DAY 024 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Go Deeper

Teaching design is tough work. One of the design ideas most contrary to modern educational culture is second or third level solutions. Often we (myself included) can treat the design task like a list to be checked off rather than as a dance. Lynne Porter in Unmasking Theatrical Design addresses these different solutions, which increase in nuance, originality and sophistication as we spend more time with a design challenge.

We need to move beyond the base 1:1 equations that make up the surface level, the topsoil design choices. If we continue digging, we’ll get to clay, dense and solid, though maybe cool and a bit analytical. Continuing on, if our aim is true, we’ll get to a real idea, red hot and molten, unique in its particular form to one occurrence. 

It is a union, a fusing of storytellers and story. It is temporal, never to be repeated, but also may have a weight and truth that could resonate through multiple generations. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s what we seek. The trick is to not settle, put down our spade when the going gets tough. As Pressfield writes in The War of Art, Resistance is most aggressive right before we break through.