Monday, February 15, 2010

Journal #4-- Bruce Mau

Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto
1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to
be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

Who is Bruce Mau???
Bruce Mau (born October 25, 1959) is a Canadian designer. Mau is the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and the founder of the Institute without Boundaries.

In his talk, visionary and innovative designer Bruce Mau shares his optimism by painting a picture with ideas of a future civilization that does not rely on oil, but instead thrives on alternative energy sources. His look into a flourishing 21st century explores exciting developments in urban planning, social philanthropy, material science, radical economics, architecture, and social networking to demonstrate that change in energy is within reach.

My Mantra for the week will be:
Love what you make; if you do not love what you are doing (or at least have an interest in it) then you will not put enough energy in it to make it a design that will change the world around you.

I like this mantra because, especially with graphic design, you must love what you are designing in order for it to be something that can be great. You can tell when a designer put a lot of effort into their design because those are the designs that are more well-known. I am not saying that I want to be famous before I get out of college, but I could like to have an influence in American graphic design, even if it is just a small influence. I also believe this mantra will help me become a better graphic designer. When I love my design, I will push it to make it better. And when you push your design, you learn and you grow.

Hopefully I will continue to love what I am doing this semester and hopefully I will grow as a designer.

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