Thesis – The Opinionated Design Manifesto [Gabriela d’Amato]

Name: Gabriela d’Amato

Provisional title: The Opinionated Design Manifesto

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Thesis Statement: Through a thorough critical practice involving phases of “Attention” “Intention” & “Intervention” I am able to produce work that is exemplary of my global and aesthetic commentary.

Statement: A successful practice is one that involves highly personal work, I specifically move through three distinct analytical stages which I call 1) Attention 2) Intention and 3) Intervention. The fusion of these stages interjected with careful logic and consideration will lead to not only aesthetically inspiring works, but audience experiences that touch upon a larger internal celebration, struggle or global concern.

Phase 1 – Attention

As an interaction designer I primarily focus on finding issues that affect social and societal interactions themselves. From there is is important to question, how does the specified issue affect design? equally important, what parallels can we make between these social interactions and the visual ones?*

Phase 2 – Intention

The next [ and also the most important ] stage in my design process involves the identification/development of a personal opinion regarding the assigned issue. And although the final product of any opinion does not need to reflect this, it is also very important to identify the ‘wrong’ direction as well. From this stage on I begin to exchange ideas and feedback about my global concern, this is highly important as I strive to archive my feedback as it is given throughout my design process. Moving forward I ask, how do I tell my story, how do I intend to prove both my opinion, as well as the medium that tells it’s tale?* At this point in my design process, research is crucial, I sweep online imagery, gallery walls, and printed text to find examples of work that also communicates a strong idea, whether or not it aligns itself with my personal opinion / aesthetic is besides the point.

Phase 3 – Intervention

The final stage of my design process is the realization of my product or concept though a development of my own visual vocabulary. At this point I ask how will this imagery strengthen my point? What does this visual vocabulary say about my design personality, and what do the combination of the two say about design?* Once again, share and receive feedback, Produce the final item. Launch and Critique.

*Clearly none of this could be realized without my design foundations and personal philosophies, involving a three part system as well – Process, Logic, and Input [ these will be used to answer the questions mentioned in the sections above ]

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Concepts:

1)Anne Balsamo: Week 2

-The use of trans-diciplinary design for social change.

• The artist as a mediator.
• collaboration across levels of profession.

2)Timo Rissanen/Steven Jhonson: Week 3

• Social change and the building of sustainable design models
• Feedback loops, positive and negative.

3)Fredric Jameson: Week 5

-Technology is little more than the outer emblem or symptom by which a systemic variety of concrete situations expresses itself in a specific variety of forms and form-problems.

4) Arjun Appadurai: Week 6

• the importance of media and migration as forces shaping and driving global processes
• the understanding of the concept “modernity” as it is deployed in the text;
• the argument that we should shift from thinking culture (in its noun form) to cultural (as the adjective form).

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Images:

1) September 2012 : Screens and Material Culture (personal work)

Not an image but a concept layout for an application design: Webpage.

http://teaching.synopticoffice.com/course/f12_pucd_3095c/projects/damato/Maquette1/

2) Summer 2012: A webpage created as as showcase for the development of my design process.

http://cargocollective.com/gdamato

3) A look at James Victore: A source for research and inspiration that influences my visual output quite often (He’s a print designer )