We recently hosted a ‘Design Flash Mob’ at Viget amongst the design team. Here’s a little about the process and some links to some desktop wallpaper designs I did:

Sometimes you need to get a bunch of ideas in a short amount of time. Its not always easy for one person alone (though easier for some than others). Collaboration is key whether it be collectively or individually within a working group of people. Team design is one of the benefits of working in an agency or inhouse studio.

In borrowing from an idea that originally began in partnership with some of my former colleagues, the design team at Viget recently embarked on our first Design Flash Mob (DFM). You may have heard the term ‘flash mob’ to describe wacky collaborative events such as massive pillow fights where a large group of people gather in a single place, fight each other with pillows and leave with a pile of feathers on the ground as a residual reference to the event. The basic steps of these events are as follows:

1. Plan and promote in advance of the event. What do you hope to accomplish? When and where should this take place?
2. Gather at the designated time and place.
3. Act upon on what you set out to do.
4. Disperse and reflect on the madness.

In the spirit of design synergy we can take these steps and use them to collaborate quickly on things like logo designs, t-shirt ideas or rethinking user experience problems. Plan to do something about a week out. Think ahead about what you might want to create. When the time comes you’ll be ready to jump in and start designing in a rapid but refined way. Take a morning or afternoon to hold the event. At the end, take time to talk about it and share different perspectives on working under pressure.

Another important aspect of a design flash mob is that it should not be treated as a competition. Even if one design is to be chosen it should be a democratic effort including those who played a part in the event. Benefiting the greater good should be the goal. In effect, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

One great place to start with a DFM is to have several people participate in designing desktop wallpapers. They’re simple to design in a short period of time and have no production costs associated with them. This is where we started on our first Viget DFM. The assignment was simple. Take an afternoon (roughly 4 hours) to assemble one or more desktop wallpapers within the given time and include the Viget brand no matter how big or how small. Everything else was left up to the designer’s discretion. Planning ahead was ok but no one was allowed to begin until the start of the event. Additionally, you didn’t have to be a designer to participate. Our design team consists of UX designers, visual designers and production specialists with a wide range of talents and skills. How you work within the guidelines is all that matters.

My Approach

I abandoned my original idea of riffing on The Princess Bride’s rodents of unusual size (Viget’s mascot is a ‘lab rat’) when half way into the event I realized there was no way to finish my lofty goals in time. Instead, I put pen to paper and sketched out some line drawings to scan. I was able to use the drawings to create a logo concept and tagline plus use some of the design elements to create brushes within Photoshop (something I had never done before). Just like the art of painting, there ended up being about 3 hours of planning and prep work and about an hour of designing. As a result, I learned something new. Using the scatter technique with the custom brushes brought me to these stylistic designs.

• 320 x 480
• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
• 1280 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1600 x 1024
• 1680 x 1050
• 1920 x 1200

• 320 x 480
• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
• 1280 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1600 x 1024
• 1680 x 1050
• 1920 x 1200

• 320 x 480
• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
• 1280 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1600 x 1024
• 1680 x 1050
• 1920 x 1200

See all of the wallpapers created by the team

Originally posted on Viget Inspire on June 23, 2008.

What is it about designers? Who are we and why are we the way we are? Answers to these questions might come in many different forms. Like people in general, no two designers are alike. That being said, my guess is that just about anyone reading this will have an answer in some shape or form that describes someone they know who calls him or herself a designer. I’m not a psychologist nor do I claim to be an expert on defining designers but I can draw upon what I know about myself and offer my thoughts about other designers that I have met over the years.

For one, we designers have egos. We don’t outwardly brag about ourselves too often but we do bear a certain quiet confidence. Understanding this is easier than one might initially think. For many of us, we’ve been told how talented we are from an early stage in life. It doesn’t take much to recognize when someone is creatively gifted in one way or another and its always a nice compliment that someone can offer and feel good about. Once you’ve heard this enough times you begin to believe what others are saying and thus an ego boost begins. You also begin to recognize when someone is being real and is understanding of the true depth to your talent. This becomes a self-realization of sorts. Am I as talented as people say I am? Am I better than what is perceived?

Another interesting character trait is that despite egos designers can be reticent, reserved or known to internalize thoughts. Could this be from our own self recognition that we are a little different from what many would consider normal? After all, if you believe what I said about compliments coming early in life then you’ll also understand how that can begin to isolate or call attention to someone in awkward ways. This begins to become a part of you as you continue to think differently about everything in life.

Designers are good problem solvers. Because we think differently about things, we begin to think up ideas and solutions to everyday problems. Our thoughts aren’t always the most logical or cost effective but a designer can more often than not offer valuable alternatives to more conventional ways of thinking.

Designers are idealists. We know from our problem solving experience that there are always better ways qualitatively of doing things. We believe life can be better, more rewarding and we believe we can help identify ways to achieve such challenging goals. Environmental, ecological and political issues become a part of this. There is always hope and optimism in this regard.

Of course these are generalizations and don’t nearly begin to disect all that is unique about designers. There’s no one square on a Myers-Briggs grid that we can lump a bunch of designers and be right. We’ll find designers all over the grid in a personality test. I simply care to learn more about the peculiarities of design personalities by soliciting some of my own thoughts. You may think differently. Perhaps we can use some findings to share with our colleagues in strategy, development, marketing or other facets of business and life to find better ways of working with designers.

Designer Roles of the Future

The AIGA, in partnership with Adobe, attempts to dig deeper with their recent poll attempting to define the designer of 2015 by capturing predictions from the masses on what designers will be like 7 years from now. The intent seems to be in search of providing helpful guidance to professionals and employers as well as students and scholars to prepare for new ways of thinking about design and what it means to those around us (and of course both the AIGA and Adobe have a watchful eye on the future of design). Focusing on competencies and trends, here are some questions and descriptions of trends the poll asks and suggests:

Competencies: What are the essential competencies expected of individual designers?
Trends: What are major trends we see affecting the practice of design? Here are some as defined by the poll:

1. Expanded Scope: As the scale and complexity of design problems expand, designers must address them at the systems level, even when designing individual components.
2. Wide and Deep: Designers must be able to draw on experience and knowledge from a broad range of disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities, in order to solve problems in a global, competitive market of products and ideas.
3. Break Through: Shifting from an information economy to an attention economy (involving communication design, information design, experience design, service design).
4. Sharing Experiences: Shifting from the idea of customers/users to co-creators (mass customization); rise in transparency of personal and professional lives (social networking, blogging, etc.)
5. Targeted Messages: Shifting from mass communication to more narrow definitions of audiences (special interest design) requiring designers to understand both differences and likeness in audiences; growing need for reconciliation of tension between globalization and cultural identity.

It is strange to think that as communication becomes more global we’ll also need to think about smaller target audiences. The planet is large and diverse but there are similarities among humanity that while universal become unique among different personalities both by nature and culturally. The AIGA plans to release the results of the poll in June of 2008 (within weeks of this post). I’m sure I’ll be one of many looking to see the findings. Time to put some of those ideals to practice among many problems to solve. Let’s get started.

How would you describe designers you know and what do you see as characteristic of the role of designer in the next 7 years?

Originally posted on Viget Inspire on May 28, 2008.