Off Campus: Good F***ing Design Advice!
On Thursday, November 2, I went to a
presentation in York. Founders Brian Biurge and Jason Bacher of the website,
Good F***ing Design Advice, or GFDA.com presented their story on just how the
website came to be, and their journey throughout the past few years since it
was started. They had their ups and downs, but overall seemed to have a great
time. I was surprised to learn that the website was a “happy accident,” and how
quickly it became popular (three days after launch, to be exact). At the end of
their presentation, they gave us meaningful advice, and once again using the “F”
word. The advice included: Make use of gifts, not capabilities; You’ll never
have enough money, time, or experience; Be F***ing courageous; Saying is not
F***ing doing, doing is doing; Love the F***ing process! Of all the advice they
gave us, my favorite one is “Risk everything. Expect nothing. Prepare for
anything.” This encouraged me to want to pursue the things I’ve been afraid to
do, like potentially starting my own photography business, because I’ll never
know if it’s successful if I don’t try. Overall I really enjoyed this
presentation, and got a lot out of it, and hope that Jason and Brian can
advance further with their website.
On Campus Event: Interdisciplinary Interaction Design Conference
On November 16, I attended the 1st
Annual Interdisciplinary Interaction Design Conference hosted by a design class
here on campus in the Myers Auditorium in McComsey Hall. Four different men
from four different backgrounds of design attended to talk about their careers
and offer some advice to those of us who are still figuring out which area of
design to pursue. The first person, named Justin Kunkle, is the director of
Strategy at AnCulture in Harrisburg. He proceeded to tell us about his past and
how he came to be where he is now. He then gave advice on thinking about design
as being a process, first is the research, then product design, and finally documentation
and presentation. I really liked the fact that he said to broaden your
knowledge while you’re in college, which inspired me to pick up a psychology
minor next semester because it has been an interest of mine for awhile now. The
next person was Bobby Deraco, who is the founder and CEO of a UX Design company
called Synapse. What was most surprising to me was that he does not have a
college degree, and instead became a so-called “accidental” strategist. He gave
us advice, such as 1) Never stop learning, 2) Data sells ideas, 3) difference
between hiring amateur and professional, 4) Sell value (It costs $200 to turn a
bolt!), 5) Think in code, 6) Clear your mind of bias, and 7) Chaos is
profitable. The third person was Josh Buckwalter, who is the creative director
at Inovat and president of AIGA Central PA. I mostly learned from him the
stresses of working with certain clients that just don’t work out in the
end. The final person was Aaron Chu, who
is a former graduate of MU, and is currently a Web Engineer at HUGE in
Brooklyn, NY. He also offered a lot of advice, mostly on writing code and
making a website function to its full potential, which I found interesting.
Overall I enjoyed the event, learned a lot about where to go with my career,
and am excited to attend next year.
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