Uncertainty is the new name of the game! As the design field expands into new realms with shifting technologies and models business, the skillset and practices required of designers keeps growing. No longer limited to physical form or visual aesthetics, there are dozens of ways to apply and 'do' design; a thoughtful design practice requires … Continue reading How to Navigate Design in the Dark →

From The Power of Small Wins: Managers can help employees see how their work is contributing. Most important, they can avoid actions that negate its value. THIS. It seems somewhat obvious in retrospect, but the way this was phrased really clicked for me. One of my major demotivators is when I've been doing steady work … Continue reading How to Motivate Your Humans →

After watching How to Run a Company with (Almost) No Rules by Ricardo Semler, I was left thinking, "Exactly, what is the point of money if you're not going to give it to those who need it? What is the point of hoarding and accumulating wealth?" Obviously we want our children and family to be … Continue reading How to Treat a Group of Humans like Humans →

The below are sketches I made throughout the process of reading about, listening to, and conversing about death and end-of-life topics.      

Today I attended the Alameda Death Cafe. Death Cafe is a salon-style gathering started in the UK in 2011 by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid. As it says on the website, "At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. Our objective is to increase awareness of death with … Continue reading Professional Exploration: Death Cafe →

When we talk about death and dying, and incorporating an acceptance of death into our individual and cultural practices, we must not forget to talk about what happens after someone has died: remembrance. Remembrance is am important practice that acknowledges our continued, but changed, relationship with those who have died. It not only connects us … Continue reading Professional Exploration: Remembrance of the Dead →

Yuchen and I received the teaching topic of 'affordances and signifiers,' incorporating the principle of feedback to inform our session. We started defining and reading about our topics the day we received the assignment, and brainstormed some potential game/activity ideas in broad terms, including our goals for the game session: get people moving about and … Continue reading Studio Leadership: Affordances and Signifiers →

Service Design 101, by Sarah Gibbons

My dad's mom had Parkinson's Disease. She was diagnosed when my dad was still in high school, and she lived for almost two decades as the disease slowly progressed, affecting her brain as well as her body. Parkinson's is a degenerative disease that affects motor ability, and often claims its victims indirectly through related problems … Continue reading Professional Exploration: Impact →

Concept Ideation My game design team (Teesta Das, Yuchen Tong, Yang Qian, and I) started by discussing different gestalt principles, and defining affordances and signifiers, the potential topics of focus for our game. We quickly became interested in the idea of working with groups of small shapes—they could be used to make images that, because … Continue reading Game Design: Unfortunate Shapes Documentation →