We Are All [Artists]

We started off Design Week with inspiration from Tim Owens @timmmmyboy.  I loved it and used it as inspiration to create a Haiku Deck using all original photographs.  (First time ever!)

We have been asked to reflect on all aspects of design -- "What is design? It is everywhere you look- anything we create or manufacture has key design elements.   This exercise makes you acutely aware of your environment.  You begin to see things in new ways. Even fonts and typography are elements of design.  Are you a Comic Sans Criminal:  Spoiler Alert - I was formerly a CSC)?  Did you know that typography can evoke a sense of place?   

I have become so attuned to design that I spent the week watching TV with no sound.  It really is an eye-opening experience!

We have been given a plethora of Design Resources for review in order to become more familiar with elements of design.  My favorite resources is from Duke University's Lab in Digital Knowledge:   "What Do 21st Century Literacies Look Like?  This is ds106 in action!

"When we expand the digital meaning-making conventions that make up 21st century literacies, we expand our ability to interact and connect with each other. Designing in this new digital medium contributes to the development of an even wider collective effort of understanding and communication."

In order to demonstrate our understanding, we were to undertake a Design Safari.  As I write this summary, I realize I don't follow directions very well, and selected one image from my week's catalog of photographs to illustrate my understanding of the concepts. Since it was a safari, I couldn't resist importing the images into MovieMaker and adding a safari soundtrack (thank you YouTube Downloader/Converter).  What I like best about the piece is that it is a safari in Hawaii.  My granddaughter loves to make dioramas when she visits, so the title slide is her contribution.  (We were supposed to upload to Flickr tagging photos #designblitz and blog about whether the images were effective or not...next task).

Another assignment was to design a poster...These projects all involve some aspect of re-editing existing content to change the meaning or making something new that visually represents an idea.  

I decided to use this opportunity to combine ideas for 2 different classes and the 6 Word Memoir was the perfect opportunity.  I ended up with a poster as well as a slide presentation in order to share the idea of "Promoting Creativity in K-12 Education in multiple ways.  I have already received feedback that the font and placement is too busy on the poster and am working on the revision.

 6 Word Memoir

I have also watched with fascination the development of a ds106 collaborative story writing project started by Ary Aranguiz using gifs to tell a story.  Not having the opportunity to participate as yet, this project is the embodiment of "experimentation with collective design processes combined with the development of the images" that is described in "What Do 21st Century Literacies Look Like? 

As Tim Owens pointed out, a creative environment can foster creativity, and ds106 is giving us that environment."