Design.Smith

How often do we consider the disabled individuals within the structure of our intended audience? Design should be functional to every person and fortunately for us there are groups that are created to enforce regulations that help us keep these people in mind and design for our entire audience.

ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) 

The ADA does not work on a voluntary basis. People do not have a choice wehter to follow the guidelines or not. Built environments must be accessible to people with disabilities. This is the main idea and it encompasses everything from buildings, playgrounds, recreation areas, stadiums, stress and pedestrian walkways and transit vehicles.

The ADA especially focuses on the architects who are responsible for the layout of a building, but designers also have to keep these standards and people in mind when creating and designing.

BIFMA (Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association) 

BIFMA’s mission is to “lead, advocate, inform, and develop standards for the North American office and institutional furniture industry.” BIFMA provides voluntary product and industry standards that:

1.  support safe, healthy, and sustainable environments
2. publish key industry statistics
3. advocate for legislation and government regulation that have a direct impact on the health of the industry
4. facilitate meaningful dialog and education to support core services and the industry

This association specifically targets furniture designers and makers. However, the designer and maker of the furniture can choose to adhere to these standards or not so in the end, it takes a culturally conscious person to think of everyone. 

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)

OSHA focuses on three strategies to ensure employee safety and health 

(1) strong, fair, and effective enforcement;
(2) outreach, education, and compliance assistance; and
(3) partnerships and cooperative programs.

OSHA also has a partnership with the Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) to assist in it’s efforts for safer working environments.

 ANSI (American National Standards Institute) 

“empowers members and constituents to strengthen the US marketplace position in the global economy while assuring the safety and health of consumers and the environment.” The main idea is to improve the global competitiveness of the US business and the American quality of life.

Design Practice: Design Job

After reading Bill McDonough’s Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School I found that there were three main ideas that stood out to me and these were…

-Talent is one-third of the success equation.
This stood out to me becuase as a young designer it just isn’t possible for us to be great at any one part of design and this lets us know that if we combine what we like to do and what we know how to do with hard work, dicipline and a little luck then the skills and success will follow.

-It all comes down to output.
This one rang clear to me because I have found myself in several situations over the years where I either wanted to make something but didn’t have the resources or was told I should design something a certain way when the production of that piece would take far to much time and require many more resources than I have access to.

-The rest of the world counts.
This is another all to important fact. The people you come in contact with are the ones you will need to complete anything you work on. Even the ones you do not like or that bug you can be all to important for you to complete your job and satisfy your client.

These three things all stood out to me because as a young designer about to enter the job market it becomes clear that my inexperience will not hold me back as long as I learn from my experiences, work real hard at everything I do, and always remember who I am designing for and what they want to see.

Design Thinking: Tangoes

The game Tangoes relates to my graphic design education in a few ways. One way is working with spatial relations between each of the pieces and between the actual pieces and the card that represents the image. Another way it relates is that it is a simplified way of showing problem solving skills. You are presented with a problem of creating an image from multiple shapes then you have to go about solving the problem in the simplest way.
One thing that Tangoes does is show how people really work in a group, people were lording over the pieces and many had a really hard time taking any input from people at all. It was a good study in how some people have a hard time working in a group and taking criticism or how if they aren’t the “leader” then they can’t be productive and helpful.
The game also reinforces the idea that there are limitless ways in which to do things and no one idea should be put aside until they are all reviewed and worked through a little bit.

Design Thinking: Business in Grand Rapids

RYAN VAN DYKE
This was a really interesting meeting mainly because Ryan is a recent Ferris Graduate and I had actually talked with him the previous year. It was beneficial to here about the office experience and how they interact with clients and the flow of projects. The most beneficial part for me was learning about contracting or being a temp while the firm learns about your dedication and your abilities. This sounds like something that is very possible to happen to me and it was nice to learn about how to go through it and not feel like your just being used and also to not think that you are now a freelance designer because that takes a lot of experience.

DALIN CLARK
This meeting was intriguing because Dalin has a lot of experience and hearing her talk about relationships and important they are is very important to remember. Also being able to ask someone with her background and experience level questions about design and working with a writer and or anyone else with a different disciplinary focus. The best part was the whole process she had with the question cards and going through them all so everyone got to have some aspect they wanted to know about answered. It was a great way to involve everyone, especially the people who don’t usually talk got questions answered.

BILL HR / Spout
Spout was probably the most interesting because it was from the client or business persons aspect instead of from he design side. It was also really interesting to hear about the development of the site and its main idea. I enjoyed asking questions and learning how the site got its identity and how the tags for the movies were applied to the shirts and how the stickers were used to increase awareness of the sites and other movies.

PEOPLE DESIGN
This visit was beneficial to me mainly because I got to converse with Kevin for 10 minutes or so at the end of the visit and I got a lot out of that. From talking about how people collaborate in the office to the New York trip and what I got out of visiting the agencies there. It was a great feeling for me to be able to talk to a real design professional and carry on an intelligent and worth while conversation. (from my point of view anyway.) Going through the work on the website was interesting because we got to learn how they used in house people as models and also hearing about design discussions and problems. Also I got to take home a whole box of donuts, so that was BA.

Design Thinking: The Big Apple & Me

The Big Apple & Me: I was most inspired by the impact of real life and real people outside of a campus environment. The transition from rural Big Rapids to urban New York was a shock but it was also an experience I enjoyed. The main thing that influenced me was how much I began to like being there and visiting the real design environments and learning how people do their jobs and make a living. I was actually quite inspired and got a little boost of confidence from the interaction with actual real life designers and the back and forth conversations. Specifically Carbone and Smolan was the most beneficial. Not only did we get to see quality work and converse with the designers about decisions and problems they had but I had a few minutes of one on one conversation with one of the other designers in the firm. For me being able to talk with these people and not feel like a college student but someone who knows what they are talking about and can articulate their thoughts was hugely beneficial and eye opening.

Design Practice: Visiting New York

Metropolis: This was a truly eye opening visit into the heart of a wonderful magazine. It was truly inspiring to learn that only 6 designers work on a magazine the likes of Metropolis. The session we had with the Creative Director Criswell Lappin was also an interesting dive into the mind of a man who grew up in the hills of North Carolina ended up as the lead designer on a nation wide magazine. Learning about the process of how things all come together and how designers work together and with editors with a warfare-like give and take but still manage to cooperate and produce amazing work on time. Learning about how the magazine went through a design change and all the thought put into something like that was another thing that was unexpected. There were many more aspects to think about that never would have been unearthed had we not had access to the mind of the master.

Carbone & Smolan: My favorite of the two visits this was an excellent learning experience both about design, design agencies and getting your foot in the door and not being afraid to put yourself out there. The firs thing I noticed about this firm was that all of the people seemed to be really enthused and energetic about what they were doing. It gave me a boost of confidence in my choice of career just by seeing how people interact and relate to create the heart and souls of business. Another great part of this visit was seeing the whole entire process that designers go through when creating the soul or brand of a company. We were shown two great examples of the process and how they created to amazing finished products.