BeautyDialogues

Creative Emergence

There is an external order to my web design work that usually begins with some some variant on the following:

1. Understanding the project thoroughly - things like its purpose and perceived audience, the vision or message it is meant to convey, special needs, budget and time-line, its relation to other parts of a campaign, desired scope or impact, how much control the client wants or needs, what their tech skills and interests are, etc. etc.


2. Honing in and clarifying the structural elements that will be needed - what are the navigation links and how should they line up, technical format, key concepts/words, naming conventions, a rough idea of content, etc. etc.


3. Exploring my client's aesthetic preferences; embodying their pre-dispositions, their likes and dislikes, and coming to shared agreements on "look and feel"

These are all elements that I can share with my client, they are what I say "out loud". But lately I've begun to become aware of another, subtler process that is happening internally, right alongside these external steps. As soon as I start gathering the data in step one, if I pay attention I notice that I'm listening more deeply for the things that are not being said: hopes, competing needs, dreams, aversions and aesthetic quirks, what they want the result to "feel" like, etc. etc. and often without my knowing when or how, a process of incubation begins.

Much of the time I'm only half-aware of what is happening, but inevitably, in its own pace, what I can know with my external senses begins to dance with my intuition and the as-yet unknown. The creativity that flows in my underground streams starts to converge and sooner or later images and sense impressions begin to take form.

I learn about them in my dreams or when I sit down to work on a design and something wholly unexpected emerges. Or, I find I'm always thinking of the project on some level and sometimes I catch a reflection of my thoughts or a disguised version of what I'm silently looking for.

As I become more aware of this process, I'm able to move with it more fully. When that happens my work feels lighter and more "fun" while the results get better and more satisfying.

What about you? Do you have an internal work process that runs parallel with your external routine? What's it like? Are you aware of it? How does it make itself known?

My New Avatar

I've been working with Kara Brown on an avatar for my social networking sites, and am pleased to show you the jewel she came up with...  and share what a wonderful experience it's been working with her on this project.

First she looked at my other avatars, which were mostly photographic, and then we talked about who I am and what I want to say about myself in this medium. She was totally open to my thoughts and feedback, and really heard the essence of my message.

I love what she did with the background, indicating a magical web of connection and inspiration, a green web that connects us to each other and to the natural world.

If you'd like your own, completely customized avatar, or have other illustration needs that could use her playful impressionistic style, give Tara a call! She's talented, intuitive, reasonably priced and I can't recommend her enough.

Sharing the Gift

There's something tremendously satisfying about really helping someone. These days my joy is in helping others navigate their way through web 2.0 challenges. Maybe that's because I know what a little knowledge and confidence in that realm can open up for them.

In the last few days I've helped several people get their bearings in Second Life - get their avatar to look the way they want it, learning to move around and use the menu controls, etc. I love seeing people gain confidence in themselves and enjoy participating in that magical world, but I think my favorite thing is helping people get to grips with blogging.

Each blog is as unique as its author, so it's important that the design and structure of a blogging platform be totally aligned with what the blogger wants to say; what kind of experience they want to convey and evoke in their readers.

Whether it is something as simple as customizing an RSS feed or helping someone through the initial stages of conception, there's something fascinating for me about my work with blogging. Blogging is so personal in many cases, so creative and authentic and raw - something new venturing out into the world, a harbinger of fresh wisdom and beauty and knowledge. There's a particular thrill for me in having a part in introducing these new voices and their new visions.

One thing I've found is that no one knows it all. We can always learn from each other, and I love being part of the chain of sharing what I have learned as much as I enjoy learning from others. This flow of generosity and freedom is really the essence of the gift economy upon which so much of web 2.0 rests, whether or not money is involved.

There's something deeply magical about this, and it goes far beyond web 2.0. In fact, part of the power of web 2.0 may be in its awakening of this deeply human impulse to share what we know with each other. Whatever it is, it sure feels good to me, and I plan to continue being of help when I can, as long as I can.

Hozho

"The Navaho word hozho, translated into English as “beauty,” also means harmony, wholeness, goodness.

One story that suggests the dynamic way that beauty comes alive between us concerns a contemporary Navajo weaver. “A man ordered a rug of an especially complex pattern on two separate occasions from the same weaver. Both rugs came out perfectly and the weaver remarked to her brother that there must have been something special about the owner. It was understood that the outcome of the rugs was dependent not on the weaver’s skill and ability but upon the hozho in the owners life. The hozho of his life evoked the beauty in the rugs.

In the Navaho world view, beauty exists not simply in the object, or in the artist who made the object; it is expressed in relationships."

- J. Ruth Gendler, Notes on the Need for Beauty

Wordle Art

Have you used Wordle yet? Created by Johnathan Feinberg in his spare time while working for IBM Research, Wordle takes words (that you either generate specifically or draw from pages with RSS feeds), and creates these word art images.

You can customize them in all sorts of cool ways - this is my first one, taken from this blog's front page a few weeks ago:

Go on - I know you want to! Make one yourself...

Designing Nuance

Seth Godin's blog post yesterday was about designing for clarity, but recognizing that you can't always keep it simple enough so that EVERYONE can understand. That's a great thing for me to remember, since I can get myself tied up in knots making things "simple", often to the detriment of my goal!

He made a brilliant observation to that very point - it's better to make it clear how to find help if you're confused than it is to try and make complex things so simple that they lose their innate wonder and mystery:

"Great design is intuitive. Great design eliminates confusion. But not for everyone, not all the time. The words and interactions you use often have a sophistication that will confuse some portion of your audience.

Why not consider making it easy for the confused to ask for help? And treat them with respect when they do. If you don't create a little confusion, it's unlikely you've built something remarkable."

He goes on to step lightly into the point that what you offer just might not be for everyone, no matter how simple and accessible you make it. What a liberating concept!

I always find Seth Godin to be a great guide for honing the skills of nuanced communication, which is the essence of what it's all about for me.

Welcome to the Beauty Dialogues!

This is a space to celebrate beauty - not just the beauty of form, but also those patterns of essential wholeness that go beyond the visible.

Wholeness dissolves the illusion that life and work are separate. So, while this is a "professional" blog in that I design online communications for a living and often write about design, communications & technology, it's also a "personal" blog about everything I see looking through a beauty-lens. Welcome!

Design Deliberations

I was reading something in Chris Brogan's blog the other day on blog design, a solid informative post about basing each design decision on its congruence with your blog's intended use. At last count this piece had drawn 61(!) comments from his readers, many of them appreciative of Brogan's suggestion to use a thinner header to take full advantage of valuable page "real estate".

I  wrote a long comment myself, in part promoting the idea of a more expansive banner, because sometimes an image is as valuable (if not more so) as anything else you could say. This fact may not be immediately apparent in the largely left-brain logic of the marketplace, but it is no less true. Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind gives a wonderful exposition of why right-brain creativity is an increasingly important component in today's world.

One of the great things about a blog is how easy it is to change it, and I tend to be continually tweaking and fine-tuning my "look and feel" and sidebar content. This new banner, for example, is a radical departure from what I've done here in the past.

Even though it intuitively felt right, I must admit at first I was nervous about using black in the beauty dialogue color scheme, since I usually have a more literal focus on light. Then I saw these lines from Anam Cara, by John O'Donohue, and knew I was ok:

"We need a light that has retained its kinship with the darkness ... All creativity awakens at this pivotal threshold where light and darkness test and bless each other. You only discover balance in your life when you learn to trust the flow of this ancient rhythm."

The power of visual language is undeniable, perhaps because it speaks not only to our conscious, logical brain, but also to our unconscious, poetic intuition and imagination. Like Pink, I believe that gaining intuitive fluency is one of the most important skills you can develop, as a designer and as a human being.

But what do you think? What are some of the design decisions you have made and why did you make them? Where does your own balance lie between logic and intuition?

The Power of Simple Design

One of the reason I choose to use TypePad is their obvious care for beauty - from the viewpoint of a designer it is very easy to make a beautiful blog with this software, and from a user's standpoint, the interface has a refreshing clarity and ease.

Squidoo

I've just spend two days creating my new Squidoo lens.

In case you have no idea what that is, it's a genius idea created by marketing guru Seth Godin - a site where people can create pages giving their 'lens' on a subject they have particular expertise in. These pages are often quite useful resource guides on a wide variety of topics, and mine is a BRILLIANT guide to bringing beauty to the internet through online design. It has some great documents, links, photos, videos and a list of excellent books along with some helpful "tips" to get you started.

The trouble is that the Squidoo system is set up so that a person can't even begin promoting their lens until it gets a certain number of 'hits' and a decent rating. So if you have even a tiny touch of geekiness in you - or if you just have a warm heart and want to support me - please sign in to Squidoo (it's free and exceptionally easy) and rate my lens: www.squidoo.com/beautyandtechnology

If you're even geekier and/or really love me a lot it would be very helpful if you digg my lens (and/or my blog!) or bookmark it on stumbledupon, del.icio.us, and/or technorati.

Bless you, my friends!