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Designers…Thinkers…Leaders…

How are you all doing? I am planning on starting a weekly series called “Design Gauntlets”

The concept is simple: Capture the essence of “real design” through a subject matter that morphs 72 hours into the process of design.

Goal: To SHARPEN student and professionals skills in regards to “thinking on the fly” and “willingness to evolve when you feel you have a set direction”. These are both areas that I would love to continue to improve on so I thought it would be great to use this forum as a way to grow, explore and digest new design practices. All of the details have not been ironed out yet but I wanted to throw the idea on the table and see what you ALL think…This is about ALL of us getting better. It is our job to improve the design industry and now is the time to “sharpen” our design swords…As a former athlete I understand the importance of practice and since your brain is your most powerful muscle it should receive proper exercise.

Take care and I look forward to hear what you have to say…

I am down for some design “suicides*”…


what did you have in mind…we raise a problem… and then over a week we try to solve it as a forum…mainly through sketches and discussion?

I too recently was thinking about athletes and designers. And I found myself coming to many similar characteristics.

training/ practice
hours of study/ research
drills
mind games
physical
mental
coach/teachers
team
perform
deadline/ timeline/clock
endurance
creative
competitive

the list goes on and yes, these terms are broad and could probably be applied to many subjects to compare, but I think there are some connections. As a former/ trying to still be athlete myself, I have found that the deadlcation/ work ethic from sports has helped me with design. Other aspects of being an athlete as far as the mental game you play and the way you have to perform I see in connections with design and deadlines and getting ideas out etc…

I wonder what other athlete/ designers thoughts are and how it has/ hasn’t effected them.

Mm

*suicides- a drill most commonly used by coaches in sports mainly basketball.

sweet Jay sounds super interesting bru, heres hoping we can stimulate ideas and creativity
peace

It would be perfect if many people takes part of these Gauntlets, mini competitions. I have to sharp my skills so you have my support :wink: .
Great idea

life is sport…generally speaking those that participate and/or excel and sports do pretty well. it teaches you how to be apart of a team, sharpens your competitve edge, hopefully while still having good sportsmanship/respect for your opponents and whole host of other things that are not coming tgo my mind right now…

so i do not really think it (athletics) has any more in common/benefit with design than any other profession

i not sure i understand what this would entail??? but i am always open to gaining insight into how pros get the job done

Fellas,

Thanks for the reply so far…Mm I feel you on the “Athlete” part. I still train five days a week…So I thought that I would train my brain as well as my body…I will post more in a few days.We are swamped this week. Me and MD have a heavy work load this season but I am planning on rolling this out soon…I will explain more in a few…

Jay-Carter ( Not Hova)…Ask about me!

Peace

Don’t know how I missed this post earlier. Yeah, I think this is a great idea. The key is participation. As Jay said, we are slammed with work right now, so if we can do it, you can do it… don’t make me put in a 2am call to see where your sketches are at!

Seriously though, I think it would be fun to work more like we did in school. More collaboratively with the goal of all of us getting better.

I think it might be cool to take some of the same problem solving techniques we use in solving athlete problems and apply it to other true life performance jobs… like paramedics. There time is everything. What can we investigate and redesign that they use with the aim of making it easier, quicker, and simpler, and maybe more friendly to the patient as well?

I think there is a lot of untapped design in the zone of Firefighters, Police, Paramedics, Nurses…

Put me on the list. I would definitely be interested. As a former college athlete myself, I dig the analogy.

I hear the whole thing about paramedics, doctors, nurses and firefighters. There are a lot of things that could use improvement there. Having spent a good deal of time in the medical device industry, I know there is plenty of design business in that area, however, the world of emergency medicine is still pretty lacking. This is coming from someone who has spent a good deal of time in the emergency room. I’m a self confessed adventure sport junkie.

So put me down on the list of participants and just let me know when we are ready to begin…

SpK

Spk…



I feel your pain…literally. I too have a obsession with action sports but that all changed when I had my son. I was all prepared to get my first motorcyle and then my son came into this world and I decided to chill…But I live through my cousin who is part of the Rough Ryder motorcycle club.

I will definitely keep you in the loop when I post the project details…

Peace,

Jay

hi frndz…i m not in touch with sports now but this is gr8 idea to improve our skills i wud also like to participate…

Hey,

not quite sure what’s going on here. Can someone please explain?

Waxy,

How are you. We are trying to establish a weekly design exercise. The some portion of the subject matter will change with out notice during the week causing the designer to shift directions, slightly. The intent was to replicate a condensed version of the professional design experience. As we all know things constantly change during the creation phase. We thought that it would be a good idea to “practice” how we respond to change…Hope that clears things up…

Jay, thank you for the clarification! I’m only starting college next year (aka not in the job realm quite yet) but this sounds intriguing. I hope to participate in this… when do you think it will start?

:slight_smile:

Waxy,

How are you…The response has been quite slow. Hopefully we can get enough people on board to start sometime soon…Thanks and good luck in school!

I’m a recent id grad and only doing freelance graphics in the past year. I have recently been discussing the lack of id in my life with fellow grads and something like this is a great idea. I would love to participate and I will try to pass the word on to as many others as possible.

Andyschw

Thanks for the support…And congrats on the completion of your undergrad!