Camila de Gregorio, Chilean designer from the successful  Eggpicnic Design [firm that sells their creations all around the world] tells us about her social commitment standpoint towards working hand in hand with artisans in the small rural location of Rari, Chile. The post is in English and Spanish.

Ser diseñador conlleva un gran compromiso social. Siendo capaces de integrar a los individuos a la modernidad por medio de su obra, no corrompemos los códigos que les son propios. Trabajamos con Marcela Sepúlveda, una artesana experta en crin y oriunda de Rari, un pueblo ubicado al sur de la capital chilena, al pie de la precordillera. Pic: Eggpicnic Design [Andrew Mercer]
Su trabajo consiste en teñir y tejer con los dedos el pelo de caballo. Logramos acceder a su interioridad y subjetividad por medio de su trabajo y tal como en el Romanticismo, buscamos volver a los orígenes de la producción artística, rescatando las tradiciones propias de nuestra cultura y desligándonos de la racionalización y el cálculo. Generamos así un vínculo que trasciende la propia creación y que nos permite apreciar el trabajo que el hombre es capaz de crear con sus manos. Pic: Eggpicnic Design

Being a designer involves a social commitment. Being able to integrate individuals into modernity through their work, we do not corrupt the codes that are specific to them. We worked with Marcela Sepúlveda, a crin expert artisan and a native of Rari, a town south of the Chilean capital, in the Andean foothills. Her work consists of dyeing and weaving horsehair with her fingers. We were able to gain access to her interiority and subjectivity through her work and just as Romanticism, we return to the origins of artistic production, rescuing the traditions of our culture and detaching ourselves from rationalization and calculation. We generated a bond that transcends the very creation and allows us to appreciate the work that man can create with their hands.

Palo Alto, CA: Since I am here at Stanford as a VR, at the Center for Design Research, I’ve seen students carry out methods like “Brainstorming“, “Rapid Prototyping” and “Personas“. I would like to comment on the “personas” tool. Students learn how to make them, but do they know where they come from? It is in my belief that students or recipients of this teaching should learn the sources of these techniques. Why? Because you get to know the place where to search for more information or for understanding the rationale behind it. This situation would enable the learners to reconfigure their way of applying the methods yet in a more informed way. Pic: Cooper 

SO WHERE DO PERSONAS COME FROM?
Making archetypes coming from ethnographic or qualitatively inspired research is not something new to the fields of Anthropology or Sociology. But it was Alan Cooper, the “humanizer of technology”, how he indicates in his website, the one that “pioneered the use of personas as practical interaction design tools to create high-tech products that address user’s needs” . In his online document: “The Origin of Personas “, published in his company’s journal in 2003, Cooper provides the “trace” to follow when, why and how this tool was developed. The interesting thing, is that this is a tool that is frames as a “PRACTICAL INTERACTION DESIGN TOOL”, which is essentially and way to see theory in a more applied manner. Many times “Design Thinking” is confused with “Interaction Design“. But this is not that wrong [this is in my PhD process thinking], both essentially relate to the same thing: ASSESSING HUMAN AND SOCIAL INTERACTIONS UNDER A DESIGN FRAMEWORK. Now that interactions have transcended the computer, it is no news that interaction design is the new Design Thinking practical tool.

THE INMATES ARE RUNNING IN THE ASYLUM [1998]
“The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition)” published in 1998 ” introduced the use of personas as a practical interaction design tool. Based on the single-chapter discussion in that book, personas rapidly gained popularity in the software industry due to their unusual power and effectiveness. “ The article shows how Cooper, driven by the need to develop complex software solutions, ended up developing Goal Directed Personas. They showed to be practical and an evident communication tool. Cooper indicates “… Many practicing designers have used the brief 25-page description of personas in Inmates as a “Persona How-to” manual, but a complete “How-to” on personas has yet to be written. I hope someday that one of the very accomplished architects at Cooper will write that book because they have developed the technique to a degree of sophistication well beyond my seminal efforts. I look forward to contributing to it“. Follow these links, go and read the whole article, and the book if you can. It just makes sense to understand where do things come from.

Pic:Design in Difference multidisciplinary course 2011 Design-Anthro NCState [CM]

Is not everyday that you have a group of students that are so proactive and willing to work with others outside their community. Three students from the Design in Difference have made a major linkage of what they learned in this design-anthropology course [mainly “community building” through asset-based methods for co-creation] with their work [a non profit that looks to promote sustainable relationships among two different cultures]. Here is what Brian Gaudio , architecture student at NCState did with his undergraduate research grant in in Dominican Republic through “Que lo Que“:Pic: Brian Gaudio and QloQ in Dominican Republic

“K lo k.” A colloquial Dominican phrase for “what’s up” is part of North Carolina State University‘s vocabulary thanks to the student organization Que lo Que. Over the past two years, students from around the US have worked and lived in the Dominican Republic to better understand the culture and relationship between the US and DR. In the summer of 2011, Que lo Que  [in this case: María Gaudio, Sarah Mann and Brian Gaudio] worked with the rural community of Las Lajas, Dominican Republic to create and complete a skill inventory. This innovative community project was a combined research with studying abroad to conduct asset-based surveys, and co-create information tools for residents of a small village in the Dominican Republic. Pic: Brian Gaudio and Que lo Que in Dominican Republic
The three goals of the project were as follows:

1. To understand sustainable community development methodologies
2. To apply asset-based methodologies co-create and conduct a capacity inventory in Las Lajas
3. To make information from the skill inventory questionnaire available to and usable by the residents of Las Lajas.

Based on information from community focus groups and formed by a team of local residents, the skills inventory asked mostly ‘yes or no’ questions regarding resident’s capacities in agriculture, business, art, and education. The interviews were conducted with 136 adults in the community of 221 families. To discover the capacities of children in the village, the team of local residents hosted a summer camp. Youth engaged in recreational activities and expressed their aspirations, play habits, and learning interests through drawing activities. From this data, Brian compiled the information from the adults and youth, and compared the relationship between information. He presented a “skills directory” to the community in paper form that listed who knew what skills and who was interested in learning those skills. Copies of the directory could be used for entrepreneurial collaboration, or even mentoring youth in the community.
Pic: Brian Gaudio and Que lo Que in DR
While in the community, Brian also documented “thrift designers” in the community. While design is the act of creation, design thrift is the act of recreation. Through resilient “re-purposing“, thrift designers recreate simple, practical, inspiring recombinations. Thrift designers of all ages designed more with less, maximizing the potential of everything from plastic lawn chairs to bags from the “colmado” (convenient store).

FOLLOW THE PROJECT! www.que-lo-que.com; http://purepossibilities.wordpress.com/  ;     http://purepossibilities.wordpress.com/

INTRO:
Through the work of Casey Reas , Diego Gómez got to know the work of a Dutch collective called: “Conditional Design“. They have published an interesting manifiesto, which is the one he is exploring in this post. Conditional Design entails: THE PROCESS IS THE PRODUCT AND LOGIC IS OUR TOOL [please look at the manifesto for further statements]. As an MA candidate, Diego had the possibility to help in a workshop about “Conditional Drawing” based on the statements that this Dutch collective explore. During his own course, back in Chile, he implemented a similar idea with students from Digital Design at UDD in Santiago. Gómez enfatizes in the fact that: “The exercise proved to be an interesting step to to start thinking about: what do we design when we design with the and from technology. If this sounds benign to you, is because you haven’t really reflected about it”.

By Diego Gómez
MA UCLA
designer, media worker & academic enthusiast

Incluso en la más intrincada definición de diseño, es imposible negar el vínculo de la disciplina con la tecnología y los medios. Más aún, habemos quienes creemos que el diseño está íntimamente ligado a la evolución de estos constructos sociales. Para bien y para mal. Para el diseñador, reflexionar sobre esta ligazón debe ser parte fundamental de su hacer. Entender cual es rol de la disciplina en la sociedad implica analizar cada día qué significa el crear con y desde la tecnología y los medios, y por lo mismo, cómo éstos condicionan el diseño.

Pic: Diego’s Workshop at UDD

Esta inquietud no es nueva y se podría decir que es precisamente parte de lo que preocupó a los futuristas, suprematistas y constructivistas. Sin embargo, los paradigmas que impone hoy la evolución de la tecnología y los medios parecen radicalizar este condicionamiento. Pero me da la impresión que una buena mayoría de los diseñadores hoy en día ni siquiera se inmuta al respecto.

Aunque son pocos proporcionalmente, sí hay talentosos diseñadores preocupados de enfocar su hacer en esta fundamental reflexión. A través de Casey Reas conocí el trabajo del colectivo holandés “Conditional Design“, quienes han publicado un interesante manifiesto en la problemática que estamos poniendo en la mesa acá.
Hace no mucho tuve la oportunidad de presenciar y ayudar un poco en un workshop que el profesor Reas impartió sobre “Conditional Drawing” basado en lo establecido por el colectivo holandés. Esto me motivó a implementar este ejercicio entre estudiantes de diseño acá en Chile. Partí la semana pasada con estudiantes de Diseño Digital de la Universidad del Desarrollo en Santiago y espero profundizar más en las reflexiones sobre “Conditional Design” a futuro, tanto allí como en otros lugares.

Y es que creo que este ejercicio da una introducción muy interesante para comenzar a preguntarnos qué diseñamos cuando diseñamos con y desde la tecnología. Si esto último te suena irrelevante y benigno quiere decir que no has reflexionado mucho al respecto.

Baskets made from palm trees serve to carry and exhibit groceries