No Spare Parts

Milton Avery

Jen Tank — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:53:06 +0000

Loving Milton Avery right now. Colors are so perfect.

Tim Brown (IDEO) Urges Designers to Think Big

Jen Tank — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:05:30 +0000

Tim Brown says the design profession is preoccupied with creating nifty, fashionable objects — even as pressing questions like clean water access show it has a bigger role to play. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking.”

SVA – Impact: Design for Social Change

Jen Tank — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:53:55 +0000

SVA launches a six week intensive workshop. Maybe This would be better than grad school? I’m sure it’s a lot cheaper.

Design, Pitch, Funding. I wonder if I could get take a sabbatical to persue this

To remain competitive, corporations are looking for innovation and impact in the area of social change as it relates to their businesses.
The non-profit world is seeking new ways to support their constituencies through design strategy. This six-week summer intensive will introduce participants to the growing field of design for social advocacy.

http://impact.sva.edu/y

AIGA Design For Good

Jen Tank — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:31:44 +0000

AIGA get’s on the design for social change wagon. I read all over this site and can’t figure out exactly how to participate, but maybe I should look closer at AIGA Los Angeles.

“A movement to ignite, accelerate and amplify design-driven social change
Around the world, designers are creating better communities by working with nonprofits and citizen groups to improve the human experience. AIGA’s Design for Good initiative encourages and recognizes pro bono and social engagement design projects.”

Designers bring empathy and creativity to social challenges. The first helps to understand the human-centered solutions that can make a real difference in real people’s lives; creativity can defeat habits with innovative approaches to making a measurable difference. It is the designer’s approach to the process of solving complex problems, particularly in the willingness to test risky options that transcend the traditional view of problems, that is a strategic advantage. Every designer is encouraged to become engaged with socially relevant projects in order to use their creative talents to their highest and best purpose and to demonstrate the value of designers and design thinking.

http://www.aiga.org/why-design/

Todays Drawings

Jen Tank — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:19:13 +0000

hardly gestural.

Tattoos Designed to Degrade

Jen Tank — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:41:47 +0000

I’ve been thinking about getting a tatoo lately so I’ve been doing some informal research and asking friends what they like and don’t like about their tattoos, and I’ve been thinking about one idea in particular.

What would a tattoo that was designed to get better with time be like?

Sounds like over time tattoos bleed, get fuzzy and fade from a crisp graphic image to something more “worn in”. How would you design a tatto that was made to age well and degrade gracefully? In the same way that good vintage clothes are more beautiful over time (think a worn in leather jacket) how could we design a tattoo that wears well?

Considerations:

The way skin changes and ages, sags and wrinkles
The nature of ink under skin bleeding
The natural fading of tattoo ink
The way a design shifts with body movement

Sketches to follow…*

Weekend Sketches

Jen Tank — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:45:18 +0000

Draw more.

Big Picture Farm

Jen Tank — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 01:47:36 +0000

A goat farm in Vermont. Lovely.

This guy is great.

http://farmweather.tumblr.com/

Lump

Jen Tank — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 08:36:38 +0000

I’m thinking of getting a tatoo.

Studio H

Jen Tank — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:34:15 +0000

Studio H is a design/build program in a public high school in Bertie County, North Carolina. They built a farmers market pavillion with the kids in Bertie County and are hugely inspiring.

From Fast Company:

High School Students Build A Farmer’s Market In A Food Desert

BY ARIEL SCHWARTZ
Mon Oct 10, 2011

Bertie Country, North Carolina, is an agricultural community, but most of its residents still don’t have access to fresh food. With this new market, they will–plus some beautiful architecture.

Bertie County, North Carolina is the poorest county in its state, with residents who are largely obese and an agricultural economy that is reliant on tobacco, cotton, peanuts, and soy. It’s also home to Emily Pilloton and Studio H, a design/build program in a local public high school. This past year, Pilloton and partner Matthew Miller led a class of high school students in designing and building a much-needed (and quite beautiful) farmer’s market pavilion for the area.
The project was the culmination of over a year’s worth of work. Before even thinking about building, Pilloton had to start with the basics. “Almost none of the students knew how to read a ruler,” she says. “None had any design experience, and some had never even held a hammer.” So Miller and Pilloton taught the students math, how to lay out projects, how to use shop equipment–essentially, everything they needed to know to go out and build.

“We were high school shop teachers on paper,” says Pilloton. But students who participated in Studio H also received transferable college credits and a summer salary for their work in actually building the 2,000-square-foot Windsor Super Market pavilion, which is already being used by farmer’s market vendors.
The idea for the farmer’s market pavilion came from both the students and the local community. “It was something the town wanted,” explains Pilloton. The pavilion is the third project from Studio H students. The first project was a small cornhole board, and the second was a series of chicken coops that were given away to families after a flood destroyed the town. Studio H’s farmer’s market pavilion, however, was the first large-scale project.

Pilloton isn’t sure what the next project for the incoming Studio H class will be. “I want it to come from the students,” she says. “I want to help them find something that they’re going to be passionate about.”
[Images: Studio H]

Project H uses the power of design and hands-on building to catalyze communities and public education from within. We are a team of designers, builders, and teachers engaging in our own backyards to improve the quality of life for all. Our six-tenet design process (There is no design without (critical) action; We design WITH, not FOR; We document, share and measure; We start locally and scale globally; We design systems, not stuff; We build) results in simple and effective design solutions that empower communities and build collective creative capital.

We design systems, not stuff;

Videos from Studio H

http://vimeo.com/projecth

The Founder of Project

Emily Pilloton, Founder and Executive Director, Studio H Instructor
Emily founded Project H to use design to empower people, and to get her hands dirty after too many years in an office. Trained in architecture (UC Berkeley) and product design (SAIC), Emily believes in design as an honest process of building and activism for community benefit. Most days she resides in the Studio H classroom/shop with her high school students, but travels occasionally for lectures and workshops around the world. A California girl, runner, border collie lover, and unwavering optimist, she has appeared on the TED stage and the Colbert Report, and authored the book Design Revolution.

Links
Studio H