These are some high level points I’ll be making at a talk I’m giving in Cambridge next month. It’s about self confidence, anxiety and the weirdness of our times. It’s also based on conversations I have with the 8 or 9 young designers I speak to regularly. A career in design is uncertain by definition.… Continue reading Design and (self) confidence
Author: designswarm
Blogging since 2005.
Sunday Scraps #118
I’ve been ill this week and found the clip above in a moment of quietude. It makes me so happy because as a part time jiver I’m more and more interested by the lost art of social, synchronised and pleasurable bodily actions (and I don’t think of competitive sports as exactly the same thing).… Continue reading Sunday Scraps #118
Sunday Scraps #117
It’s that time of the year where things get quiet for a few weeks so I’m trying to match the vibe by keeping my head down in writing. An interesting art piece about heat in data centres / such a fun use of infinite scroll / after new towns, new forests / on tech’s lazy… Continue reading Sunday Scraps #117
Sunday Scraps #116
It’s sunny today. Makes it all so much more bearable doesn’t it. Well almost. Apparently Churchill got into painting which in turn inspired George Bush Sr. / an early open hardware handheld tablet made in India back in 2002 / this article on design leadership in AI lost me entirely when it referred to exquisite… Continue reading Sunday Scraps #116
Stuck in the middle with me (reflections on a year of HRT)
It’s International Women’s Day so I thought I’d write about the perimenopause. Firstly because it now occupies a large part of my life but also because these things should be celebrated along with our hard fought political and work-based successes. So I’ve been on HRT for a year now. I didn’t get an anniversary card… Continue reading Stuck in the middle with me (reflections on a year of HRT)
Sunday Scraps #115
I have friends in both Israel and Lebanon and I grew up in both Kuwait and Saudi so I’m trying not to stare at CNN like it’s 1990 / The Tracey Emin show is about so many things, you should see it / I love how AI is sometimes about re-inventing all the software that’s… Continue reading Sunday Scraps #115
Where does design come from?
Design never had a very clear ‘origin story’. There is no Lascaux paintings to point to in design. A number of different people, communities and institutions helped build a local definition of design in a number of industrial nations in the 1800s. While doing some research at the British Library for the second edition of… Continue reading Where does design come from?
Sunday Scraps #114
So glad I went to catch some sun by the sea over the weekend as this rain is getting so boring. We should also rename it dreich. My scraps are going to veer into the smart homes domain as I start writing the second edition of Smarter Homes. I apologise in advance if this bores… Continue reading Sunday Scraps #114
The year after
Tomorrow, mum’s house will change hands. A year to the day since she died. My brothers and their family have valiantly been dealing with all of that while I check-in from abroad. We talk about the sandwich generation, but what I am? The beef patty generation? No kids, no partner, no parents, just the daily… Continue reading The year after
Sunday Scraps #113
It’s really hard to understand what Lindsey Vonn was thinking but I hope my nephew (now competing at a high level in acrobatic ski back in Québec) isn’t watching the Olympics / there must be a german compound word for a location that gets used over and over again in the visual arts /… Continue reading Sunday Scraps #113