Collaboration vs. Groupthink – A Creative’s Opinion
In an opinion column (“Rise Of The New Groupthink,” Sunday Review – New York Times, January 15, 2012), Susan Cain argues that creative people can only innovate in solitude. She elaborates on her contention that “the current fad” of the “new groupthink,” – in which she includes workplace collaboration, brainstorming, contemporary office space layout, and classroom education – is a nice idea… that doesn’t work. Period.
“Spectacularly creative” people in many fields are often introverted, independent, individualistic AND not joiners by nature, says Cain. So, they can’t work or learn in groups, can’t collaborate productively, shouldn’t be a part of a team and must work in privacy and without distraction. Working in offices with shared space, being asked to contribute to discussions or attend meetings, she writes, will lead to their suffering from higher blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion.
Oh, and if they’re interrupted while they work, they make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish!
Ms. Cain, according to the article, has a forthcoming book on “the power of introverts” and much of her article cites research collected for the book and excerpts from biographies to back up her premise.
Of the many comments posted, as well as with the numerous retweets, links and reposts to sites like LinkedIn that crossed my path as the article made the social rounds, the consensus was in overwhelming agreement with Cain.
“Totally agree,” was one that caught my eye immediately, mainly because a former boss and Creative Director posted it. Others shared stories of pointless meetings, unproductive brainstorms, decisions made by “bean counters,” inept management and the general suffering and soul-sucking terribleness that apparently pervades their workplaces – because they have to work with others.
To the Editor:
Susan Cain makes one valid point in that creative people often prefer to work in solitude. Being a “creative person” myself, and having worked for many years alongside other designers, writers, programmers, directors, editors, animators and fine artists, I concur that we “creatives” aren’t always the most social lot.
Cain uses quotes like “without great solitude, no serious work is possible,” by Picasso, and takes advice from Apple founder Steve Wozniak to “work alone… not on a committee. Not on a team.” She even hauls in loner hall-of-famers like Moses, Jesus and Buddha to show that great thinking is a solitary process.
The problem is that she then makes a giant leap to conclude that teamwork, collaboration, classroom education and brainstorming are essentially useless – even bad for business. Creative high achievers are not joiners or “group thinkers,” she suggests – they function at a higher level and shouldn’t be held back by the tedium of workplace interaction.
That Cain is charmed by a romantic idea of the quiet genius, working without constrictions like schedules, meetings, budgets… and reality is obvious. What’s not so obvious is whether she has any insight to offer companies that employ or wish to employ and retain innovative employees.
A good starting point might be for her to recognize that all work environments can be adjusted to improve productivity and nurture innovation – however, focusing solely on the needs of “creative employees” isn’t the way to do it. Companies are teams, and teams have schedulers and “bean counters,” in addition to creatives. And, not all “creatives” are created equal, for that matter.
Collaboration is about problem solving together – not creativity-killing groupthink – and being able to see problems from all perspectives is essential to solving them.
Markus Horak, 2012
Design For My Future Self – Part 2
I recently completed work on a website that was designed specifically to be a promotional tool for the authors of a new book, Unassisted Living: Ageless Homes For Later Life (The Monacelli Press, 2011). The book documents an amazing collection of single family homes and multi-residence properties that were built and furnished specifically for aging boomers – each defining retirement living in ways that are uniquely meaningful to the owners.
Design for the elderly – or, “design for my future self,” to put it in a way that may seem more relevant to some – is a topic that I have been interested in for many years and have written previously about in this blog. It’s also a topic that doesn’t seem to get nearly the amount of attention that it deserves.
Click here to check out the site, preview the book – and see a completely fresh take on what “retirement living” can mean (provided that the funds are available). The project has rekindled my interest in this area of design and introduced me to a new term, “aging in place.” It’s poetic and simple, but says so much about how I, and I’m sure many others, would like to experience their later life… however far that may be down the road.
Closed For The Season
If you spend any time driving near the ocean on the east coast, you’ll eventually come across a resort town like Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Dozens of motels with names like The Americana, The Neptune, Moontide Motel & Cottages, Edgewater and The Beau Rivage Motel line the street front, separated only by tarmac and outdoor pools.
During the summer season, the parking lots are full, and no-vacancy signs buzz on and off along the strip.
In Maine, however, the beach season is short and traffic is all but gone by late September. Pools are drained, plastic furniture is stored away, shuffleboards and bocce courts are covered and knickknack shops and pancake houses close for the winter.
Maybe it’s the extreme contrast between high and low season, but the effect is palpably melancholic, eerily quiet and, in my opinion, the best time to spend a day exploring. I took these pictures in October – wandering around, peeking into shop windows, imagining histories and completely enjoying the off off… off season-ness of it.
Nothing says summer’s over in quite the same way – and there’s not a more compelling reason to drive along the coast in the fall than the fact that no one else seems to want to be there at that time… except me.
See you next year.
More: view photos here…
DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING CREATIVE STRATEGY – PLANNING WITH AN EYE FOR WHAT’S NEXT.
All businesses evolve. Trends pass, technology eases some tasks and complicates others, economies shrink and grow, and new markets emerge – while others disappear.
Businesses adapt accordingly, or they fade away.
"video" clothing & holographic projections - future marketing and media design challenges?
Over the past 20 years, I’ve had the right-place, right-time advantage of being at the center of some of the most iconic brand transformations, product introductions and technology shifts in the media and entertainment industry. Working for a series of innovative branding and design firms put me in a front row seat, then on stage, and eventually in the conductor’s chair for cable channel launches, identity overhauls and high-profile commercial campaigns. I’ve been on board for countless equipment and software “firsts,” and navigated through waves of techniques, methodologies and theories before they were scrapped, replaced and then scrapped again.
Change has been, and will always be, at the heart of this industry.
Media and entertainment design, packaging and promotion are, on a very basic level, window dressing. A big part of what we do is to take our product (channels, shows, news, events, movies, music, etc.) and display it in ways that catch the attention of passers-by on the busy, worldwide, multi-platform sidewalk.
From a strategic perspective, that dressing is also the visual representation of market insight, research and forward thinking that comes together in one big, dimensional and tangible brand message for the viewer.
The broadcast media industry, of course, is changing again. Companies are now contemplating the best way to negotiate with consumers whom, thanks to the internet and social networks, refuse to accept their news and entertainment served up in traditional formats or on set schedules. While the basic structure of movies, television shows and video hasn’t changed substantially, the way they’re watched has.
This latest digital / cultural / behavioral / distribution upheaval is still playing out. And, as traditional media companies cobble together and solidify their responses to it, a new crop of competitors is free to wade into the mix with tailored-from-scratch solutions that nimbly straddle both old and new. And, viewers continue to do whatever works best for them.
Before Facebook, Google and YouTube, et al, web-based businesses mostly competed for hits with gimmicky graphics and print & broadcast advertising – acting like traditional media companies, only with online distribution. It took the “dot com” bubble to burst, and a little ingenuity to happen, before the real potential – the social connectivity – of the web could emerge and take hold. Now that the web has stepped out of the shadow of its older siblings, traditional media companies are scrambling to evolve their businesses to deal with the competition.
Digital-vs-traditional content and its distribution, packaging, promotion and market share woes are only the beginning of the story. As much as the internet has morphed into the business, entertainment and communications juggernaut that it is today, it’s still just an awkward teenager with plenty of growing to do.
Further, we’ve barely begun to see what advances new hardware might usher in. Who says, for example, that developers of consumer products must remain confined to the limits of rectangular film or video aspect ratios just because that’s what works best for television or the printed page?
Which brings us back to change and adaptation.
On a recent episode of The Office, the paper and office supply company Dunder Mifflin introduced its latest offering, the Sabre Pyramid, a tablet to end all tablets. Weighing in at a substantial three pounds, this triangular titan also comes with sexy accessories, including a battery pack and memory booster to supplement the device’s “50L” capacity.
It’s a wonderfully snarky jab at the keystone cop response by every other non-iPad tablet manufacturer in the market right now (the jury is still out on Kindle’s Fire). A comparison, though, could be made to much of traditional media’s response to the challenges brought on by digital platforms and an entirely new consumer paradigm. We’ve watched the music industry flail for years, printed newspapers and magazines near extinction and even highly successful “new” companies bumble ridiculously with their digital strategies – can you say Netflix?
Apple’s iPad and i-everything success comes from being willing to go in completely new directions, then, from lining up great products behind impeccable design and marketing. Easily enough said – and, based on the examples above alone, not so easily done.
A good starting point, however, for media companies and their marketing teams, would be to embrace the potential of future technologies and focus less on how to control the havoc they may wreak on existing business models and strategies.
Recycling and reacting solely to what the other companies are doing will always be an outdated plan.
© Markus Horak, 2011
You may also be interested in the following posts:
> Designing For An Alternate Reality – All Aboard The Transmedia Train
> Six Tips for Hitting a Design Brainstorm Bull’s-Eye
> The Skinny on Briefs – How to Write Creative Direction for Designers
Gimme Shelter
PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIOLOGY IN A MAINE FOREST
Cathedral Woods on Monhegan island, Maine, is a naturally spiritual place. Densely packed with soaring pines, it covers a lush and wild stretch of the island and remains cool and serenely quiet throughout the day.
For decades, children have built small “houses” out of twigs, bark and fallen leaves that are intended to shelter the forest’s alleged sprite and fairy populations. The houses are creatively tucked into nooks, woven into low hanging branches, shored up alongside protruding roots and even hidden in stumps and behind rocks.
It’s a swell tradition, but one that also has its detractors – namely those that object to the aspiring architects’ urge to build newer, flashier and more blinged-out abodes. The fairy housing boom has unfortunately seen its share of unscrupulous contractors who disregard local zoning rules (translation, they leave litter behind, build new rather than renovate, and often kill living plants for their creations… just like in the real world).
While photographing these structures this summer, I thought about how they must reflect the homes and neighborhoods of the kids who built them. Pine cone paved driveways divide adjoining tracts along the main path, and countless other small details give them all a touch of individuality without ever straying too far from the norm. It’s a mini-suburb – of a big forest – on a tiny island.
Curious Anonymous Stories – Part 7
INFO-GRAPHICS AND BEING INFORMED… OR NOT
This brief story is about trust in information. Trust in what we know and what we think we know. Trust that we are prepared. And, trust that what we learn is correct, sound and adequate.
I have always been fascinated and somewhat entertained by instructional drawings – the more dire the situation depicted, the more interested I tend to be. Despite the potentially lifesaving information they provide, safety guides, like airplane seat cards and “conspicuously posted” Heimlich maneuver posters, primarily catch my attention for a single reason – they’re morbidly humorous.
In an effort to boil intricate details or complex choreography down to a series of easily comprehensible steps, instructional illustrators often unintentionally over-simplify their drawings. The results are either dreamy or cartoonish, and fail to convey the severity of the situation or task at hand.
From my perspective, this seems especially true of vintage or foreign instructional illustrations for which new wisdom or methodology has replaced outdated techniques – or, where printed instructions in other languages add to, rather than alleviate, any lingering confusion.
A number of years ago, I happened to be at an outdoor antiques market picking through a pile of mostly terrible drawings and watercolors, when I came across a small stack of black and white gouache paintings with markings that suggest they were intended for print. I was immediately captivated by what seemed to be a very contemporary series of stylized and minimalist depictions of hand-to-hand battle. Each drawing was titled in pencil with a name like “Stop a Body Kick” or “Disarm Opponent With Gun.”
More: continue reading here…
Wild Temperature Swings – Loving the Hots, Warms and Cools
MASTERING THE USE OF COLOR BY EXPERIENCING AND DOCUMENTING COLORS IN CONTEXT.
Learning to see the full spectrum of color – and understanding how individual shades combine to create new tones and hues – are two of the most basic skills a designer or artist will ever learn.
Beginning with the universally experienced elementary school tempera paint mistake – commonly known as icky brown – we all gradually improve and expand on our mixing skills. Some of us even master that purple we were going for in the first place.
Being more than a few years beyond those early lessons, I’ve learned a thing or two about color – and continue to do so however and whenever I can. I’ve written about traveling with an eye for color, even traveling specifically to seek out new colors. I pay attention to color use from past decades and am much more aware of how they can change from season to season and at different times of day. I am very interested in how colors affect mood, habit, appetite and even memory – and I’m fascinated by how culture plays into our understanding of, and relationship to them.
A new study, conducted by Columbia University, recently caught my attention. Researchers concluded that, since the advent of search engines, we have reorganized how we handle memory storage. Our brains increasingly rely on the internet, much the same way we depend on the memories of friends and family, to hold onto facts and details that are important to us. We simply choose to forget things we are confident we can dig up again online.
Bringing Soulful Back – A Tactile Approach To Design
INCORPORATING FOUND TEXTURES AND PATTERNS INTO MOTION GRAPHIC PROJECTS – ADDING DEPTH AND PERSONALITY IN THE PROCESS.
For years now, and probably since I started working as a graphics and motion designer, I have been drawn to unusual textures and patterns. Specifically, I have become a connoisseur of the types of vintage and antique surfaces that can’t be realistically duplicated by even the most sophisticated software.
It seems to me that the more advanced computer programs become at generating slick, reflective and transparent surfaces, and the easier and more affordable these programs become, the less variety we see in design across television and the web.
Textured and patterned surfaces take time and skill to collect, coordinate and present in pleasing arrangements – and it’s simply far easier to create “hi-tech” and polished looking graphics than it is to work in a more tactile direction.
I’m not suggesting that all designs should incorporate complex found textures and patterns, but it would be refreshing to see them implemented more frequently in network branding, commercials and show titles.
Truly memorable graphics are always those that enhance and reinforce the mood and content of what they promote, and do so in a fresh and novel way. If impeccably lit, transparent and shiny surfaces, choreographed splashes of liquids, highly polished and flaming parts of mystery machinery, or fly-throughs of glowing letters in deep space accomplish this, then I’m in favor of their use (sort of). If not, I’d prefer to see something more original – something that shows at least a modicum of creative stretch on the part of the design team.
Recently, a few articles, blog posts and web sites have popped up that are dedicated to the “new” trend of “tactile design.” Apparently, a group of designers has become so disenchanted with the “soulless” and “cold” look of contemporary digital techniques and graphics, that they have started a rebellion of sorts.
The interesting twist this time around is that the newly invigorated movement toward “tactile design” seems to primarily be coming from young designers that have never known design without software. They presumably have taken the most current 2D / 3D design and animation software for a spin and discovered its many limitations. Instead of pushing the software to go further, they’ve stepped away from their desks or out of their studios and are now extolling the virtues of… found design.
Hallelujah.
In this spirit of tactile design, I’ve included frames below from a recently completed project that incorporated a mix of over 100 found textures and patterns. Plaids, herringbones, denims and faded florals were mixed with tea stained, scribbled and age-vignetted papers to create the final animation.
You can read more about the project and watch the final piece here.
© Markus Horak, 2011
Mind All Your Ps and Qs While You Still Can
THE ART OF CURSIVE, LIKE SHORTHAND, MAY SOON BE A QUAINT RELIC OF YESTERYEAR.
Cursive handwriting is still widely taught in American public and private elementary schools, but, its use by current students and young adults is in rapid decline (read more here and here). When handwritten essays were introduced to the SAT in 2006, only 15% of the 1.5 million students who took the test wrote their answers in cursive. The rest chose to print.
Just as keyboards and recording devices helped make shorthand an unnecessary skill for office staffs and journalists, a range of new devices and modes of communication has gradually eaten away at the relevance of fast and artful penmanship.
And, with more and more testing-oriented, budget-challenged school systems removing cursive from their elementary curriculum, it’s only a matter of time before entire groups of Americans will find some – if not all – of the following logos to be illegible:
What will this mean for companies that have developed logos and other aspects of their branding and advertising with the use of script or cursive fonts? Will they find it necessary to re-design using block letters, doing away with – in many cases – decades or even centuries-old identities in order to remain accessible to all readers?
At the very least, this latest development represents a potential sea change for graphics professionals who will lose the ability to base their designs on flowing cursive letter forms.
Does it make financial or strategic sense, going forward, for any company to introduce a logo based on a script font?
As a term, “John Hancock” refers generically to a signature – and putting your John Hancock on a document means adding a mark that is as unique as your fingerprint. Looking at the stylized handwriting of the original John Hancock in the logo above, I’m reminded of the significance of his grandly overstated and flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence.
Would we know his name today at all if he had printed it in block letters?
© Markus Horak, 2011
LOOKING FOR DESIGN’S PLACE IN AN EMERGING ENTERTAINMENT FORMAT – AND FINDING IT EVERYWHERE
scene from "L’Arrivé d’un Train" - 1895
One persistent scrap of film “fakelore” is that moviegoers in the 1890s bolted from theaters, terrified by footage of an oncoming locomotive in the Lumière brothers film L’Arrivé d’un Train. Others are that The Jazz Singer was the first feature “talkie” with sync audio – and that D.W. Griffith invented “film language.”
More examples here.
Historians question the likelihood of spectators running hysterically from a sequence of flickering black and white images of a moving train. Being pioneers in film simply allowed the Lumières to over-hype the thrill of seeing their movie – and who at the time knew better?
Likewise, Al Jolson wasn’t the first actor to be recorded on a soundtrack, but his movie was a financial triumph and is therefore most often referred to. And, the D.W. Griffith credit likely grew out of the director’s self-promotion efforts years prior to The Birth of a Nation.
I couldn’t help thinking about these quasi-markers in film history, while attending the Power To The Pixel and Wired Magazine Cross-Media Forum held in New York last week. As each new speaker introduced his or her contributions to the nascent format of transmedia, the “new” frontier of interactive entertainment, I thought about the story of the Lumières’ audiences. I wondered which member, if any, of the panel would be able to claim his or her own shockingly real speeding locomotive and, with it, a place in history.
Transmedia is a form of storytelling that involves a traditional element like a film, video or book – and combines it with audience interaction via social media, story-specific merchandise, game elements and events, etc. This allows the creators to delve much further into details that weren’t, or couldn’t be explored in the original film.
WHAT THOUSANDS OF HITS, “LIKES” AND COMMENTS CAN TEACH YOU:
My aim is to compose a new post for this blog at least once each week – but since it’s entirely a labor of love, this “schedule” gets pushed when I’m busy. Occasionally too, I sit and wonder what to write about – or question why I’m spending the time writing at all. This tends to delay things as well.
A week ago, WordPress featured one of my recent posts on Freshly Pressed – essentially pointing it out as one of their favorites to the gazillion subscribers and daily readers of the WordPress homepage. And, from Friday through Wednesday of the following week, readers went from respectable (my assessment) – to comparatively INSANE.
After the digital dust settled, I was able to quasi-analyze which of my posts and images got clicks – and which didn’t. Those that did had:
- topics that were relatable or of general interest
- an emotional aspect or connection to readers
- a means of interaction, questions or sharable tips
- strong images or video incorporated
- something original to say or show
In a very simple way, the experience helped me re-answer the question – why blog? Unlike waiting for feedback from pitches or discussing work with colleagues, the impact of “like” and “don’t like” in this case was instant, blunt and very informative. This equals good click – whereas this, not so much… no click.
For me, the main reason to blog is feedback. Through reader comments, clicks and searches, I glean a terrific amount of insight into what people like and respond to – and that makes me a more informed writer, presenter and designer.
The posts that were least successful at attracting readers (and therefore clicks) are what I’ll call curatorial – re-posts of images or material that I came across and wanted to pass on. For this type of post, it seems that even my most brilliantly witty titles and thoughtful copy (if I may say so myself), failed to garner much curiosity.
The post that racked up the most hits – out of over 12,000 – was about a former roommate’s collection of souvenirs, and how memories and meanings that are tied to such objects, can evolve over time. In short, it told a story – and readers liked it. The fact that it provoked emotion is evident in their comments, which contained stories of lost loved ones, distant childhoods, holiday traditions and personal mementos.
In between the most and least read posts, were dozens of examples of images that inspired a click, when those around them didn’t – and articles that were read and shared, when others were ignored.
This is all basic to A/B or usability testing on websites and games – and it’s a natural part of the discourse to people who regularly make presentations or give speeches. However, without access to focus groups and audiences, you’re not likely to have many opportunities that allow you to see a large-scale and unbiased opinion of your ability to convey a concept – or the effectiveness of your choice of words, images and designs.
© Markus Horak, 2011
Remember The Future?
A few weeks ago, I came across a stash of slides of my student work that I had always intended to transfer to digital storage before their emulsion deteriorated and I lost them forever. Since starting an archiving project didn’t seem like a particularly fun way to spend my weekend when I last had them out, I stuffed them back in their box and let them sit on a closet shelf for a couple (or five) more years instead.
Unfortunately, during that last stretch of neglect, some unofficial expiry date passed and they literally, and almost comically, devolved to the final stages of a complete film meltdown. This time around, I would either have to transfer them immediately to my computer or take a final look and toss them in the trash. I decided to give preservation a try.
Luckily for me, there were enough duplicates of each slide that I was able to scrape together a good representation of the work and send them through the scanner before exposure to light and air did them in completely. I felt a bit like Howard Carter must have while handling Tutankhamun’s knickknacks, but these artifacts were neither particularly earth shattering or especially old. In the end, I was able to scan about seventy-five slides, or what amounted to a quarter of the portfolio.
Six Covers In Search Of A Book
THE POWER OF NARRATIVE IMAGERY
A book’s cover is always created after the book has been written – and its design is what attracts eyeballs, piques interest, and helps sell copies to readers. However, having trudged through a good number of books with more memorable covers than content, I’ve decided to reverse that order for this post.
Below are six covers for imaginary books.
A Dilemma For Señor Magalhães
Several years ago on a trip to Madrid, I spent an afternoon at a used book shop, flipping through an endless stash of dusty exhibit catalogs from the Prado Museum.
I was specifically looking for images of Spanish art that I could incorporate into a future project. But, having devoted the previous day to the actual Prado, the shop’s moldering and faded reproductions of Velázquez and Goya just weren’t what I’d hoped for.
At the front counter on my way out, I picked up a business card that featured a simple line drawing of a very serious looking gentleman – possibly another shop owner. The bottom of the card reads “collection of T. Magalhães” – and contains little other information.
The shop also specialized in mystery and crime novels. This sketch, with its aquiline profile and pencil mustache, comes to mind when I think of vintage cloak and dagger – Madrid style.
Curious Anonymous Stories – Part 6
Travel souvenirs and trinkets are items we collect and hold on to – not because they have monetary value or practical use, but because they remind us of places we’ve visited and experiences we want to continue to relive and enjoy. Without that personal connection though, cheap architectural models, logo mugs, key chains and display spoons are unlikely to inspire anything other than an urge to de-clutter.
Years ago I had a roommate that kept her collection of doodads and tchotchkes on a shelf in our living room. The keepsakes were mostly kitsch and, individually, not that interesting. Viewed as a group, however, they were elevated in my opinion, and somehow managed to be the focus of much contemplation on my part.
I recently received an email from this old roommate – now reconnected friend – to which she had attached the five photographs below. At some point during our time in the apartment together, I mounted all of the individual objects to an empty wall and added my own imagined recollections and meaning via notes and sketches.
We moved away – and years passed. She kept the sketches and the trinkets.
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- Eiffel Tower
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- Monticello
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- PoMo Potato Head
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- Greek Plate
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- Change Purse
Looking at them for the first time since then, I was reminded of why we hold on to mementos. I still have no idea what PoMo Potato Head is or why its limbs are so contorted – but seeing this Eiffel Tower, Monticello, change purse and plate brought back another lifetime and (now) genuine personal memories that were, until recently, many layers deep and all but forgotten.
This is the sixth curious anonymous story – it’s about collecting, assigning & storing memories – the passing of time – and PoMo Potato Head.
© Markus Horak, 2011
Freshly Cut – Tactile Design
INSPIRATION / TACTILE DESIGN
As a follow-up to my last post on creating story boards without using software, I thought I’d post these architecture models by Japanese designer Naoki Terada.
Each of Terada’s miniature model kits depicts a generic setting in 1/100 scale – which, despite their lack of detailed features, still manage to convey a world of emotion and narrative.
Sure, we’ve seen countless variations on animated cut paper objects, but the colors and variety in the people and settings depicted here would make for a welcome re-take.
