Next week I'll give a talk to first year students Communications and Multimedia Design at the Hogeschool Utrecht. I've decided to use this mindmap as the place to present from instead of using slides. The mindmap serves as a rough timeline of my activities and contains links to files and folders on my laptop. Where appropriate I can follow those and open additional PDFs, images and whatnot.
This is another example of how a mindmap helps me establish structure and content of a talk in parallel. (previously: this one) From the same view I can add detail by adding notes on any one of the items in the map. I really like how this lets me zoom in and work on the actual contents, then zoom out again to tweak the overall flow of things.
I learned this from Elliott Earls. He just posted a new episode Alpha designer, Beta designer. You can see there how he used a mindmap to plot his argument before recording and progressively shows and expands it in the video itself. His Studio Practice videos come highly recommended.
Nobody has “fulfill destiny as a human being on this planet” on their to do list, but ultimately that is what it boils down to.
The requirements: Control & Perspective.
Control
Capture what has your attention
Clarify if this needs action, if so, what done means and what doing looks like
Organize these commitments and decisions in a trusted system
Reflect on best way to engage, decide on next action
Engage, do it
This approach to getting things under control applies to multiple levels of perspective:
Perspective
Purpose
Principles your rules of engagement
Goals 12-18 month horizon
Responsibilities 4-7 areas to maintain
Projects things to finish within a year
Actions things to do
And don't expect to stay in control but get thrown off multiple times each day. Notice it happening and regroup.
Good practice
Pay attention to what has your attention
Decide on desired outcomes and the actions required
Free your psyche with a trusted system
Teach what you need to learn the most
Share these ideas
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Using GTD does tend to generate its own kind of busywork. Still, I find it true that the clarity that comes from this control and perspective is needed for finding the right way in and through the mess of work, art, life.
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At first glance the examples seem to be more about cataloguing the different structures for creating patterns than about actual ornaments as embellishments.
The title “A new grammar of ornament” seems a bit too eager to refer back to and build upon the 1856 book Grammar of Ornament. The focus in the new one is very much on the grammar part. Categories like “Minimal triangular with dots” and “minimal triangular with lines” primarily refer to how individual parts in the pattern relate to eachother while at the same time choosing to consider only the most elementary units of ornament: dots, lines, shapes. This may be intentional so that the focus actually stays on the grammatical rules underlying the patterns. But then why are the examples in the oldgrammar so much richer?
The lovely and punny Present and Correct, purveyors of exquisite office things, posted about my Lego letterpress bird prints. Accompanying tweetage garnered over a 1000 likes.
A small thing but pretty huge for me!
You can go bird watching here. As you can tell, that is more a gallery site than a shop, but should you be interested in acquiring a print, just contact me.
