DAY 027 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Use Feeling Words

I’m sitting at a round table, the first spoke in what (in about 20 minutes) will be a wheel of designers, students all of us in our own way. I’m deviating a little bit today from the prompt. It is the penultimate day for our seniors as they head to commencement tomorrow, or as I like to think of it, a Harry Potter convention and reenactment.

How do I feel? What words do I use? I feel grateful to be a part of these student designers’ lives, to have poured a cup into the vasty ocean that is their life experience. I feel whole-hearted joy that they are bravely taking their next step. I feel grieved that I won’t be seeing them on the regular. 

This is one of the things that leads me to what I find so beautiful about design. It’s my understanding that basic actor training is to find one singular objective, one task with which to propel themselves forward. If they were to play everything the human heart can experience in one breath, the result would be unintelligible. 

However, for designers, we get to paint with all the colors. I can find or create a piece of music that expresses all those things simultaneously, a snapshot of our contradictions, complexity and beauty. Designers get to play all the notes, a beautiful mess of meaning that all resonates as one truth.

Here is a quote that I’m sharing with my class later today from architect Bruce Lindsey:

“Beauty is a sustainable resource that we can participate in and share daily.”

I've been able to participate with many of these beautiful students regularly for the past four years. Time for them to express that beauty and truth to the world.