how are you doing, eric ?
i’ve been well as well ! although,,, my independent work deadline is coming up which i am not ready for :~/
the whitney biennial sounds nice ..!! did you enjoy it ? i hope to go once classes are finished.
the interview format..
i’m not really a fan of environments that place pressure on people to instantly churn out responses. i personally enjoy taking time to think, and wished to give you an ample amount of space to think and respond as well. at first i thought about interviewing through instagram dms.. or through an email chain. but dm felt too limiting. email felt a bit too impersonal ?
i guess i am interested in alternate methods of communication. specifically discovering ways to converse using tools that aren’t necessarily meant to serve that purpose.
also, with laurel’s class being about links and websites, i thought it would be fun to construct a website as we go. maybe i'll add on stylistic elements here and there (you can too, if u want) throughout the interview. or should i wait until the end to style the page? or should i even style it at all.. what do you think
i had a similar thought — that perhaps the page would be built over the natural course of this conversation. the idea of adding CSS and HTML as things go, is quite an interesting idea.
it reminds me of this idea of world building — to have a complete control over the space of a space in order to totally control the flow/outcomes. i’m in the middle of watching this tv show, called severance, which takes place at the old bell labs building in NJ. i was in awe of how thoughtful the cinematography, and the set direction were.
i also think of the role a designer has in defining these environments. it is on us to consider nearly every aspect of an environment as part of the process.
one thing that i have thought about in past experiments with conversation is the time aspect. i feel as though one aspect we lose out on in these drawn out conversations is the rapid response, as well as a filter that removes any filler words unless uhm, we decide to add them back in.
i guess we lose out on rapid response and filler words, but gain things like visuals, more polished thoughts, and links!
in terms of environments and world building, i think design is power. designers define environments — the brain is also an environment. one could say designers shape how people’s brains work, and thus the environment in which they think.
as i was working on an assignment for david’s class, and another for laurel’s class, both which related to time, i thought about how people often don’t question the way we tell time. why are there 24 hours in a day? does there have to be? why do our conventional 12-month calendars look like that? why do we accept these as norms? it makes me think about who had the power to design these conventions that we operate around.
i think about how oftentimes people who have the most power to influence through design tend to look a certain way, especially in terms of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. as you mentioned, it is on designers to consider nearly every aspect of an environment as part of the process, but when the designers have limited experiences that they can pull from, what are the consequences?
i think it’s these kinds of design spaces composed of limited perspectives (and failure to recognize perspectives that are absent) that lead to outcomes like the harriet tubman $20 bill, a design choice insensitive to the fact that Black people have been treated as currency in this country in the past. or a re-design of the NYC subway car made with the intention to keep people from dancing / performing in the cars, which is inherently excluding poor people who perform for their livelihood, as well as inhibiting art in public spaces.
i am curious — as you are someone who designs / develops sites that reach a wide audience — how do you create an environment that listens to all different types of people ?
you raise a lot of interesting points. like, especially on the subject of design influences and history. more recently, there has definitely been an awakening of sorts to the process of decolonizing design. designers of other races and genders are starting to finally get their due, but not too often quick enough.
i wonder what would happen if you approached design from this perspective that no matter what you do, your work will inherently be exclusionary. it is very hard to make and build a design that is truly equitable in terms of access. partly because design is so subjective, and the narratives in which you couch your interpretation of design vary so greatly.
another thought that comes to mind is this idea of accessibility of design. a lot of work has gone into making HTML (the structure in which websites are built) as accessible as possible. so i suppose one way to think about making work accessible is by just building your website to be as readable by a screenreader as possible. other tools such as APCA evaulate color contrast of type on background.
all these tools help us be better designers and developers. but they also can shape the work we produce. and even in these tools, there may be inherent decisions thata are made for us. so perhaps i’m being fatalistic, but i think i’m saying that it’s impossible to make a design that is truly equitable.
you’re either limited by your own short comings or by the tools you use. and then perhaps the best thing to do is to be aware of these short comings and try your best.
that makes a lot of sense. maybe sometimes the best we can do is to try our best. i think the first step in the right direction is developing an awareness of your limitations, and recognizing the power you have to shape people as a designer. because a lot of designers are not even / don't try to be more aware of their limitations and privileges.
this stuff makes me wonder what it even means to be a designer. shouldn’t everyone be thinking this way about the things they shape and create? i feel like this kind of design thinking that emphasizes awareness of shortcomings and exclusivity can and should be integrated into any job — teachers, engineers, doctors, curators, ... even parents. who doesn’t design? who is not a designer? this reminds me of when i read ruined by design by mike monteiro a while back and was shook by the concept that "you cannot not design."
anyway, there’s something i wanted to ask you since the beginning. i am quite interested in hearing how people describe themselves. i mean, i can look on your website and see what you do, but i am curious to hear from you ..
who are you ?
describing who i am will inevitably fall short of the truth. i think i have been searching, my whole life. sometimes a picture will be taken to capture myself at a certain moment in time. or the picture will have a purpose to try to capture myself for a specific usecase (such as a professional headshot). in these situations, the pictures represent a slice of who i am, or who i want to project myself as.
i could describe myself by saying that i am some sum total of the content that exists out there that has been authored by me. perhaps i think that is a bit closer too the truth.
i am a person, not so different than you. i live and work in new york, and am trying to define myself against the mirror of every day living. i work at a museum and teach, but also have found that being defined by that leads to other paradoxes and contradictions.
i am a designer and a developer. but those words mean different things to each of us.
i am a writer, trying to put words onto the page that hopefully mean something, to some one. and inevitabily who i am might just have to be me holding up a mirror to whatever medium i am expressing myself in and saying, this is me.
boop
i think people can be described, but not defined. but many people try really hard to define themselves.
thanks for that, your response is one of the most interesting ive gotten. if i ask someone at princeton that question, 9/10 they will respond with their year and major. so it was refreshing to hear your interpretation.
i find it difficult to answer that question myself because i find that i'm constantly changing. do you feel like you change a lot? when do you know you've changed / are changing? i am curious not just in terms of not just personality, but also style, ways of thinking about and approaching projects, etc.
absolutely. i think also how you describe yourself changes and i can imagine myself when i was a student saying my year and major. also interesting to think about how the environment shapes how we define ourselves, then.
funnily enough, i came across the University’s editorial style guide recently. i would suggest taking a look — it literally gives rules for how we should talk about ourselves.
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i think i have changed a lot. high school me never would have imagined i would be into art, for example. i often think about that shift in which i went from being totally into startups and VC and got more interested in design and art. i have david to thank for that, to be honest.
…which i think makes me double down on the idea that our definitions of who we are are undoubtedly shaped by the environment and those around us. so in some ways, you can attempt to define yourself by your references and those around you.
i’ve also softened a bit in terms of how i feel about product design (UI/UX). i used to despise it absolutely, to the point of looking down on those who were sycophantic about it. these days, i understand there is a time and place for good honest product design, and there is a time and place for conceputally interesting work.
and um being a good designer right out of college is necessarily about sanding down those rough edges you might have as a student and being open to changing those opinions you developed while in an academic bubble.
ooh speaking of david,, i heard from him today that you're coming to the interface crit next week ! i'm in that class, if you didn't know... i hope you like my clock haha
high school me also wouldn't have expected myself to get so into design and art. i chose to be a computer science major because i wanted to be a software engineer at some big tech company at first .. and then freshman year i wanted to do UI / UX design .. but i am very against doing either of those now
i know i want to enter the design / art world next year, but i personally am quite self-conscious about not having received a formal design education (only took 1 graphic design class before this semester), and often feel worried about going into the real world next year and meeting people who went to actual design schools and realizing how much i don't know .. which is frightening and exciting at the same time. i wonder if you ever experienced a feeling like that
by the way, do you use arena ?
i do use are.na! i remember first discovering it, maybe 6 years ago? i had been interning at a studio in the netherlands and it was so interesting — smaller back then. and it felt like everyone knew everyone on the platform.
your note on graduating without a formal design education really resonates with me. i remember struggling with that a lot as a student in the program. how come RISD kids got to take all these courses and do a thesis book while we just had those three classes. i think it was out of that insecurity, ultimately, that i wanted to treat the program as a surface for my practice.
ultimately, i do think i was better off for it. but it definitely is more frightening in the moment. david once mentioned to me in the hallway, when i had asked about why the program is more conceptual than technical,
well, because anyone can learn the technical stuff on the job, but it’s really hard outside of school to learn how to think.
of course, i was paraphrasing a bit — but i do think that rings true for me.
oohh that phrase is so true ..!! most "hard" skills we can learn with online resources and by dedicating time but it seems tougher to find an environment where you can grow your mind without fearing failure / judgment i think.
i guess a technical computer science background is also something you can't always get at other schools
also oops this was supposed to end last night but i ended up falling asleep very early.. thanks for sticking around a bit longer
on that note let's allow this interview conversation come to an end now.. thank you so much for joining me here, eric ! i had a lot of fun speaking with you :~] hope you have a wonderful day at work ~