So you know when you are chatting with someone, and you write something with a smile on your face and it is interpreted as though you were scowling? 🙁 Some would argue that emoticons, (forming emotional *mostly* facial expressions made of joint text) solve the problem of emotional context in chat. I thank that perhaps the coming verbal age of emoji (icons in text exchanges) might just make this idea irrelevant, in fact. But in lieu of faces and body language and environmental context, I think
please dont forget to fill out the survey cc-by lemasney
please dont forget to fill out the survey cc-by lemasney
Very often, at the end of a class, I’m supposed to offer a survey on the behalf of my host. Also very often, at the end of a class, there’s some questions and thoughts from the audience that may take precedence over a ‘proper’ close (“Thank you, good night, drive safe!”) and invitation to fill out the survey. Other times, well, I just forget in the moment of relief that things went well, etc.
There are a few things that always tend to show up in my presentation decks, like a thank you slide, an agenda slide, and social connection reminder slides. I am making this image so that I can create a standard reminder slide for a survey, right before the thank you slide. This also means that I made a survey for times when my host is not asking for one: something I really should have been doing anyway, given the incredible importance of feedback. And here it is, my 3 question customer service feedback survey! You can even use it to give me feedback anonymously on this post, and thanks in advance for the insight.
A presentation without a chance to fill in the survey is like a web site without analytics.
Without it, how do you know how you are doing? I have been incredibly touched by some comments (take a look at my testimonials for some kind words about my work) and others that corrected me, or gave me a different way of thinking. Insights are incredibly valuable, and surveys are loaded with them.
This illustration was made in the open source digital illustration application Inkscape, as are most of the pieces on this site. This work is licensed Creative Commons – By lemasney, which means that you can use it as you wish, even commercially, as long as you credit me.
Maybe you have a phrase that you’d like to see illustrated like this one? It’s easy! Just contact me at lemasney@gmail.com to start the conversation.
She feels in italics – Henry James, CC-BY lemasney
On Henry James – She feels in italics…
“James contributed significantly to literary criticism, particularly in his insistence that writers be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world. James claimed that a text must first and foremost be realistic and contain a representation of life that is recognisable to its readers. Good novels, to James, show life in action and are, most importantly, interesting. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and unreliable narrators in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to narrative fiction. An extraordinarily productive writer, in addition to his voluminous works of fiction he published articles and books of travel, biography, autobiography, and criticism, and wrote plays, some of which were performed during his lifetime, though with limited success when compared to the success of his novels. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916.” – Henry James – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – http://goo.gl/67fA3m
A waveform of me saying the word 'open' by lemasney.
A waveform of me saying the word ‘open’ by lemasney.
delicate stained glass chandelier, photo by lemasney
Symphonic logo by lemasney
calligraphy by lemasney
Do not covet your ideas by lemasney
When in doubt, visit your library by lemasney
Tonight, at 7 pm at Princeton Public Library, I’ll be introducing self-designated non-designers about the basics of graphic design for non-designers. It’s free to the public, no registration necessary, in the technology center.
In the talk, I introduce the key ideas of graphic design to those who may never have had the discussion before:
Fonts and typography
Layout and space
Color and palette
Defining and simplifying messages for casual viewers
Getting one’s attention and engagement in an over-engaged world
Visual branding
If you are like me, you went through 12 years of school learning about reading, writing, communication, arithmetic, history, and other important basic skills.
But I did not learn about video production, graphic design, data visualization or other contemporary communication skills while I was in school until I went to college. Not because it was too difficult to learn, as many kids are introduced to these topics in grade school now, but because the emphasis was different. So those of us who are asked to communicate in the new visual ways are often lost, not having even the vocabulary of visual communication. If this describes you, I think you would benefit greatly from the class. I hope to see you there!
Oh, you can’t make it? That’s too bad. Luckily, I have a phone (609 553 9498) and an email address (john@lemasney.com) where we can still talk about it! Talk to you soon.
I had a lot of fun designing this visual brand for Symphonic, an ideological company I’m thinking about that focuses on ways to bring people together. One of the themes that they might use to bring people together ideologically is through sustainability, another through making, another through understanding technology, and so on.
I have served with a few sustainability organizations, and even served on a committee for one. Their purpose is usually transparent: help people to understand that our choices affect the planet, in either positive or negative ways, and that the effects come back to reach us later, in an almost karmic way. Festivals are one effective way to expand outreach, and so they are common event choices for these kinds of groups. The festival usually involves food, awareness games, and other activities to create an impression that reminds you of the organization and its messages. I have seen many t-shirt giveaways at these kinds of festivals as incentive for people to collect a reminder of the event. I have a problem with this, very often. But, maybe you can help me to solve it.
My problem is that I do not see giving t-shirts away as pro-sustainability. If we are buying new shirts, they are still getting bought, new, not reused, not thrift, not gift. It supports the consumerist ideals: more, new, different, need, want. But, done correctly, we might be able to work with t-shirts, differently.
What if the Symphonic festival was a free-thrift and recycling/reusing drive?
The idea is simple: People bring clean, used shirts (and other items) to give away, as they might at a thrift store. then, they get to choose from whatever shirts and other items that have been collected, and choose a visual design (in the form of stencils or other materials) to change it if they wish. There might be a t-shirt stencil-printing station using recycled or high sustainability ink or a manual embroidery station where someone’s monogram might be taught and sewn by the new shirt owner. Simple designs with ideas about the best of sustainability and preservation could be screen-printed or stenciled on exchanged shirts by the new shirt owners. The festival would be free, services donated, t-shirts and other items exchanged and up-cycled by them. Donated leftovers that were not exchanged could be donated to thrift stores, or life support groups.
Imagine, we would have people participating in Making (designing, printing, creating), as opposed to consuming (browsing, liking, buying), in the traditional sense. By understanding and participating, not just observing and consuming as we are asked to do in many parts of our society, we understand that tiny bit of the universe in a new way.
This is an amazing possibility for a thread to emerge in the minds of attendees through open source, sustainability, sharing, teaching, reusing, recycling, up-cycling, code awareness, making, understanding, and seeing.
The common thread? These activities all point to truth, as one can know it, as they put their hands on it, modify and understand it, and know it. They get to see, act, and make (design, etc.) choices for themselves, and possibly discover a truth of their own. We are usually limited to buying or only knowing another’s truth.
I had someone ask me yesterday, and I took a moment to think about my answer. I said that technology was moving towards individualized experiences that are more immersive, connected, and transporting.
Immersive
For example, we are starting to see more reasonable, affordable, and comfortable virtual reality gear. It’s still large and clunky, but the prototypes show that we could eventually just have these functions present in the form of our glasses. When you can pick up and put on a normal pair of glasses and not have battery or nausea or connectivity issues, people might spend their entire day in augmented or virtual reality. Ernest Kline‘s Ready Player One predicts this in very interesting ways, and Microsoft’s Hololens is a pretty promising way to think about first steps. The Oculus Rift and Samsung offerings are amazing, but I don;t see anyone walking around with them on anytime soon. This is an adoption factor.
Connected
Some of us spend some time in social networks, like Facebook. I spend a lot of time there. I often find myself defending social media against the claim that it is not social. In other words, many critics of social media see it as dividing people, and not a gathering place, and I simply disagree. Further, I believe that my online, social network based conversations and posts strengthen and enhance my in-person meetings with people. When I greet someone, we might spend 5 minutes talking about the various things we had shared and seen from each other recently. I feel far more connected with people who are on social media with me than not. We stay connected in the interim between meetings. I suspect that this will not decrease, but increase, and that it might not be in a form that we recognize, like Facebook, but maybe the virtual reality systems described above. Maybe a less pixellated form of Second Life, but hopefully, something far more grand.
Transporting
Before those things happen, we are already starting to see visual media taking on new importance in our browsing habits. Further, video is becoming the prominent media. This is in part because technologies like bandwidth and storage are at the point that they can more readily handle video without hiccups. Video is interesting as medium because it offers the most senses to be interpreted by the watcher. More than still photos or audio alone. Therefore you get more of a sense of what happened in the captured scene. Tools like Periscope allow for real-time capture and broadcast, and their philosophy is that they are offering teleportation services, which is kind of amazing. I believe this heralds a shift towards technology as superpower or science non-fiction. So perhaps in the future, technology will give you the power of flight, invisibility, or x-ray vision, but instead of you doing these with your natural senses, your body would just be sensually informed (by sensors, actuators, signals) that you were doing these things.
