DAY 001 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Introductions and Caveats

None of the ideas I’m hashing on in this are exclusive to me. I’ve drawn a lot of ideas from Austin Kleon, who himself has drawn from many sources. I teach Kleon in my generalist design classes and I highly recommend if you’re not familiar. Additionally, the other part of my regular diet is the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, so there will likely be thoughts derived from there as well.

Intuition and Analysis

Not much thought is given to our intuitive intellect. We train and train the analysis side, but to what purpose? Obviously, analysis is what puts people on the moon, puts cell phones in our pockets. Analysis is safe: cold, hard, quantifiable. Intuition flows. Intuition can easily be misconstrued or lead you wrong. Intuition is dangerous.

I just asked Beth what she perceived to be the difference between “binary” and “duality.” She condensed what I was feeling, which is that binary is either/or, two related things that have a line down the middle. The focus is on its separateness. Duality on the other hand is two things that run concurrently. It’s more about the relationship between the two headed in the same direction. At least that’s the consensus in the Tibbs’ household tonight.

I’ve been seeing a lot of binaries and dualities lately in the work. A number of them are expressed in the topics I’m hoping to write on. When it comes to Intuition and Analysis, they naturally seem like binaries, but I think the goal for the storyteller is to sort out how to channel them into a duality. How do we channel these two things to be concurrent to each other?