Is today’s ease of communication and creation a blessing or curse to the next generation? April 11, 2008

I’ve been thinking lately about the digital age and our methods of communication — the whole thought process stemmed from this post regarding the fact that we have so many forms to instantly connect with the people that surround our friendships and professional lives, yet even as we are so readily available, and always connected, these “convenient” methods of communication cut us off as we now communicate via words, rather than the sounds of voices.

In emails with a cousin of mine to exchange photos of family and learn about the genealogy, I recently acquired some of my paternal grandparent’s letters — they sit here on my desktop, scanned in – I never knew them, but reading the letters and viewing the handwriting tells me that my dad’s handwriting evolved from his dad’s and that my grandmother was a very strong woman as she was already out in the field tending to the corn crop less than one month after giving birth to my father. I’m incredibly lucky to have these letters, but it’s due to the time they were written, (May, 1936) the lack of technology — in that age, snail mail was the main exchange medium of the day. Those letters and their survival started me thinking about how our current forms of communication could be lost — how many emails that will be crucial to the next generation – my grandchildren, should i have them? Will they be able to view these one day? Will they be in a database for my grandchildren, and their grandchildren to download?

Will my grandchildren and their offspring be able to one day access this blog and have some understanding, some semblance of the person I was, even if they never met me? Will the external hard drive that I back stuff up to one day be passed down from one offspring to another, to sort through all the stuff sitting on there? Will it be a wealth of information as to the person I was and the life I led?

What about all the electronic versions of art? Just think for a second how much art today is being produced that is disposable? How many artists, in a fit of “this sucks!!!!!” will hit the delete button only to dispose of some great masterpiece that would otherwise be meaningful to the world at large? And those pieces might have been the one element of artwork that would inspire the next great artist to create the next electronic version of Guernica or Mona Lisa? I find that really sad… in that the digital palate not only enhances our ability to create art, but it also limits our ability to edit ourselves in a manner which cheats the next person from viewing, or the next great artist from being influenced. I’m a big believer in “there are no mistakes” in the creation of art. That is, a really crappy design can somehow give birth to something really incredible, as ideas are constantly evolving.

History, through my parents eyes… April 6, 2008

Regarding my last post, about Flickr, and photos and how they should be archived — I’ve hounded my Mom for years about giving me the reigns of the family photos to scan and archive. At first it was for my own selfish reasons… then I watched a tragedy of a family home burn.

I hit her with the “what if this house burns, like so and so’s did… what then? where are MY memories…what will I show MY children?” That worked magic. I got access to a lot of old photos from my mother as a baby as well as her childhood – she was born in 1940 if that gives you any indication of how old these photos are. She even threw in the only two existing photos of my maternal grandmother as a baby – my grandmother was born in 1919.

Anyway, so I’m sitting here tonight, scanning and geeking out with my parents wedding registry book – circa 1970 – and in the box, in the back, buried beneath mounds of newspaper clippings of the wedding announcements, I found some negatives. These were really light… very faint. I held them up to the window here in my office and couldn’t make out what the subject matter was… at first. Then I realized what it was.

In 1969, July actually, man landed on the moon. And not having VCRs at that time, the only way to capture the event was to take a photo of the television with the camera. That’s what the negatives were – the moon landing as my parents watched and photographed it as they were dating.

I know I initially said this was a blog about design, but this is the moon landing, as seen through my parent’s eyes… as they were dating. I find that super amazing. And I thought I would share.

Click the photo for a better view.

Flickr is my new crack April 4, 2008

This past Christmas, I received a digital camera as a gift. It’s just a point and shoot, but I’ve fallen in love all over again with photography. I find myself taking photos of all sorts of things, and carry my camera everywhere to document everyday stuff that I encounter.

A friend had told me about Flickr years ago. And I thought it was cool and all that, but prior to owning a digital camera, I had no use for it.

Things have changed.

I am completely addicted. When I’m taking photos now, I can’t wait to get home to upload the photos — and can spend hours labeling, geotagging and adding them to sets. I’m an organizational person anyway, but this taps into a whole new side of the obsessive compulsive nature of mine to document and itemize.

The other great thing I’ve found about Flickr is that I can view art from all over the world – there are so many amazingly talented people out there, creating art for art’s sake. Photographers, graphic designers, even people who just do the artwork as a hobby. And it’s super exciting to me when I get a comment from someone on a photo or an illustration from all the way around the world. I really dig the sense of community that Flickr has brought to me. I’ve found myself at times completely devoid of any artistic creativity – a case of “design block” – and I login to Flickr and I’m suddenly cured and inspired to create again.

Finally, I love Flickr because I am able to safely stash away my photos. I watched a childhood friend’s home burn a few years ago. And I remember her saying at some point “I have no photos of me as a baby now – they are gone” — that really hit home with me. I don’t ever want to be that person, who loses memories forever. In an age where we rely on technology, it’s good to have a failsafe when it comes to archiving photos. Most people, when asked the question “what would you save in a fire”, always say “photo albums.” I’ve also known 3 people in the past 6 months to have their hard drives crap out on them. One, in a complete panic, popped in on my iChat asking me “what do i do?” — he thought he had lost ALL of his travel photos from 3 or more trips to Europe. And a company wanted $800+ to retrieve them. Flickr is the perfect solution.

Back up your stuff, people.