Luke Johnson

Founded in 2001 as a college-wide initiative exploring new applications of the design disciplines to social and humanitarian endeavors, Designmatters is now an educational department at Art Center College of Design, which continues fulfilling its original mission by facilitating research and social impact design projects that are integrated within Art Center’s undergraduate and graduate curricula, as well as with public programs, and link real-world issues with academic practices. To Learn More about Designmatters

AED is a nonprofit organization working globally to improve education, health, civil society and economic development--the foundation of thriving societies

In collaboration with local and national partners, AED fosters sustainable results through practical, comprehensive approaches to social and economic challenges. AED implements more than 250 programs serving people in all 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries.To Learn More about AED

The lessons learned from my Designmatters Fellowship are not necessarily a reflection of the projects that I worked on while at AED. The work I completed will most likely not be included in my design portfolio. Rather, it is the experience of learning and engaging in the non-profit work culture that will be the most valuable to me. In this sense, my Designmatters Fellowship was an invaluable experience that has allowed me to rethink how I view design and my career trajectory.

The three projects I worked on at AED were more independent and conceptual pieces. This is the type of work that I want to engage in throughout my career. I believe that good design is not about making things simply look pretty- although I believe that craft is an important part of the sell. Rather, I believe good design is ambiguous, poetic, celebrates the process, serendipitous and asks larger questions.

To this end, I believe that designers should be included in the beginning of organizational conversations- not to engage in projects at their end. AED, like many organizations, struggle to identifying audiences when starting new projects. Should these projects target potential employees, funders (most of whom are the government), corporations or an internal audience?

Moreover, my Fellowship strengthened my belief that good design can faciliate larger conversations within an organization. AED is a company that receives the majority of its money from the government. Because they do not rely on funders necessarily, spending money on internal projects is hard to justify. As a Designmatters Fellow, AED had the luxury to try projects that it might not normally be able to fund- especially with the use of video.

The mircofinancing, STAR Website and the Wisdom Series may prove useful down the road to AED because the company now has a reference point for using video in their work. As Tess Davis, a Design and Communication specialist working at AED explained, sometimes changes has to come in digestible pieces.

The videos I created for them fit this format: they are short, to a degree informal and rough around the edges. By why do these videos work? I believe that design philosophy is changing from a push to pull mentality. In the past, design "pushed" people through stagnate media such as brochures, posters and television. Today's audiences seek out media. Thus designers need to create media that breaks the mold of traditional corporate videos that, in my opinion, are impersonal and stale. The trick is to create media that is both idiosyncratic and relatable to everyone. In other words, the more personal the content, the more we can relate to it. We do after all live in the Age of Oprah where autobiography is the visual currency we all understand.

Unfortunately, I do not feel that I have a firm grasp on all of the philosophical arguments on why YouTube videos and other new media are successful. Moreover, I failed to accurately explain how internal projects could influence the larger conversation of a company as well as improve moral. It is difficult to justify spending on this type of work, especially in these economic times. As Tess explained, these projects need to be embedded in a larger concept such as a 50th anniversary celebration. However, I believe that the cost-benefit of these types of projects are not only important to how a company views itself, but can influence that work that is being produced within a company.

These "failures" were an invaluable part of the learning experience. Moreover, this Fellowship made me confront many of the strengths and weaknesses I have as a designer. For example, as a self-taught videographer, traveling to Ecuador to shoot my first "corporate" video revealed a very limited technical skill set. I also understand that I could benefit from more classes that focus on developing narrative and storytelling.

I also found it interesting that I relied on some of my old methodologies for creating video content. Given the time crunch of a fourteen-week Fellowship, I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing. Moreover, I know that these methodologies created successful work- especially given the safe corporate environment. But in retrospect, I wish I had created more work that was both sustainable and updateable. I believe the STAR website gestures at this by creating a Flickr site, but I would have preferred to build in a more accessible structure for updating content.

Finally, large corporations are slow to change. There is a certain unspoken hierarchy that one needs to learn upon entering the organization and there are unspoken ways to communicate within them (the etiquette of the cc and bcc's are a possible dissertation topic). After fourteen weeks, I only began to understand who are the gatekeepers in these companies and which relationships that you need to develop (and those to avoid) to get things accomplished.

But as a designer, there is real opportunity to make a difference in non-profit and development work. Living in Washington DC, where politics and law are the priority, it is also possible for a designer to be a big fish in a small pond. But this does take some convincing. It demands that you understand your audience. It also requires an understanding that change is often slow- especially when developing relationships of trust within bureaucratic systems. I also saw how one can be comfortable in a place like AED- a non-competitive design environment where work begins at 9 and ends at 5.

In this sense, my Fellowship revealed those characteristics that I want to find in my next job. I want to work in a space that ideas and provocative work are taken seriously. I want to work in an environment where collaboration and creativity are part of the culture and where larger projects meet on a consistent basis. I want to work in a job that doesn't necessarily end when works ends. These are part of the lessons from my Fellowship, good and bad, that have helped shaped the designer that I am today and will inform my design as I go forward.

In all three of my projects, I was required to interview people. Many of these interviews had certain constraints: time, location, number of questions, etc. Often I was meeting the interviewees for the first time.

Because of the large number of interviews that I performed during my Fellowship, I recorded various techniques that I learned and adopted. In this sense, I began to rethink the interview and the interview experience as something that can be designed. Here are some of the techniques and/or lessons that I learned during my Fellowship:

First and foremost, it is essential to make the interviewee feel comfortable (and in turn, trust me). I like to begin my interviews informally. For example, for The Wisdom Series I asked AED Executives to give me a tour of their office or choose one thing in it that represented them. People like to talk about themselves. Tossing softball questions, as Larry King likes to do, allows both interviewer and interviewee to warm-up. This sets the stage for a more in-depth interview latter.

There are also more subtle gestures to calm the reptilian mind of the interviewee such as:

• - make eye contact
• - use their first name
• - begin by explaining the purpose of the project
• - outline the timeframe of the interview (we will shoot for one hour, always overestimate)
• - be honest when the camera is turned on/turned off
• - ask permission to close the door or move objects in the room
• - tell them how many questions I have left so there is a sense of closure

After I have completed the interview I will ask the interviewee if there is anything that they want to add that they felt wasn't discussed during the interview. I have often told people that with digital footage all footage can be replaced and edited. Sometimes, I will tell them that they can view the piece before it is officially released (depending on the client) and that everything can be re-shot if necessary. Obviously there are some creative control issues that need to be considered before you commit to this statement.

If I am interviewing a person I am meeting for the first time, I will often try to meet them beforehand to review the parameters of the interview. If I cannot meet them physically, I will send them an email or call them on the phone. Personally, I go back and forth on sending interview questions to people beforehand. In my experience, the less prepared the interviewee, the more honest the answers in the interview. Of course, executives have an image to upkeep so sending the questions beforehand was a prerequisite.

Often during the course of an interview I will reveal something personal about myself. This should only be done occasionally (Jim Rome does this too often). But I found that technique increases the intimacy of the interview- taking it in new and unexpected directions. Moreover, phrases like "this is not one of the interview questions but a personal question that I just wanted to know" may help propel the interview forward.

It goes without saying that preparation is the key to success during an interview. A list of questions is an obvious solution. However, during my Fellowship I really began to understand the importance of pacing my questions. For example, after asking a few standard questions I would often throw in a more "creative" question that allowed people to express themselves in a more personal way. These questions were designed to elicit a more emotional response, asking the interview to think constructively and abstractly. Examples include: what was one thing that was unexpected or what one object would you leave behind for the next person working in your position.

I also believe that people want to be directed. Directing people reinforces the idea that you know what you are doing. Remind them to look at the camera and to speak up. People also follow a formula during an interview: First they give responses that they think that you want hear. Second, the give you answers that they think sound good to themselves. Third, they reveal who they are. The trick is to get to step three as quickly as possible.

Finally, I think it is important to turn the camera on early in the interview. Informal comments and gestures are often recorded when setting up the camera. These informalities can be used to humanize the subject. I have also played around (and not arrived at any solution) as to whether it is important to interview someone in a place that they feel completely comfortable or to take them out of that space to get more honest answers. I would also like to develop a device that allows more personal contact with my subjects (see Errol Morris) or develop an interview space where two people (from different walks of life) can interview each other (The Coffee and Cigarettes argument).

While there were many lessons to be learned from my Fellowship, there were often ideas and/or inspiration from being out in the world. Here are a few random thoughts that I had throughout the semester.

• - I hate the phrase "a perfect storm"
• - Moreover, what the hell is a "wintry mix”
• - Working form home means taking the day off to do your laundry. Not my words.
• - Nobody here likes a wet dog from Billy Collins poem "To a Stranger Born in Some Distant Country Hundreds of Years from Now"
• - When someone says that don't have television it is like saying that they don't read fiction.
• - What is the difference between the Verizon guy and Progressive Dot com girl (or that apple dude for that matter)
• - People who give too specific directions: if you have seen the gas station you have gone too far
• - Watching someone erase a contact on a phone is like erasing them from your life
• - Portraits of people on regular workday vs. casual Friday.