Dreamtime Book Excerpt – This is where it gets strange...

I think the hardest part of creating the book is the actual idea for the story. At least last year the idea of using a snowflake as the main character was developed. So for this year, I continued the story of the snowflake as a young toddler who learns that when he goes to bed, he has dreams. For simplicity sake and for my sanity, I kept the book format exactly the same. Primarily this meant that I could use my last year’s book format but I would have to write the story to fill the same number of pages. I think I made the right choice.

Again this year, as the last, I used Blurb as the service provider to print the book. Strangely enough, the only difficulty I had was when I went to load the cover artwork. Although I had used the exact same template as the previous year, Blurb’s automated upload routine told me that the cover artwork was too wide. But besides from inputting the book information again into their website forms, the updated template was easy to manage.

My Dream Time

The thrill of creating these books is simple; my nephew loves when people read to him. Fortunately for me he is only to 2½ years old and I don’t think he’ll be logging onto this website anytime soon. But I guess as he gets older and if I continue making him a book at Christmas I will have to post these articles after he unwraps his gifts. I keep wondering how long or how many times I will make him a book. Though I imagine he will not want a book from me indefinitely, when he does look back and if he had say 20 books, I think he would be quite happy and impressed with his fortune.

I hope he likes this one too… even the scary snowflake.

Unnamed Commercial Shoot

So what does a film shoot entail… lots of work, many people and great coordination. I certainly have a new respect for the difficulty of filming a 30 second spot for television that most of us just skip right through.

The whole procedure

Choosing your home

To start things off a location scout came by to see if my home was worthy of shooting in. If it gets placed on the short list the directors, producers, etc, come by for a visit to understand where and how the commercial will be shot. Then if it passes this test and your house is chosen the primary team of about 10 people come by and storyboard every shot and figure out what furniture and props to bring in for what rooms in your home.

The day before

A day before the shoot a team of people comprising of the ‘set dressers’ and the ‘location prep’ come into your home to safely pack away your things, move your furniture and protect your walls and floors. The set dressers then stage your home with their furniture according to the story boards. In the evening a security guard comes and starts placing orange cones on the street to reserve parking for the next day. And yes his job is to sit there all night.

The day of

This is where it gets crazy but remains extremely organized. Everyone all 50 of them show up at your doorstep. To say the least it is overwhelming. There are the producers, directors, gaffers, actors, clients… and the list goes on. The electronic gear comes in first and the clients get directed to their seating area to watch the whole production. I saw a distinct line between the pampering of the clients and the workers on the set. After areas are cardboarded off and the lighting is set up they pull away the protective floor carpeting, the actors move into place and the call for ‘quiet on the set” is announced. Besides from a lunch break, this goes on for the next 12 hours until all the scenes are filmed. When the day is done the electronics are packed up and all electric is removed along with all the people and the long day ends.

The day after

The set dressers and location prep people come back and pack up all the rental furniture and props. The carpet pads are removed, the cardboard is taken off the walls and the cleaning begins. After the cleaning is finished a team comes in and replaces all the furniture to where it was originally as marked on the floor with tape or as seen through pictures taken previously to the shoot.

My impressions

The following things stood out at this particular film shoot:

1. The people in the crew are extremely courteous and polite and professional
2. Smart phones are distractions during filming (in one room about 8 people were sitting around playing with their smart phones instead of talking with each other, one of them even went so far as too say that the phones allow them the opportunity to not talk with each other… they all laughed)
3. There is an enormous amount of work that is done for a 30 second spot.
4. There are always too many people in a room.
5. Acting is not necessarily fun, either is directing
6. The clients are treated very well, and they seem to come out of the woodwork late in the work day
7. One day of shooting translates into three house days and more than a few initial walkthroughs
8. The cleaners that they brought in were excellent and really left my place sparkling

For ‘type A personalities’ like myself you just have to keep to yourself while everyone is performing and address and fix anything minor at the end of the shoot. (in my case, minor things needed to be fixed) Thankfully this process smartly allows for a liaison to the home owner called a location manager and for me this person was James Dawe and his assistant Luke Marshall. They are the people entrusted with the homeowner’s relationship and if it wasn’t for them it would be too difficult to deal with. A special thank you to James, he really came through.

It was a very interesting experience overall. My advice for anyone considering this would be to try and make it a multiple day shoot because once they are in, either for a day or for a week it doesn’t matter. You might as well get paid for it. I think I would do it again and if I am permitted to get picky I would like to do a television or movie show next to see what the difference might be.

In the end though it was great to be back in my home again.

Snowflake Book Excerpt

I inquired further about what company he used and if it was fairly easy to do or tedious and difficult. I also asked him how much time it took to understand the process. On all counts he said it was easy but that his first book required a bit more time. He said he used Blurb as the service company and that he really liked the end results. I genuinely enjoyed his book and started to think of a project for myself. At first I was extremely ambitious and thought of all the possibilities but within a week of uncontrolled enthusiasm and ideas I started to develop a single worthwhile book concept.

My idea was to write two personalized children’s books that I could give to my niece and nephew on Christmas day. But shortly after I started the first book I came to the realization that due to time limitations I would only be able to create one.

I was smitten with the idea of a snowflake theme because everyone likes them and they seem to be a perfectly safe and Christmassy topic. The two ideas that I came up with were:

1. the evolution of snowflakes, Darwin style
2. the life and times of just one flake

I started to write for both but then, with a little feedback, decided on the latter. I thought that writing about one single snowflake and its life would be a more compelling story than a made-up evolution of snowflakes. I would take the snowflake on his journey from birth to death. (mind you his death would be more of a reincarnation that could be celebrated) Basically the story follows the flake on his journey through life as he ages and goes through physical changes and life experiences. It is obviously a quick read and I hope my one and half year old nephew, Nathan will like it. You can read the entire book by clicking on the ‘cover’ below.

My Snowy Life

After producing this single children’s book I want to acknowledge all those authors and illustrators who made my childhood wondrous. And on a personal note I wish to thank my girlfriend Amrit. She was my sounding board for this endeavor and spent lots of time listening to me and throwing out ideas of her own. I think a true collaboration is in order.

Photowall Snapshot

My Impetus

I love my family and friends but I don’t really like family photos spread all around a home and for me the problem with photo albums is that I liken them to corporate art stored in vaults… no one gets to appreciate them. I wanted to showcase my life with family and friends so that I could let them all know I appreciate them and to make myself smile knowing that there are so many people and situations that I have enjoyed. So I set out to create an anamorphic, film dimensioned 2.35:1 photo wall that I could easily update that contained many photos – besides I had the wall space.

The Requirements

I wanted this process to run smoothly so I knew I had to do a little research upfront. I wanted showcase my snapshots but not the frames because with a repeating pattern of photos the frames would seem heavily weighted in the end product. I also needed them to be inexpensive because I was going to have to buy a lot of them. I choose frames from IKEA called ‘Clips’ they fit my need perfectly. These frames can be hung either vertically or horizontally which is great, they have no frame whatsoever, they are extremely light and thankfully inexpensive. I only bought the 4”x6” frames… 220 of them of which 204 are on the wall.

When I examined the frames I realized that I would have to get nails that supported each of the frames well enough so that if the glass frames were poked (by little kids and big ones), they would not easily fall off the wall. And this is where I had to do some research. To make a long story short I found a company called Under the Roof Decorating that produced a product called ‘Deco Nails’. The reason I choose this particular product was that it did a few things to make my life easier:

1. The nails don’t make a large hole in the wall.
2. They have a double ‘saucer’ type head in which they secure themselves to the wall and also make a more secure hanging point for the ‘Clips’ frame hanging mechanism.

I actually think that these nails are rather ingenious, although a little pricey so I worked with a woman named Linda at their main office in Calgary to bring the price down significantly for the quantity that I needed.

The Procedure

And I am sorry folks this is where I could start writing volumes but I am going to be extremely brief in this section. However the pictures at the left of the screen match up to the steps below.

• Step 1 | Since I needed to make sure the whole picture wall would be evenly hung and accurate because of the sheer number of photos I decided to make a template in Adobe Illustrator that I could easily print out and tape together. This template contained all the markers I needed to both align the separate sheets of paper into one large sheet and also highlight each specific point where a nail was to be hammered into the wall.
• Step 2 | Next I taped the whole sheet upon the wall and make sure it was level. By the way, this is why I went through the pain of ‘Step 1’ because afterwards the rest was very simple since everything was aligned and leveled and nothing more needed to be measured.
• Step 3 | Another close up of the whole sheet upon the wall.
• Step 4 | I used one of the nails to make a smallish imprint or sometimes a hole into the wall at every point in the template where a final nail was to be hammered in. I then removed the large sheet from the wall and hammered the Deco Nails in one at a time. This took awhile; having more arms would have helped. There was also a bit of wall cleanup involved.
• Step 5 | This is a sample of the first two ‘Clips’ frames on the wall, one with a photo and one without. Notice how the nails sit flush against the wall.
• Step 6 | At the beginning I had only a few pictures to place in the frames, but I still placed the empty photo frames on the wall.
• Step 7 | This is how the frames look on the wall. When designing the template I spaced every frame about 3 centimeters from each other in both the x and y axis. (some of the frames contain a white piece of paper, some do not)
• Step 8 | All the frames up but only half the pictures.
• Step 9 | The finished ‘family and friends’ photo wall.

The Result

Thank God it is done. It took some time and good old-fashioned elbow grease but I am extremely happy with it. I have already begun to place in new photos and I am looking forward to my photo wall’s evolution. I think I have the most fun though when the younger kids see it because they quickly start scanning the wall and always let out an excited shriek when they find themselves.

The other week the following question was asked of the group: “What does (a) design(er) offer to a process of transformational change?” As a group of individuals we spent some time writing down our independent thoughts about this question on post-it notes and then pooled our ideas on a wall. We each talked briefly about our ideas and then afterwards our group attempted to coalesce our results into a minimal number of unnamed but broadly defined categories.

Results

These results are uneditied and in their raw form taken from the post-it notes.

Group A
Open Mind
Deep Listening
Overcoming the fear
Space to challenge assumptions

Group B
Cross Discipline
Fresh Perspective
Consensus

Group C
Inclusive
Collaborative
Different Perspectives
Collaboration

Group D
Make Decisions
Curration
Intuitive
Efficient Organization of Ideas
Analysis
Understanding of when to keep going and when to leave it alone

Group E
Work optimally within constraints
Functional Solutions
Constraints can be operational or creative

Group F
Appropriation/Adaptation
Ideas can be borrowed and adapted

Group G
No Starting Point
Sense of Randomness
Divergence then Convergence
Adapt to the Unexpected
Welcome emergence
Explode it open then narrow it back

Group H
Contextualize
Synthesize

Group I
Iteration
Refine, review, refine, review

Group J
Elegant
Esthetics
Harmony

Group K
“Simplexity”
Make it clear, coherent and comprehendible
Feels effortless
Clarity

Group L
Multiple formats of presentation
Give Ideas Context
Communicate for mutual understanding and progress
Tell ideas as stories
Illustrative explanations

After inspecting this list I can say we failed at keeping the groups down to a minimum, but I think the content of the list speaks volumes about how design can help create solutions to issues. Too often we think of design as an end result but it should be part of the conversation that helps us evolve better solutions. Just as it is a designer’s job to create something worth taking notice of, when applied properly, the process of design can help concepts or ideas be more readily understood.

Book Spines

The more interesting spines hold my attention firmly while the others usually get nothing more than a quick glance. Visually, I note the colours on the spine, how clean the design is and how clearly I can read the typography. But not until the other day did I ever note the publisher’s logos. I don’t know why they seemed so visible on this particular afternoon, but they were suddenly obvious and unavoidable. I stopped looking and reading the spines and started scanning them for the incredibly variety of logos instead. Most had artwork except for the academic presses, which generally consist of only the name of the press. I noticed that many of the publishers had designed special logos for alternate audience segments and other publishers had refreshed or modernized versions of their logos represented on their more resent print runs. Generally all the logos were one colour line work, using only positive and negative space to make themselves recognizable.

Now for a sobering thought. I can’t help but think that this lovely collage of book spines is going to go the way of the dodo when eBooks become the standard. There will simply be no more jacket art nor spines to peruse, no more colour, line and type to hold my attention. There really is something I enjoy about the tactile quality of the printed book and I am certainly going to miss it if or when it is gone.

A book spines analogy

When the paper book disappears, and some form of eBooks replaces them it is going to be a dark day. I believe it will be a sore reminder of the day when ‘vinyl’ was no longer available on mass. I enjoyed flipping through all that vinyl, there was an art to quickly flipping through hundreds of albums at my favourite record store. Every so often one of the covers would hit a chord with me, I would stop and stare at that album and maybe even pick it out of the bin. If I did, I would lift it up gently and slowly slide the vinyl and lyric page out of its jacket and read the poetry. [Sound of record needle scratching across vinyl goes here] Now we have music downloads so the love of the format is gone, it is mostly about money and distribution now, and not the listener’s experience. Sigh… what follows is a sample from a friend’s bookshelf.

A few unique circles

The task given to everyone in the workshop portion was to draw out 30 circles and within five minutes have each one represented as a unique visual entity. I was enamored with the thought processes of each individual in the room, their various talents, knowledge and personal interests that lead them to draw their unique sets. The following is an amalgamation of a limited set of everyone’s work that I pieced together into the grid below.

Of course the set of circles that can be created are infinite and the circles themselves, drawn by human hand are also unique. But I just can’t help but enjoy the sameness of the group juxtaposed with their individual characteristics.

What impressed me the most about Jane

First I must point out that Jane Suri has a varied and full portfolio of work. There is no question that her enthusiasm and thought process are integral to everything that she does. She has had the good fortune of working on many different projects and after much time, has amassed a great amount of wisdom from working on some very different problems. I truly believe that people earn their opportunities and Jane’s are impressive.

My take on IDEO

IDEO have a very similar design method to most any design lab. I really don’t think that there was anything overtly special about it, just that their confidence and track record can speak for itself and that they have built upon each of their successes with one interesting project after another.

What IDEO knows is what we already know

There is a standard approach to human-centred design which acts as a ‘glue’ for interdisciplinary designers. The basic idea is that ‘people’ have a ‘desire’ for something they want, a ‘business’ will have a ‘viable’ plan to produce said something and then to be workable the ‘technical’ aspects of the project must be ‘feasible’. This process requires that the designers act as research organization and design shop. For all involved the project must have a sense of pleasure and enjoyment and the designers must empathize with their intended audience. (see Good foundations for eCRM, last paragraph)

Suri observes that there are two sides to the equation: rational v.s. intuitive, observation v.s. empathy, data v.s. insight, intellectual v.s. visceral, reality v.s. imagination, etc. But even amid this incomplete list, it is paramount that a designer lives the life of the intended client; watch people use the product, lend space to the customer experience and allow them to get a sense of control. When properly understood this simple idea allows the designer to align themselves with the customer’s goals and produce a better result.

Coming around

Unfortunately I do not believe Jane Suri’s presentation was as good as it should have been and when I arrived back home to review my notes I realized that the lecture seemed insubstantial and that my initial opinion was not going to be a favourable one. I also recognized that I did not appreciate Jane as a speaker, maybe because my expectations were set too high because I have heard so much about IDEO and her personally; after all, she is somewhat of an icon in the United States. In addition, I may have wanted to hear something new from her presentation and I was let down because there wasn’t anything. I think that her presentation really needs to be reworked and at a minimum it should include empirical data that supports the claims made by her and IDEO.

However, now that I have had some time to mull over her talk, I have a different appreciation for her and IDEO. Their work is wonderful and their employees must be good to produce it but it is their passion and their creative insights which are special. And maybe that is the point. People know how to produce great work but sometimes they just don’t spend (or cannot spend) the necessary time and resources on a project. Teamwork is also crucial and although she didn’t say it, she intimated it frequently.

In conclusion

There are many different design labs like IDEO and many superb designers (I will used this term loosely in this article) and I think it is too bad we can’t swap our experiences/companies in which we work on a seasonal basis, I think we would all benefit greatly. Certainly anyone would gain a lot from working with Jane Suri.

Never-the-less I am intrigued by people’s imaginations and always get my camera out when I see new (or not so new) examples of gates, fences and doors. India was rich for ideas but the following series of photographs are from Canada and the United States. They are not meant to be art shots, but rather an image log of possibilities. At 418QE I am constantly reminded of how not to use metal for security because the front door area of this house looks like a jail cell more than a welcoming home. The metal bars are here for a purpose but one day they will hopefully be replaced with a more suitable and less gloomy metal or iron gate.

I should mention that India was a feast for the eyes. Unlike most places in North America India had a wonderful way merging chaos into beauty. Everything seemed lively and comminicative, the following photos are a tiny example of India’s richness.