act in or direct needs to tackle climate change in some way; all the episodes of a show; the plot of every movie. Likewise for musicians. Why aren't there more protest songs w/ a sustainabilitist themes? Instead of give peace a chance, we need give sustainability a chance. I mean, give regenerative design a chance doesn't quite roll of the tongue the same way... but hopefully you get the point? 20190715 buiding electric assist cargo bikes. manually recycling plastic. is that enough? what else can we do? 20190716 Why is it so easy to be distracted? why is it so easy to stay up watching crappy movies? why isn't it easier to do the work I want/need to do? 20190717 Thats the hard part about sustainability right? it takes action? that's the hard part about activism (well, real activism, not the neo-liberal armchair kind of todays "progressives" myself included)? it takes doing something about your beliefs? ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING! 20190718 What do you long for? what do you desire? what can you actually have/achieve/accomplish? what is ethically right? are any of these things at odds with each other? what are you afraid of? what would you die for? what are you going to say to your kids live on a destroyed earth? can I write short speculative fiction stories about climate crisis too? 20190719 What does a design student need to thrive? how does graphic designing remove carbon? what logo design captures the most carbon? what logo reduces the most materials? What does "post commodity" mean? I found these questions in a notebook. Did I write them here already? What does graphic design do when no one needs stupid apps anymore? when we don't make shitty magazines because we need to move our cities away from the lowlands and coasts and former wetlands? WTF. If design was (is?) the answer, what was the question? Design can answer many questions; why does it so infrequently seem to be used to explore the most fundamental ones? 20190720 How are we on doing something? what can design do for a heat wave? Sustainabilitist-scape instead of artscape? 20190721 How do you become the best at something? is it as simple as just ignoring every distraction and practicing all the time? where does the time for reasarch and development come in? how do you narrow your focus without limiting possibilities? 20190722 How are permacultural practices/ideas useful in a graphic design context metaphorically and literally??? 20190723 So, there is an opportunity to help invent a plan for this unused area. How to proceed? is a drawing enough to get started? take some photos? make some drawings? Get started with this pepsi plant idea and then the harbor idea? 20190724 How do I get access to rough floor plans of all the rec centers? what about all the park outlines at scale to each other? Is graham a good person to ask about that? 20190725 okay, again I have been presented with the fact that action is important. connection is important. being out in the world doing is important. stop thinking and goofing off so much and do. even if its just "fix the house" or "sew that pant leg" that is better than theorizing a million other potential better things... 20190726 Is graphic designing that important? is liberating the design workflow that important? if we were to say, be spending money on FLOS instead of proprietary; does it make a difference? what would we make? are there software tools that make it easier to solve "real" problem? "appropriate" problems? How to create appropriate technological technology for digital designing and computer based workflows??? 20190727 So much to do. I finally have a computer working closer to how I need/want -- but is it too extreme? is it sustainable to have spent all this time and effort? what have I learned? what have I done? who am I going to convince? who will I convert? is that the point? I don't actually make/design anything? how to get back to that!? 20190728 is doing this shite house maintenance actually "sustainable" -- what am I saving other than cheapess!? 20190729 strange thoughts. not enough time. how o get more mindful for real; how might it help me be more of an activist? 20190730 great conversation today with Marc (last name!?) -- more proof that I need to figre out how to really do more! act more! activise more! 20190731 I am out of ideas.
20190801 I still don't know what sustainable design looks like. 20190802 does that thread still matter? is that still worth picking at? 20190803 should I instead be asking what does sustainable design act like? feel like? how does sustainable design sustain its goals out in the world? 20190804 Okay, well then, an aesthetic CAN do that duty of ideology carrying. 20190805 why do people eat lobster? 20190806 How have things become so complex? things are complex in ways that no single person can do anything about/with anymore. 20190807 what does that mean for our future? 20190807 I need to find a few people to get to share stuff? what the heck. 20190808 is being a hermit no longer possible? 20190809 sustainable hermitage 20190810 hobos, hermits, hedgehogs. Good band name? album? whatevs. 20190811 what is a designer to do when they have hit their threshold of busy-ness and tired-ness? 20190812 one can tell by this months sentences that my energy is being used elsewhere 20190813 I sure did drive a lot this month. should I offset that? 20190814 Its been a week, but the eric carle museum is sticking with me. All that hands on creation. all those mockups. such a cool process to see documented. 20190815 how do our processes lead us to specific styles? 20190816 is that important? style and process and idea all tied up together? 20190817 Maintenance is underappreciated. It is hard. And necessary 20190818 Doing maintenance on my own house is making this painfully clear. 20190819 Is maintenance a principle of sustainability? of sustainable design? is that a new paradigm for designing? Design for maintenance. What does maintenance mean in graphic designing? 20190820 Maintenance for cars, maintenance for houses, maintenance for websites, maintenance for logos? Does it just not work that way? what does that even mean anyway -- you can repaint a house, fix a few trim boards, but keep it mainly the same house -- is that a sort of evolutionary logo design process? 20190821 so. I guess the way to start would be what would maintenance mean in my own design practice? do I already do that in some way shape or form? The magazines I have designed for a while, is it maintenance to slowly evolve their design? is it maintenance to fix and fine tune the paragraph styles, etc. over time? 20190822 maybe these are just bad metaphors. 20190823 what would my time be better spent on. 20190824 I tried to define ethics and sustainability... do I even get what these things mean? 20190825 should I just be a farmer? become a professor somewhere more rural and then have a carbon sink permaculture property? am I useful in this time and space the way I choose to act and interact? 20190826 What would allow me to do more? get rid our tv? cancel all our subscriptions? those things have climate impact? and do they have time and distraction impact too? 20190826 still trying to keep up with this. but I'm sort of feeling out of ideas and inspiration. 20190827 Am I done with designing is that the problem? am I out of energy; just too tired? 20190828 It is really a quandary. I realize that design is a requirement for our society. However, we don't tend to use it in a purely need driven way. So how could we be fixing actual problems of climate, inequality, etc. as opposed to techno-fantasy? 20190829 Does that turn me back on? maybe I am also feeling a little out of the loop in that I don't really design much anymore? I jot down notes to myself; theorize poorly; occasionally lecture; do some crap projects; but its all very little and not that good. I've spent so much time trying out new computer things and getting programs halfway working; I haven't been doing actual work. 20190830 Is that the answer? get back to work? get back to work on what -- I can pick back up the conversation with the park peeps? what else? does it matter though; maybe that's the other thing; so what how can I still be a force for good just by being a body out in the world? does it make me less good at conversation with students if I'm not making design as perhaps it is stereotyped? 20190831 the school term has started. yet another way to be pulled in too many directions. and I am sick. and my dad is here. ugh.
20190901 For real; what work matters to me; what would make me excited to be a "communication designer" or what would make me excited and proud to be "graphic designing"? 20190902 Is it who it would be for? is it what it would look like? what about how it was made or what it was made from? would it be that the form and content and context all correctly align in a perfect christopher alexander style synthesis? 20190903 For instance; if by just doing mundane designing I can help a bunch of parks get funded; is that sustainable? 20190904 If by just doing mundane designing I can get the inner harbor restored to a functioning wetland is that sustainable? Or is it just that I want to quit my other things and am too much of a chicken attached to his own status quo to do it??? 20190905 Design is about being a connector. 20190906 Design is about being a node, being a nexus, and bringing people and ideas and problems and solutions together. 20190907 Design only works when it is trying to really achieve a success for humanity; for the planet; for the welfare of all life. This is an attitude. 20190908 Design is an attitude that can be brought to all aspects of a person's life (see deiter rams?). 20190909 How can we start to improve things rather than coming up with new stuff all the time. Instead of disruption, how about maintenance and repair? I don't mean that we shouldn't throw out things that are obviously not working; but if it can be maintained or repaired or renovated or added onto or evolved, let us do that instead! 20190910 I'm still caught up in thinking about things and being smart and being good and being known; not just being; not just doing; not just being better for those around me in the moment -- the people that really need me, my students, my family, my friends... can I quit netflix and all that other shit and somehow refocus on real doing!!!??? not just throwing everything always together the second before its needed? never having time for bigger more complex things?!!?? 20190911 Our kid is 90 days away from being born. What does that do for my mental state? for designing? for how I envision whatever is next for all of us? get more serious? maybe serious isn't the right word. but get more done; get more focused on actual important things actual things that need doing. 20190912 stop being distracted. And that is maybe a design principle too -- stop letting design be used as a distraction? who are the people that can actually help me achieve things through our collaboration? why am I afraid to talk to them? just connect and then do what you say you want to /can do with those people!!!!! stop looking for more things for new things and just get to the old things that have promise... 20190913 Aha, loraine furter did the badass libre fonts site!?!? 20190914 Deiter Rams. What a idealist. He's still living his principles? Sort of, I mean he drives a porsche and doesn't seem to be trying to make more socially sustainable; anti-climate change tools... but he does still fully embody his 10 principles... 20190915 What is the point of design? what is good design? what am I doing? 20190916 What is the point of sustainability? what is sustainable design? what am I doing? 20190917 Am I a sustainable designer? or am I a sustainable person that happens to design things? Does the designing follow one's personhood? 20190917 we cannot only achieve net-zero greehouse gas emissions. we must rapidly re-sequester the carbon, etc. that we have unearthed over the last 250 years. 20190918 Carbon Sinks as design prompts? 20190918 Oh my god. How does time move so fluidly and quickly and mysteriously? where does it go when it is gone? what kind of "resource" is it? can more be extracted somehow? is it really limited? how does one learn to be a better steward of time!!?? 20190919 we must work in tandem with natural systems and dynamics 20190919 There is so much intellectual and digital waste in my life and job(s). It is incredibly frustrating. How do I start culling that? minimizing these other waste streams? 20190920 we have reached the ends of the earth. literally. we are out of earth to use. 20190921 drawdown is the point at which CO2 (and other GHGs) peak and begin to decline on a year-to-year basis. We should pick this directive as a main constraint/goal/prompt for all cultural production. 20190922 Global warming and climate change are the ultimate creative/artistic prompt. Or should it be eco/social justice? 20190923 how to visualize a gigaton of carbon dioxide? 20190924 adaptation? speculation? resiliance? a blueprint for what to do next? 20190925 apply subversive acts........... 20190926 artists as activists. designtivist. 20190927 do we all start making our own biochar to do sketches with? 20190928 what the fuck was that week. crazy times on the train and on a boat. where did it go so quickly? there is so much more to do. it never ends. 20190929 so, kai's got a set amount of battery... they manage to make do... can I start working towards that ideal for our house? stay grid connected just incase, but the goal to be offgrid? self energy producing? force conservation? how can we start using less energy every year year on year? 20190930 I would really like to be working and thinking more about these things... class is feeling a little bleck. why am I doing any of this.
20191001 holy shit, what a great meeting with SS today. so many ideas for what could be done; what we could be doing. Too bad they're seniors? who is gonna keep/pass this torch? how to instituationalize? how to make a "personhood" to pass on the energy and process and whatever? 20191002 What am I going to do about this stuff. How can I act on my ideologies? what is wrong with me -- why am I so unable to focus and work!!! 20191003 Okay, so if I care about climate change -- how do I make my life carbon neutral by 2025? how does my life start sequestering carbon imediately? what do we need to do? who do I need to collaborate with more!? 20191004 Chris, Sarah, Mark, Mike, Valeska, etc. -- that's some connections, who else can I meet with and work with more!? What else do I need to know!? its easy to find out and logic out the natural/systems stuff; how do I get better at the people, social, antropology things!? 20191005 Science? Materials? What do we need to know? why do materials matter? why does matter matter? how do you really research this stuff... How do I act, not just talk and think. 20191006 The Bauhaus; Ulm School; Blueprint for Counter Education; McLuhan; Teaching as a Subversive Activity; how to put all the ideals and intentions of these things together in new exciting ways? but better connect with science and anthropology and equity and justice (social and environmental) ... The ultimate aim of design is the restoration of Spaceship Earth. Farmers, physicists, naturalists, sociologists, economists, etc. all overlapping with designers to create a new future (new futures? -- think of the adjacent possibles!) 20191007 We do not have unlimited energy. We do not have unlimited resources. How does this change our relationship with designing? With capitalism? with our economic ideals? 20191008 New Sustainisms. How to make sustainability; reversing climate change; the focus of designing. No solution to reversing climate change can exclude social justice. Technology will not (alone) save us. We need a smarter, more holistic approach. We must abandon our dead concepts. We must look to a new future. All design must aspire to restore spaceship earth. 20191009 is doing this at the cost of not doing other things (I mean writing some sentence or two or random thought down) as sustainable venture? should I just be sleeping instead. Maybe this is fine; but what about all the other moronic little things I accidentally get up to on a daily basis. Stop going to the library; stop scheduling so many meetups; stop getting so distracted!!! 20191010 If all design must restore spaceship earth (or maybe that's a bad term as it implies TECHNOLOGY and CONTROL and MANMADENESS not NATURENESS?) how do I continue to justify any of the traditional projects and outcomes I produce? I aid in producing? I ask students to produce? WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR!? GREEN! wait BLUE! (what's the SGD equivalent riff on this monty python joke?!) ... 20191011 Less but better. how to achieve this in my daily intereactions and thinking and creating of my own self-initiated works, etc. What about teaching, what is less but better teaching? what is less but better lecturing!? What is an acceptable minimal amount of class utilization for maximum outputs!? meaning I guess maximum learning on each students part -- and that might be different kinds of learning done by all the students (differently!?) shit. I should work on my PLO. What's less but better mean as a learning outcome!? 20191012 For real, where does the time go. What do I do to slow down? is that part of being more sustainable? operating on a less digital, a less "on" schedule and timeline and energy requiring life!? 20191013 Can I setup a "switch" that just turns off electronics, etc. that aren't in use at a given time/day? like when we leave, all the interenet stuff shuts off!? or when a stereo isn't needed we actually "turn off" that outlet that supplies it power!? 20191014 I guess this would be useful especially for off grid applications? or for my office at school even!? what about at our house, what is the design for that? physical switches on the outside!? a digital interface run by a single server/computer that controls it all!? 20191015 How does this connect with "low tech mag" kind of stuff -- I guess a physical switch would be what would make sense. this can't be outside the house -- it is a potential hazard outside the house. But could there be a new switch plate by both doors that allows for the turning off of everything but the fridge and furnace and a few other things!? 20191016 That's actually a saleable idea -- at least as a contractor? can an electrician install something like that? based on the circuit breaker maybe!? 20191017 What a weird meeting; the board thing; also why am I so weird I'm the kind of jackass that does end up talking -- well not necessariyl about myself, but about my interests/concerns -- what's the way to be better at including other's ideas, views, etc. Move up my listening. 20191018 oh god. so, the biggest impediment to all these ideas -- my own lameness. I'm so good at putting off things and finding silly ways to procrastenate (like this project for example) instead of just doing a thing. Stop watching TV stop reading everything that comes across your desk/computer screen stop social media. just do the things you say are important. how to do them and still hang out with your kid and wife though? how to not be a frustrated jerk. how to spend less money so you cna do less work and do more action!? 20191019 How is it the end of the month!? where did all this time go. 20191020 What's the sustainability version of david reinfurts "new" design program book!? 20191021 time keeps slipping into the future. this is not sustainable. or is it? are my systems just the wrong systems??? do I just goof off too much? why do I hate steve miller so much!? 20191022 What am I doing to make a difference. 20191023 I have asked that before -- but for real; what have I done that is a real improvement in the last weeks months or years? 20191024 How can I focus on doing something re: climate change when I can't even get just the basic day-to-day shit done that I need to? 20191025 Saying no is sustainable. 20191026 (doing) less but (doing it) better 20191027 The bauhaus has a practice based model -- apprenticeship; whatever they called it/however it worked. How might we re-engage with that idea/ideal? 20191028 Running out of year. Running out of ideas? running out of energy. my own energy is only so renewable. If I waste it on crap websites and status quo magazines am I doing what I can? 20191029 what is left to be done? 20191030 skiddly bop. i don't know what else to do or think about right now. empty. 20191031 halloween is a totally unsustainable holiday. f.
20191101 what in the world am I doing. What a crazy week. There is never enough time. I know I have probably said that a lot in this document but shit. Accelerate. Accelerate. How to keep up? 20191102 Ideas for MICA!? Plant as much indian yellow grass, blue stem, etc. around the property. Keep it weeded from undesirable invasive species. Otherwise leave it alone. Sequester small amounts of carbon in mini-prairies -- what can we get to occasionally eat this grass!``` 20191103 Ideas for MICA: turn the parking lot(s) between RKK and fox (and maybe behind bunting adjacent RKK) into a rain water collection stream and mini piedmont forest!. As part of getting rid of car parking spots add more bike racks -- architectural design works on them? -- make sure we cover them. Encourage more staff/faculty to walk and ride and mass transit to school instead of drive. 20191104 Ideas for MICA: The Cohen Plaza fountain could also be more natural -- is there a way to add a wetland feature that acts as the water filtration system for the fountain? 20191105 Ideas for MICA: Brown center as greenhouse (turn the brown center into a green center). 20191106 Ideas for MICA: Do something about our waste stream problem(s). How can our own waste be food for creative enterprise? how can the waste of the communities around us be food for our creative enterprise? how can we use the ideas of waste collection as new fuel for inventing new prosperity!? plastic collection and recycling on the local scale. Glass collection and recycling on the local scale. composting for everyone. 20191107 Ideas for MICA: Solar panels on all the buildings. Design cool wind turbines too? 20191108 What else can I do? Who can I talk to? How do I actually help draw down anything!?!? 20191109 feck, I am so behind. How to get ahead? do I need to quit some things!? can someone just take over my shit please!? 20191110 how else can I make some income though? I'm pretty good at burning through anything that comes in... stupid house and car and etc. 20191111 that is a lot of ones. 20191112 Great talks from Elaine Lopez and Dare Turner today! glad I took the time to go see them. Much to think about in using one's culture; and abusing others' ... 20191113 how is my own practice appropriating things it shouldn't? what are my biases? what parts of my process integrate the wrong ideas or trends or biases? 20191114 Who could I collaborate with to better avoid these issues in future work? 20191115 Design when everyone designs? is that really what social design is about? what can I learn from Mike weikert and the center for social design? 20191116 Who else to bring in? who else to collaborate with? what else to design? what is useful for designing? how does one achieve the right formal fitness? 20191117 where did the time go. 20191118 Ideas for MICA/baltimore: how to sponsor useful social entrepreneurship; not the neo-liberal/silicon-valley kind? (plastic manufacturing? composting?) 20191119 i'm out of energy. mental and otherwise. 20191120 woah. the students are really impressing me in CCFAAD -- I might be letting them down; having a harder than usual time fitting everything in! 20191121 I'm generally inspired by and impressed by these student projects -- they do really make me want to do more; cause more good; design more change. 20191122 How to connect with all the people that I need to connect with? it seems like doing the work of networking and communicating and planning is the real work with all these ideas and projects. 20191123 that isn't the work I want to do necessarily. but its what needs to be done. ugh. 20191124 what do I wnat to do instead? 20191125 how do I actually get "sustainabilitist" projects? 20191126 do I have to invent the projects? 20191127 where to start? that bamboo lamp idea? 20191128 hmm, maybe that is a good place: variations on bamboo lamps; utilize found materials only? 20191129 that's not graphic design though; that's not really communication design; how to do graphic design or digital or web projects that are really sustainabilitist? 20191130 is that not important though?is just doing anything that can help provide more signalling for design to have different/better alternatives a good choice of project? a good use of my creative energy? or should I just volunteer somewherE? just work on my house and yard? just help denzel farm or something?
20191201 well, I missed the deadline for the AIGA thing... sorry crew. 20191202 okay. another kiddo coming. how does that further encourage these ideas and behaviors!? 20191203 I have a new kid!? 20191204 huh? 20191205 what can I do, there is no time. 20191206 okay, grandma is here, how can I still write these? 20191207 back to that lamp idea. So its a bamboo lamp; bamboo is the main material for constructing lamp pieces. The bamboo should be found; it should be an invasive species. it should be cut long, try not to cut it more? again? how can it be reused afterward? how can it be attached/affixed to things without doing much damage to it so it can be used again! 20191208 two long bamboo poles. one 5 gallon bucket. rocks or construction debris. painters light. A recipe for a lamp. 20191209 three long bamboo poles. one painters light. another recipe for a lamp. 20191210 These lamps come together from found material, easy to get materials. they then live as a lamp as needed. they then go back to their original parts or can be remade in a different way, when the lamp is no longer necessary. 20191211 how is this part of a local and/or circular economy? 20191212 waste = food? do these lamp ideas fit into that? design that does not exist? do they fit into that? 20191213 I need some sleep. sorry classes and students and colleagues for missing so much the last two weeks! 20191214 the fall term is over. anticlimatic as I was mostly gone the last two weeks! 20191215 it has been fun taking my kiddo to things I normally don't get to do. 20191216 Okay, it is fairly simple to see how found objects and found materials make objects and architecture makeable -- but how does this work for a website? for a poster? for a typeface? for a catalog? how can waste from one thing becomr raw material for a graphic design project? is it about making paper? making ink? does tis work with ideas somehow? 20191217 its is fun and cathartic to get ideas out. 20191218 what am I going to do with this whole document? 20191219 What did I write all these things for anyway? 20191220 should I ask someone to read this? pick out something interesting? then write an essay or have a conversation with them about it? 20191221 that is prety cool actually. also, solstice. 20191222 what other ideas can I add in 9 more sentences? what other gems do I have kicking around? 20191223 what to do about climate designers? how can I make something happen there? what more time and energy can I uncover to do something to design something to change something? 20191224 is anything I do okay? are all my actions bad? is just the fact that I am an american at this time and space the real problem? 20191225 what other sings signaling sustainabiity can I invent? do I need to invent any mrore or do I just need to fins a better way of finding and documenting everything else already out there? exhibition? photo/image essay? 20191226 consumerist christmas is the devil. 20191227 I have no more room for me in my house. 20191228 I need to dig a pit in the crawlspace under my kitchen and put a solar hot water tank in the ground there... woah. do I need to test that soil before I start digging like a crazy person? where do I put the dirt I might excavate? if only I had the neighbors yard, we could terraform it a bit! 20191229 pragmatic utopian. signs on substrates signalling sustainability. how to put that together? how to put it together for clients? for graphic design? 20191230 does it mean not asking and just doing? not even telling a client or a collaborator it is what I am doing? or is it picking new projects? being overt? demanding things be done differently? 20191231 what narratives can we design with/for instead? who else should I talk to? what else to do? this is the end? should I keep doing this? how to make something from all of this? what kinds of graphics should accompany this? does it matter?
Woah. I did it. I made it all the way. There are a lot of sentences here. not all of them are sensical or useful. Some are. What is next?