a.sleep.c.sleep.2.
field notes
a collection of piecesarchive for April, 2008
train
Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again -Yusuf Islam
what is your philosophy on design?
copyright © 2007 sean dreilinger
I’ve been given a list of questions to answer, so that someone very kind can write my bio on my behalf. Writing one’s own bio is much worse than nails on a chalkboard or pulling teeth, so I am most fortunate. Below is the first question I answered. I’ll be sure to ask it of everyone I know when next I attend a cocktail party.
1] What is your philosophy on design? What is your passion behind what you are doing?
Creating and living in a designed world is a profoundly human act. We are one of few creatures on the planet that has such a tight and recursive relationship with our own designed artifacts. We essentially create the environment that influences how we live and how we live influences what we create. Just as the creation of the microscope has given us germ theory and all the resulting notions of health, contagion, cleanliness and safety, designed artifacts large and small inform our understanding of what is possible and true in the world. When we design we create who we are and who we will become. I am passionate about doing design that illuminates the human qualities we yearn for most in each other–be that kindness, respect, honesty, courage, humour, charm or integrity.
I’m also quite passionate that good ideas manifest in the world. In my experience, the business world is both thoughtful and adept at considering “real world” issues such as sustainability, scalability, and accessibility….often times named more simply as profit, growth, distribution, return of investment, and market reach. Ideal partnerships between designers and businesses yield products and services that positively impact us all. The reality is that the difference in time and resources spent between principled design and disposable design is often times negligible. Thus, one of the greatest contributions I make to a company and to our world is to work with my clients to help them see the world they have the opportunity to create and the people they have the opportunity influence. The world that we imagine today is where we live tomorrow, these people that we influence: our friends, our neighbors, our kids, ourselves.
joining this american life
This August is my 10th year of living in the United States of America. Every year that passes I quite honestly know less about what is happening in Canada, in the government, the political backdrop upon which my family layers the complexities of their lives.
Living in the States as an expat is starting to feel pretty irresponsible. Taxation without representation has an upside, if you like your head in the sand….like not my country, not my fault.
Sigh.
Damn Ira Glass. Whether its giving money to public radio or joining another country, he always has the compelling argument. This week the TAL episode was called “The Audacity of Government” and it was in part the story of the worst aspect of having a government formed around the notion of a cult of personality [my perspective]–the part where the President [one person] can decide that treaties and international law don’t apply when he doesn’t want them to….and a bunch of lawyers work damn hard to make this true.
Umm, not my country, not my fault??
America is the land of opportunity and I’m enjoying the opportunities. [Infrastructure like healthcare, childcare, social safelty net is a different issue....for a different post....something about the false infrastructure | opportunity dichotomy].
That said, I was raised to believe that opportunity and responsibility are ethically quite good friends. Even to me it seems counterintuitive, but the more disappointing and confounding I find the practices of the current government, the more I realize that I’m no longer just visiting.
Bring on the paperwork.
num num num