Do trust in the things you love.

Every so often you come across something that gives you more than just a little nudge. A person, a photograph, song lyrics or a particular view that make you breathe a little deeper and really take credit for what has put that thing in front of you.

I came across this talk online link through a post from a dear friend of mine – the wonderful (and truly beautiful) Rachel Joanne Kerr (who is living proof that vision, determination and a smile will get you a whole lot of places that you want to go.)

If you’ve got a spare 20 minutes, give Mickey’s talk a listen. If not, make sure you watch his film ‘The Dark Side of the Lens’ which is included within it.Mickey’s name has been known to me as a surf photographer for some time. You find a lot of surf photography showing the sun-sparkled, tropical shores of Indo and Hawaii, which is pretty. What Mickey does is capture the harshness and grit involved with surfing the British coast.
Surf photographers are often the unseen heroes of the industry – they are the first in the water and the last out, putting their body through intense physical circumstances (not to mention the potential harm from crashes) and making sure to take care of the incredibly expensive equipment at the same time. They bottle the essence of the lifestyle, not just the sport.

Mickey is all about the angles, the unexpected details that others tend to miss and telling it like it is. Very much what I like think about my own approach to designing.

This talk is honest, humble and really got me thinking.

He talks of lessons taught by his mother; setting a challenge to constantly expand your own curiosity, exploring new ways of being creative, not to put yourself into a pigeon-hole or set a final destination of your goals. He’s a true storyteller; not the performing type that holds massive audiences in awe, but the kind you can imagine having a pint with.

I’ve been thinking recently about making the most of my own creativity, making it the focal point of what I do. It seems silly, like that should be the ‘be all and end all’ of what I spend my days doing, but in reality you get tied up in admin, emails, buying posits and packing up workshops. This nudge has got me thinking about how I can do that, how I can perhaps present back my process with a similar smile on my face.

So thank you to Rachel, and thank you to Mickey (if you’re reading this, that pint would be lovely.)

 

Until the next finger beckons, I’ll play with the stories, patterns and angles in my head – then I’ll go exploring again.

 

/ Kj

19524 miles later

Traveling; a time for naively exploring, stepping into new lands and new experiences clutching nothing but a battered rucksack and a sense of the unknown. A world inhabited by the dreadlocked, the gap yaas and the run-aways, bringing forth images of those Kodak moments; colourful street festivals, unscalable landscapes, chance meetings and friendships to treasure until the very end.

I don’t think I’ll get tired of telling Peru-Colombia-Panama-Costa Rica stories any time soon.
I’ve been in cloud-covered mountains and jungles, seas clear and warm as a bath, waves that crush the breath out of you, sand dunes and a desert oasis, volcanoes and tropical islands. I’ve seen storms and lightening the colour of candy floss, more stars than you can ever imagine, been woken up by howler monkeys, gone swimming at night with plankton lighting up the water, sailed with dolphins and learned stories from ancient cultures that speak not of gold and silver as treasures, but knowledge. I’ve been stared at and shouted at in the street because of the colour of my skin, had kids run up to touch my hands and arms to see if I feel the same as them.

I’ve met some of the kindest, most open and caring people. I’ve also seen some pretty desperate poverty. My eyes have been opened.

Part of me was expecting to collect ideas, inspiration and concepts to pull back into projects back home. While I’ll take something from the mindsets and way that new ideas are linked to the past, other scenarios are simple too far-removed to place them into a Western setting.

I come from a world where the type of design I work in is becoming increasingly about logging-in, signing-up, networking, clicking, button pressing, liking. Existing not as you; but as a 2-dimensional, pixellated version of your personality, created and edited to please the multi-faceted world out there.
I’ve spent the last 6 weeks witnessing places and people who’s lives would look more at home in the pages of a National Geographic. This overly online version of service design, which we can happily exist in back home, suddenly has absolutely no place or meaning. Apps will fix nothing.

Now, the tough job is taking those elements – the thought-provoking, the humble and the unanswered questions and stitching them into my soon-to-be digital everyday designing. With the rest of the Snooks off jet-setting for the next wee while I’ve got a bit of time to think ahead and do some typical kirstyjoan list-making. It’s this readjusting or the expected readjusting that is swirling around in my head (clearly I’ve been spending a bit too much time with a certain question-asker).

For me, this aftermath has also brought about a sense of inward pressure – people expect me to have ‘changed’. It’s a curious expectation, not necessarily a bad one, but it is there in the lingering looks and the questions about the future. (I also have returned with a slight tan, for those who know me well this is an unheard of and slightly flummoxing scenario to be faced with.)
Now that the washing has been done and the photos uploaded (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59272950@N08/collections/72157627954282354/  for those that might be interested) I’ve had a bit of time to pull from the thousands of stories I’ve collected – now is the time for planning and dreaming. Lonely Planet calls it soul-searching.

I’m not the sitting-on-top-of-a-mountain-finding-myself kind of girl. In fact, any hint of such activity and I am reduced to giggles, running Bridget Jones-style quotes through my altitude-addled head. I find the whole expected transformation thing vaguely ridiculous.

So how does one bring these new experiences, sights, sounds, smells, people and stories into their life and work without becoming a bit of a cliché? I think at this point I need to take a spoon of my own medicine, listen to a piece of advice I found myself repeating during my last two weeks away, and just ‘give-it-a-go’. You never know until you try. And goodness knows, I never would have ended up on the other side of the world if it wasn’t for a feeling of adventure, a touch of courage and a bit of a wild leap.

12 months

This past week, full of birthdays, visiting friends and the incredibly talented class of ’11 celebrating the opening of their Degree Show has got me reflecting on the past year. I wanted to write a little something to mark 1 year since graduating:

1 year since VIVAs, final pin-ups, designing and building the Degree Show and donning the orange shoes for City Night, the street party and Graduation (well, they were really nice shoes.)

 

There is, essentially, one word that sums up my past 12 months – Snook.

My flatmate recently asked how working has changed my life from my student days. I honestly answered that I rarely talk about anything else. My ‘news’ is full of project updates, people I have met and the places that my work is taking me. It’s engrossing, totally. For that I am hugely thankful – it’s exactly what I need.

The past 12 months have seen me graduate, learn to surf and then become part of pretty much THE Service Design movement in Scotland.

Snook projects have seen me set foot in 5 countries and teach at 5 different universities. I’m beginning to learn how the business works, but I am still utterly bewildered by how much work, dedication, grit and relentless energy goes into it. I am learning all the time.

I love that every project, different as they are, are all working in some way towards a greater goal. It feels brilliant to be a part of. I’m finding that my passion for my country is growing stronger – something that reminds me of being 11 years old, singing Highland Cathedral on stage.

 

The past 12 months have let me explore what I am good at, what I’m not so good at, what I want to work for, but not really what I want for myself. That I am still trying to work out.

The next 12 months are going to be full of adventures, literal and metaphorical. I’m going exploring – inside and out. I want to find my feet.

There are going to be giggles, tears, frustration and elation – I can’t wait. So, the next time I pull on the tartan tights (and then ask Lauren to straighten them) I’ll remember that, and I’ll look forward to what the future brings.

 

kj

Thinking about craftmaking…

At our last Snook night, I was asked to present 3 ideas of projects that I would like to work on around being a craftmaker. I cheated, I did nothing of the sort.

Instead, I thought long and hard about what being a craftmaker within Snook means. How I should approach the role, whether the title makes sense, how it will be interpreted, what the kind of work would involve. I presented my thoughts on this instead, and it got us all thinking …

Craft. It’s a big, broad word. We need to be careful how we use it. It’s not dangerous as such but it does bring up such strong connotations and images in peoples heads. It’s a word full of nostalgia and tradition – people tend to draw their own connections to it.

Nowadays, craft can often bring up images like this:

I know…  there is an element of pot calling the kettle black here. I suppose I could probably be considered modern-day ‘crafty’. I bake, I wear pretty dresses, I like sewing and teacups… If I was to look at myself from an outsiders’ perspective I would probably find that all this is a response to what is commercially available as ‘craft’. It’s off-the-shelf-handmade. It’s beautiful, cosy and a really interesting reflection of our attitude to the recession. In my minds eye, this is all one side of ‘craft’.

I want to get back to what I consider to be another sphere of craft; the tradition, skillset and ultimately individual objects of production. This side is experimental, relies on skills being passed from hand to hand, local materials and joy of working with something which you are considered an expert in.

I was around 6 years old when I began to be taught Lace making by my Granny Sheep. I can remember hours kneeing by the pillow, fascinated by the coloured beads on the different bobbins and the skill and precision that Granny seemed to be able to emanate; counting off and twirling multiple bobbins in her hands at once to create the intricate patterns – all the stages of which she seemed to be able to keep in her head at once. This was followed with my first own sewing machine (aged 10) which had it’s own carry case and was operated by turning a handle. Aged 20 I was offered the amazing opportunity to travel to Sweden for 6 months and study at HDK, the School of Design and Crafts in Goteborg.

At HDK, every year the entire school spends 1 month swapping design disciplines. As a product design undergraduate I was given the chance to try out another set of skills for 4 weeks. I jumped at the chance to explore the seemingly mysterious textile department, which I had been peering into for months! I learned all about the construction of textiles, and was encouraged to experiment and try out the techniques I was learning in my own way. It was here, and with my ‘Mary Papers’ project, that I began to explore the versatility of embroidery for storytelling.

What I want to get back to. What I want Snookcraft to be known for is more aligned with the traditional aspects of craftmaking; the learned techniques, patience, methodology and prestigious skill that comes from being an expert in a particular field. I want to explore the tradition of the craftmaker passing on their skill, I think that sits really nicely with what Snook stands for. I’m fascinated by how these skills have been passed down, how different techniques exist in different pockets of the world. I want to collect as many as I can.

I like sewing, but I want to learn new things. I don’t quite know what yet, I don’t know what would work for us. Perhaps I will start with sewing and then begin to explore outwards …

I was Snookcraft to look less English Teaparty and more like this:

This is a selection of products available from Present and Correct. You can see the craft, the professionalism and the skill put into the making of these, but you can also see (and feel!) that they have been put together with love and attention to detail for a specific purpose. That’s what I want Snookcraft to feel like and that’s why I am most excited about Karen joining the family – she can help to make this happen.

So, I’ve been doing a bit of thinking, and I think we have a bit more to go. Part of me want to jump in and begin making, part of me wants to step back a little and consider the best way to approach this. For me, making things with my hands has always been a very reflective process. I think that this fits in nicely with our letter writing, drawings, animations, videos and the hand-made elements of our work. What Chris Arnold called “that touch of personality that really brings it to life.”

I’m excited to begin exploring.

Designing in new directions

Design is moving in new directions. We know this, we’ve seen it adapting, shifting and transforming in different sectors and in areas that our Industrial Design (with a capital D) predecessors left untouched. I’ve been lucky to be included in this movement, swept up in it in fact, but it can sometimes be difficult to explain why design is now operating where it is.

Never has this fact hit home more than it did on Friday evening; I was on the phone in Preston station, waiting on a delayed train to take me on my homeward journey from Manchester to Glasgow and explaining to my father why I had spent the day in the dialysis unit in Salford Royal Hospital.

Snook were invited down to Manchester to take part in an ongoing project with Martin Bontoft and Janet Hegarty, a Consultant in Kidney Medicine. This relationship is about Dialysis patients better understanding/managing the levels of Sodium and Potassium in their diet through effective yet simple means that can later be reproduced by the team in Salford.

The next step is a collaboration bringing together departments from all over the hospital to concentrate on issues that raise problems across their various fields. Snook were brought in to help in the area of blood pressure, in particular helping to visualise what it means to patients and how important managing your (invisible) blood pressure is when you are on dialysis.

We’re going to be mocking-up ideas quickly and testing them out with staff in Salford soon.  My day in the hospital with Martin brought lots of ideas to the surface that we will be bringing to life with paper, scissors, glue and cardboard (our favourite type of prototyping!)

I met a lot of amazing people, who deal with A LOT. The nurses who work on the units, with 170 patients coming in to the thrice-daily shifts, the technicians who maintain these complex machines, and can show you a variety of interesting and informative data with their combinations on the buttons and the dietitians (who I should be spending more time with in trips to come) who help to shed light on the intricate balance that your diet rests on between dialysis cycles.

Speaking to some of the patients was eye-opening and, if I am honest, not entirely what I was prepared for. Watching one particular patient having his needles set up it became apparent that although I had been completely fine with the amount of blood on show; pumping and hissing around the spinning and bleeping apparatus, I was very quickly uneasy when witnessing the pain that was caused by the insertion and subsequent maneuvering of the needles.

Sitting at the nurses’ station, clearing the fog in my head and getting my hearing back it seemed that, at times, I can be a little too empathic (I wonder if I’ll lose this?) I really hope that the work and ideas that come out of this project will do something to make the patients lives even a little easier. It’s a tough life when you are on dialysis, spending up to 4 hours, 3 times a week hooked up to the machine – and having to manage every portion of food and every drop of liquid intake in between.

Design is capable of transforming, and it is places like this where it’s needed. That’s what I told my Dad on the phone in the station on the way home.

Look after your kidneys.

Kj x

The Adventure Continues.

The latest steps in my Snook adventure (which will be published in due time) have seen me crossing the line in to teaching.

I was invited by Stuart Bailey of the Product Design Engineering course at The Glasgow School of Art, to aid in the design and running of an afternoon workshop with service users.The 4th year student are embarking on a project with NHS Moray, looking at the telecare products supplied to elderly people living on their own. Stuart is keen for the PDE course to begin encouraging more user-centered thinking, and to begin introducing elements of Service Design into the practice of the students.

The workshop was to involve all 24 4th year students; who have never worked on a project with this kind of user-involvement, as well as current and future users of the product the students are focusing on: Community Alarm Buttons worn by independent elderly people living by themselves.

An initial meeting with Hugh Pizey, who is running the project with the students, saw us sketching up ideas for tools and templates for the students to fill during the workshop. The students will be working in groups for the next 10 weeks, although all information collected from the workshops is to be shared amongst the groups, so it was important for information and insights to be extracted and recorded in the same way.

A Skype meeting with the team at NHS Moray, based at Horizon Scotland in Forres allowed us to discuss the involvement of the service users, how the students would facilitate groups and the on-going contact and communication between users and students. I introduced the idea of cultural probes, using single use cameras, for the users to record their daily activities, routines, ways of using their devices – giving an insight into their lives which will be a huge benefit to the students once they are back designing in the studio and working in the workshop.

Time was tight, and so 3 days later Hugh and I briefed the students about the beginning of the project – running through the tools and templates (user personas, extended personal profiles, daily routine/user journey and a questionaire from NHS Moray). I explained what role each tool was to play in the collection of stories and insights, focusing the students on the ‘getting to know’ section of their workshop, and how each tool would allow them to piece together a better understanding of who they will be designing for. That getting out and talking to the experts in this field is far better that internet searching from the studio.

Group discussions follow, and I was on-hand to answer questions. The students were already beginning to come up with ideas for solutions before even speaking to their users! I was expecting a group who have never had this sort of experience with their projects before to seem daunted by being thrown into the deep end, but they seemed eager to find out who they would be working with and were asking me for further tips on engaging and the types of questions to ask.

The  next morning saw us up early, very early. A 4 hour bus trip up to Foress in Nairnshire was on the cards which allowed for further group planning, dividing of responsibilities, sleeping, a rare chance for me to see some beautiful Scottish countryside and for Hugh to quiz me on my Keylime Pie recipe – (he’d been doing some background searches on Snook.)

We arrived in expert time to the fantastic Horizon Scotland buildings, where the workshops were to be taking place. Name badges were collected, thick coats deposited (we were quite far up North, after all) and we were then invited to have lunch with our wonderful service users. Myself and Simon made friends with Norman, a Forres local who was intrigued to find out as many details as possible about the course Simon was on, as well as the timetable for the day.

An introduction from Lorna Bernard of Moray Gov and from Hugh followed, and then it was straight in to the workshops.

The students had discussed amongst themselves who within their groups would take the role of facilitator, and who would take charge of documenting (written, drawings, photographs). This meant that my role, as well as that of recent PDE graduate Lisa Wu was to float between groups, making sure student were on track.

What followed was 4 hours of story telling, sketching, model making and discussions. Students listening to users who are happy to put up with ‘bad design’ because they feel special to have been though of in the first place. It was wonderful to listen to the attitudes of the wartime generation, and how these ran against the students sometimes preconceived ideas (would an iPhone touch screen- style device fit into their routine?)

The students made quick, 1 minute Dragon’s Den – style presentations to show one concept they had been discussing and creating with their users, we said our thankyous and goodbyes and bundled back on the bus to Glasgow. We’ll be back in 4 weeks to talk through concept ideas and get feedback from our new friends.

Thoughts?

The students did a fantastic job, they were indeed thrown into the deep end on this one. I think sometimes you have to strike a balance between over-preparing and rolling up your sleeves and going for it.

It made me realise elements of my own facilitation that I think I have been taking for granted; knowing how to position myself in a room with users – mixing up the them/us separation that can occur, allowing for stories to flow, knowing how to record them, and taking humor and giggles as a necessary part of the process of getting to know the wonderful people in front of you.

Workshops are fun, and I hope that the student took that with them as they tumble off the bus and into the Glasgow night.

kj

more image available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wearesnook/sets/72157624919896291/with/5028994221/

PdPlus – Product Design Degree Show 2010

Graduating from the Glasgow School of Art isn’t about the gown or the scroll, the jam tarts and the flat Cava, it’s all about your degree show. Putting your hard work on show for the world to see. We do it through a week-long exhibition and online at http://www.pdplus.co.uk/ check it out!

(Website by http://benpawle.co.uk/)

Over in Product Design we like to do things a little differently. We fund, design, manage and build our entire show by ourselves. We source all of the materials needed, put all the plans together and live up to our reputation of the best bar in the school.

The Exhibition team (Rose, Eeva, Zoe and I) had to work out how to fit 18 exhibitors into a room that had previously housed 11. We wanted to create a more open exhibition, allowing free flow of visitors between and around the boards and to encourage our viewers to see more than one person’s work at once.

From sketches and scribbles, wildly inaccurate maths to beautifully joined structures our exhibition came to life. I literally put my blood, sweat and tears into our degree show, and I for one am incredibly proud of what we achieved.

 Worth the sleepless nights pulling together construction plans, worth the hours spend drilling, sawing, screwing, painting, slotting, cutting, sewing and stapling once everyone else had gone home. The exhibition was my 4th project this year, as much part of my work on show as that which was on my board. I really enjoyed bringing it all together (even if I did get a little bit emotional at times!) and I discovered that as well as Product Design and Service Design, I love being an Exhibition Designer.

So here it is, Product Design Plus.

We had two opening nights on the 10th and 11th of June for both our friends, families, sponsors, clients, partners, users, classmates and, well, anyone else, to come along and share . These were both followed by a spectcular amount of dancing, including the best Art School street party I have ever been to.

A big thank you to all those who came along, you really made it special.

Product Design Plus

Keira Anderson, Iain Archibald, Holly Brenan, Eeva Campbell, Lauren Coleman, Fraser Gibb, Rose Hutton, Rachel Kerr, Christina Kinnear, Roberta Knox, Megan Lambie, Zoe Milne, Betsy Peacock, James Portoeus, Greig Robinson, Fee Schmidt-Soltau, Kirsty Sinclair, Jen Stewart.

brief it up.

kj

developing tools…

Description cards. A brief insight into the term used, what it includes and what it is used for. Table-top design: choreographing what elements might be useful, what the group want to learn more about, who might be particularly interested in which area.

In an ideal world. Developed from traditional ‘Offering Map’ which shows, synthetically, what the new service will offer its users. I wanted to use a similar approach which allows the group to map out what they would ideally provide, what their ultimate dream of the service would be. This provides results which the Service Designer can work within, parameters to reach towards, goals to try to achieve.

I read (somewhere) about the importance of identifying and using ‘internal champions’. I think it might be a very good idea to have an individual within the group who is, in a way,a facilitator. Who can guide and oversee the project developments at the times when the designer is not present. I don’t want it to be a role of obvious responsibility, merely to provide the links and go-between, a clear central position in the collaboration. This champion doesn’t need to be someone high up in the business, in fact it would be better not to be. Someone central, approachable and integrated.

Providing feedback to the designer is a crucial element for the next stages of the design process. Allowing the Service Designer to see what has come out of the introductory stage, what has been picked up and where the organisation are thinking of going. The stickers are a clear and easy way of showing this, rather than written answers which can be complicate and misunderstood.

kj

Letters to myself

in response to:

Translation: (what does my handwriting say about me?)

This diagram is nice, pretty. It is obvious, it will work. But it is hinged on several details, points and opinions which I have not got pinned down. I need to know about the relationship between the organisation and the designer. What is being asked of the designer – what does the organisation expect of them – working with/against their preconceptions of design. What is it that the organisation want from the collaboration? What do they see the benefit of  Service Design as being – and why have they chosen to take on Service Design rather than a traditional marketing expert? In addition I need to show, through the process that I will add, the value of the designer. So that at the end of my ‘process’ the organisation/business  can leave with an idea of how creative solutions can modify their business, but also what the designer can do to provide more depth, variety and end results. Essentially, that the organisation sees the benefit of employing the designer.

Designers tend to enter a project with a preconception of what the organisation wants from them – is there a way to specify and narrow the seemingly huge description of service design to make it a. easier for the company to digest, b. obvious to them what the benefit for them will be, transferring positive outputs into potential future ventures.

Designers are often very comfortable in our own language. The design vocabulary and the business one are sometimes similar but predominantly different. The designer needs to speak and deliver in translatable terms. To show what they do – by showing, inviting in, there is generally no problem with non-design savvy/design literate professionals being able to see your process and your value. It can be a s simple as that. But how to show it? Video – (check it hasn’t been too ‘done.’) We need to step back from the jargon – and identify the kernels of knowledge/skill which our clients need us for. What we deliver.

I need to know what clients expect of designers? What attracts them to Service Designers rather than other agencies? Build tools around these needs.

quote of the date: “the key to explaining Service Design is not to mention Service Design.” Alex Allen    28.4.10

kj

29.4.2010.

kj

5th May in response to Peachy Keachy presentation of proposal (tools) to Alex, Jenni and Gordon.