2019 IDSA IDC: J Mays giving keynote

Would be cool to meet up! For now, there is this upcoming event at TEAMS :slight_smile:

“IDSA Chicago is having an IDC Preview Event on Friday, July 12th from 6PM to 9PM at TEAMS Design to get Chicago based designers and potential attendees excited about IDSA’s International Design Conference happening in Chicago on August 21st - 23rd, 2019. This preview event will feature panel discussions from some of IDC’s speakers, a map that previews all of the conference activities, food and drinks, and a very good reason why you should attend IDC. IDSA Chicago is working with TEAMS Design to being you the awesome “Chicago Design Experience” - be sure to not miss this amazing event - a special announcement to be made at this event!”

I’ll be there!

Hope the studio will have enough sketching tables ready by then. :laughing:

Who wants a hashtag#RealDesignersShip sticker? I’ll be giving them out at IDC.

If anyone is going there is an after event party on Wednesday. Sign up here:

I’ll be there. Looking forward to it!

J

Just realized that event is the same night as the gala… but MNML is having a party on Thursday. :slight_smile:

I’ll be at the MNML party. Hope to
See some Core folks there.

I’ll be at the conference and the MNML party as well. My first IDC, looking forward to it.

cool, make sure you say hi!

some really good talks, the J Mays keynote was pretty great. I think the IDSA is going to make a video available.

A little wrap up video from the conference:


Brett Lovelady talking about the 25 year anniversary of Astro Studios

some more talks went live including mine:

Cheryl Durst on diversity and inclusion:

Chris Jackson on Inclusive Futures:

And me on creating Design Language Systems:

I worked with Kat Reiser on a project earlier this year. She gave an interesting talk at IDC about what she sees as the future of our profession. any thoughts?

I have a couple of problem with the hypothesis. Not surprising that i do :slight_smile: .

First, what data does Ms. Reiser have to support the claim the numbers of designs declined during the industrial revolution. What data does she have to support that it has been rising? Gut and intuition do not count in any way.

Next, specialization and facilitation. The former hits to my biggest pet peeve. If you present me a portfolio where all your projects have you as a customer, I’m going to pop. No, I will never have the experience of my nurse customers. Pretty much because I find bodily fluids and stuff to be disgusting. On the flip side, nurses have never been trained to identify product problems and solve them. That’s all I do. So yes, I am already specialized. It goes to my hypothesis that good design fulfills customer needs, great design fulfills unknown customer needs. It seem Ms. Reiser would disagree.

As for facilitation, I honestly think that would be as satisfying as pounding sand. In my experience, most people don’t get it. To illustrate my point, go up to a person, not a designer and ask them a simple question. You need to bring a dozen eggs home from the store. You cannot use a egg carton. What do you do? I personally judge responses on quantity of ideas, how are the ideas communicated and what constraints were applied to the ideas. In most cases, people do poorly.

I had an answer formulating in my head until I got to the part about the eggs when my brain automatically started coming up with ways to take eggs home without the carton and I forgot whatever else I was thinking :slight_smile:

While I think both options presented are viable, I defined;y don’t see it as a binary decision or those being anywhere near the only options. I’ve designed products for olympic level boxing, NBA and MLB players, and I don’t watch or play any sports. Personally I feel that my level of objectivity helped me in those cases to observe problems the players had and solve for them, and not for myself. Though I didn’t see myself as facilitating for them. The projects where I have had briefs that closely align to who I am as a person have often been the hardest for me. But I know other people feel differently. Whatever works for you as a designer is the right answer I suppose.

I do think being asked to give a presentation as a young designer puts you in a very vulnerable position as you are expressing opinions that may seem well formulated but to more experienced profesisonals, probably not, I think she mentions that upfront in her presentation.

I agree with iab though, being really black and white about what you will and will not design because you don’t have that direct experience is not a good reason to reject a project, especially if it is in the medical device industry. As a younger designer, I would jump at the opportunity to design for a field I have no experience in as long as I have the resources to facilitate my research properly so I can apply those findings to my proposed designs.

Being able to pick and choose the projects you will or will not work on isn’t a privilege most designers have, especially starting out.

Agreed. I commend her for getting up there and presenting something she knew might be a controversial opinion with the audience. It generated good conversations during the break vs other presentations that just come off as a portfolio pitch sometimes.

Mallory Evans & McKayla Barber - How to lose a female designer in 10 days