Week 8- Skills and Making

Tramaine Berry
Nov 12, 2020
10 min read

Updated: Sep 21, 2023

Lecture //

Skills I have

- Logos

- Adobe

- Type

- Slow dyslexic process and methods

- Knitting

- Social media design

Skills I need / ways of working/ thinking / knowledge to improve on

- Coding (try processing.org)

- Calligraphy for christmas card design

- Presentation skills

- Imposter syndrome. I think my dyslexia has something to do with it

- Research. I need to start recording designers I am interested in. Look at design blogs / Gallery visits now digitalised due to lockdown /Flickr / Behance.

Research //

Brian Eno: How To Beat Creative Block

Working alone makes you more likely to get into a creative block because you are routinely doing the same things over again.
‘work at a different speed’. Forgetting best ideas under pressure. Reminds me of the crazy 8’s challenge last week. It also reminds me of how much pressure I feel due to my dyslexia...need to research dyslexic graphic designers and their process.

Workshop: Dyslexia and the creative process //

Th first question that came to mind when I first approach this week was 'how can we diagram our process when we are currently trying to learn new ones' because through my job searching, I have noticed that most employers expect designers to be specialised in everything design related. For me, this is not realistic when you take into account that my dyslexia requires me to refresh my process and relearn.

What are dyslexics good at?

- High levels of empathy

- Big-picture thinkers

- Making connections

- Narrative reasoning

- Observant

Habits of dyslexics

Staring out of the window or daydreaming; I rememeber doing this a lot when I was young but I haven't done this in my university years. Lets the brain slide into neutral and ease itself around a problem. Researchers have found that people whose minds wander more tend to be more patient, better decision makers

Methods for barriers

Slow cognition process:

Design Dice is a good way to reduce the procrastination.
Embrace it and put less pressure to come up with an idea. The idea will come to you, so make sure to have a small notepad where ever you go.
Dont worry about the final outcome before the brilliant idea comes.

Memory and retaining information:

Relearning new skills
Verbal rehearsal
Games. I used to use flashcards to create a memory game and try to beat my high score.
Re-writing content being read and simplifying it into my own verson
Video and transcript at the same time. Helps me stay focused through both senses, and maintain a pace with reading.
Music helps with pace of reading as well as being able to stay concentrated; I get frustrated with how slow I am at reading and it tires me out.
To-Do lists. I live by them, especiallly when I have a creative block and not sure what to research next. I usually read my blog again and make notes on what I could do next.
Visual guides. Design critiques on YouTube have been the most memorable and they give me an insight on what other designers could have done differently; the process of editing someone elses work is recorded.

Energy:

It takes a lot of energy for me to read words phonitically correctly and process their meaning, and I have tried many methods of stayig awake such as increasing protein and omega 3 and decreasing my gluten intake but this didn't seem to work. Even though I hated the smell and taste of coffee, I decided to use it to help with energy boosts, which has worked these past few weeks so far.
Learning I am not a morning person, waking up before 9am everyday disturbs my energy even with coffee intake. 9am everyday seems to be the right balance between restful and gives me enough time to study.

Ideas

A checklist of skills. Tick the ones I know by heart, fade out the ones that need practise and leave other skills unticked. Or maybe create an animation or calender to show how time influences how faded skills can come into focus and the known can become faded.

Show a visualisation of re-reading information

I liked the idea of needing to refresh the page in order to gain access to information.

Show how observation and participation influences how skills are learnt. Ive learnt my Adobe skills through a technican's workshop, and my knitting skills comes from friends guiding my hands.

RE: reading of "3D thinkers in a 2d world" by Benedict Phillips

Benedict Phillips is a dyslexic artist (photography, public art, performance and media art), writer and curator. His continuing interests have been Dyslexia related performances and projects, and has been developing a two-year research for 'how to be a dyslexic artist'.

Notes

No right way of spelling! Americans spell things differently, which reminds me of how names are spelt in so many different ways. In fact, according to 'baby center' the most varied spelling of a name is 'Caden', which is at 52 different ways of being spelt. This brings me back to a summer internship when me and a client were confused on how to spell practise /practise because it was a remote business. Makes me wonder whether businesses need to have guidelines for origin of spelling.
If everyone were dyslexic, what would the design world be like? Would businesses slow down the creative process? Would there be less bad designs floating around?

How to be a dyslexic artist

It is a dislay of images and videos exploring personal experiences of being an adult dyslexic in our text heavy society.

We believe that creativity cannot originate from a position of knowing... how are you going to find yourself without getting lost?

The Agender of the Agresiv Dislecksick

The title reminds me of 'the color purple' book and the way the early entries were phonetic spelling.

Ideas

Adding pressure to idea generation doesn't make a diamond
Slow and steady wins the race. Maybe draw out a normal process that the rabbit takes and the turtle takes the dyslexic route (obsticles that can be overcome).
40 days for a habit, 10 days to forget...dyslexics 1 day to forget (not sure if that's an exaggeration, maybe it could be a funny exaggeration if that's the case).
Fluency. Show a disturbance in the creative flow, as well as reading flow.
Why does the alphabet have to be in that order; keypad isn't alphabetical? Reminds me of the alphabet sound and how I never got it in the right order due to how the song merges 'mnop'.

Workshop //

This piece illustrates the importance of repetition as a dyslexic, which effects the information and skills that I learn. It also illustrates how I sometimes lose my place in the design process or a skill I have learnt might need relearning.

For me, knitting is a transformative process (CREATES brain set) that always me to release negative energy into something creative everyday. It is also something that reminds me that it is okay to be slow. It's almost as if it's a away for me to create a sense of control in my creative process because I am giving myself permission to be slow.

Skills intertwined into knit. Skills I use everyday can be the smooth knits, and then the mess placed knits can be the skills I don't use everyday and need to relearn. Or maybe the everyday skills can overlap the non-everyday skills. This idea was inspired by a design I saw in this week's lecture because I like how he has hidden and made new processes less ledgible compared to the processes he currently knows.

In this piece, I have repeated the everyday skills to the amount of days in a week, and the skills I either want to learn or haven't been used in a while are lost within the repeated skills.

I've taken inspiration from my imperfect knitting. I wanted to stress how important repetition is because skills I don't use everyday get forgotten (see dent in the rows of skills). But I also wanted to illustrate how skills I would like to learn can be weaved into this process but also cause some disruption in terms of flow and energy; taking in new information lot of energy for me.

Taking inspiration from Benedict Phillips, I have started playing with the spelling of my skills list and questioning why words that sound the same have different spelling. I also thought that adding what society sees as the wrong spelling would place emphasis on how dyslexia slows down my process. If I were to improve this, I would have changed 'cts' into 'x'.

Additionally, Benedict has said that creativity comes from being lost and not knowing, which I think has been captured within my final piece.

Maybe I could wrap this text around a 3d brain?

Feedback

Dyslexic Design

The Dyslexia Design Festival is an exhibition of work led by dyslexic designers in September 2016. The objective of this exhibition was to highlight the positive influences the dyslexic mind has on creative projects.

Quotes from Designers:

"Dyslexia is a subliminal thought, to philosophise with life. Dyslexia is a twist of your deep ample mind: to remember the fine line between rebellion and expectation. For me, dyslexia is a decision to let your mind free to convention. It is a step out from controlling, a symbol of true freedom" - Tiphaine Dugast, Product & Interior Designer

“I didn’t know such thing as dyslexia exists until last year when I had myself tested. I always knew I was a visual person, when I want to explain something I prefer to scribble or show an image rather than describe in words. I’ve always found visual language more straight forward and immediate. My recent work is fairly abstract, using moving image and sound to evoke senses and to create a certain immersive environment, a trigger for the viewer to submerge into their own thoughts.” - Tomas Jefanovas, Graphic & Digital Designer

“Without dyslexia I would not be able to design. I’d also be deprived of all those opportunities when I misread words and think I’ve come across something very amusing indeed, only to be told it says something quite sensible. I believe my visual perspective is a gift. For example though I struggle to order certain kinds of information, I find it easy to see things in three-dimensions. I remember colours, conversations, tastes and smells with absolute accuracy, but I forget where my keys are the minute I’ve put them down." - Ab Rogers, Environment Designer

“It’s like a really big ocean with thousands of little notes floating past,’ she says on her thought process. ‘Sometimes things gather together in a pool or they’re floating miles away. I’m just lucky that the elements have come together! I want to do everything... I get excited so it becomes overwhelming. I think this thirst has held me back as much as it has pushed me forward." - Kristjana S Williams, Fine Artist

"My mum still says I can end up making mountains out of mole hills; seeing all the big questions in the small things and the minute detail in the big. Sometimes, I mean, I get lost in which details are the most important to concentrate on. But if every back garden’s mole hills can be big enough to imagine a whole world through, then we all have the power to create big change with small actions and be active in shaping and creating the future landscape.” - Bethan Laura Wood Designer & Artist

What did I learn?

1 in 10 people are dyslexic
Dyslexics look at things from surprising angles
I have requested to join a dyslexic design group in facebook, so I can be part of a supportive online community.

How could I use this to improve my work?

I think my work focuses too much on the negative side of dyslexia, however, this is mainly based on how I have been approaching this course for the past couple of months. I would like to put a positive spin on what I have achieved so far.

I liked the concept of 'making a mountain out of a mole hill' and I think this could be an interesting visualisation. 'Seeing big questions in small things' - maybe a microscope overlooking current skills.
What if the text dipped upwards rather than downwards to symbolise how even though my dyslexia moments slow me down, it can contribute positively towards my creative process.
Seeing things from a new light - Positive light vs negative light. Conflicting spotlights show skills I haven't learnt yet (negative spotlight), skills that I repeat everyday (positive), and the skills I need to relearn (overlapping the negative and positive). Also include the negatives and positives with the skills such as 'perspective'.

Positive Spin on my final piece

I have flipped my work to represent my change in attitude towards dyslexia. Yes, dyslexia slows me down, but this just means I pay extra attention to detail and ask big questions as a result.

This also represents how dyslexics think and look at things from different angles. And the dip in the middle no longer goes downwards, thus showing how it influences my creative process positively.

How could I develop this further?

Develop it into a video. It can start off upside-up explaining the negatives and then rotate into the positives. This could be voice or text narrative.

The image below overlaps the negative and positive way of looking at dyslexia.

I thought I would change the colour palette so it is clearer which perspective was negative (red) and which one was positive (green). The red is a background because this is the perspective I started off with at the beginning of the week, I wanted to make it look like the positive perspective is in front to show my present state of mind.

I reverted back to the knitting pattern colour to sustain the idea of gaining a sense of control and giving myself permission to be slow. The old way of thinking (negative perspective) is faded into the background, whilst my new positive outlook is clearer as a top layer.

Maybe this could be an animation? The negative/old perspective can fade away as the new perspective comes into view.

Discussion

Reflection //

I have enjoyed getting to know my dyslexia a bit more and finding out how other designers put a positive spin on their learning disability and use it to their advantage. Although my attitude towards dyslexia didn't change until later on in the week, I am surprised how I managed to rescue and reuse work I had already spent time on; I still wanted to incorporate knitting as a symbolism for accepting the slow process.

I would have liked to have brought all of my ideas to life but there were so many within the limited time frame. I feel that this has been my best week in terms of idea generation and I'm pleased that research from previous weeks have influenced this outcome.

Additionally, I would have liked to go into more research because I would have liked to look at more designers and find out what creative process model works best for them; however, I have recently been accepted into 'Dyslexic Design' facebook community, so I am excited to see more work as well as having other dyslexic people to talk to within the creative industry.