Key 3 spoke of using less but gaining more. Talking about feeling free from dependence on certain things, such as external power. Sometimes when there are more constraints you can create better solutions. I think this is very true in the way that I design, and I think sometimes if you try and give yourself constraints…. it forces you to jump outside the box and think more critically. This reminds me of one of my favorite bands The Dirty Projectors. For one of their latest albums, Rise Above, they brought it on themselves to cover an entire Black Flag album, Rise Above - buttt they put a restraint on themselves. They recreated all of the songs by just having the lyrics - not listening to the original songs. They hadnt heard some of the songs in 10 years. This made for a beautiful album and an even more creative piece of work.
The last chapter in the book, Life, is also one that I think about alot, and have even more this year. Just yesterday I was talking to a friend about how its so ridiculous that we pay someone to cut our hair, when we could go through the trouble of doing it ourselves, or pay someone to paint my toes… when im clearly capable. He used the example of waiting for a pharmacy when you could go grab the right plants to cure yourself. We have trained ourselves to be lazy with all of these extra things! I spent the summer in Stockholm and was forced to walk to the grocery store, and walk back with my bags. This is SUCH a simple things…. but Its amazing how big of a deal it was for me. I was so lazy, and cars made me that way! I finally got used to the idea and was forced to do grocery shopping, and it was so satisfying. Sustaining myself…. it was such a simple thing and it was all of these little things in my everyday life this summer w/ out a car - that made for a better way of life for me. I was addicted to it. Walking around seeing people watching this. It was amazing. I was happier, and i was completely alone. Also with my design. I can remember freshman year and even precollege. I knew nothing about design…. I loved art and drawing and had and eye… but i didn’t know what design “looked like”. I was what the Taoists would call the “uncarved block”. I was so much more inventive and creative. My mind was way more open. With my most recent project in higgins class… I have this great project…. but have been having the hardest time get it down! It wasn’t until my last talk with Higgins that i realized I had be so focused on making this look like something in graphic design “should look like”. I always hated students who did that… and thats me now. In precollege i was scanning things in, using what I had. Really thinking about what I could use as a whole…. Technology can be a disabler for sure.
- Katryna Jones
