Since 1997, the Insight Prison Project has been dedicated to reducing recidivism rates and improving public safety by conducting highly-effective in-prison rehabilitation programs that provide prisoners with the tools and life skills necessary to create durable change. Working in partnership with San Quentin State Prison, IPP conducts 19 weekly classes involving more than 200 prisoners. Our classes focus on preparing the men to become responsible and productive members of the community when they leave prison.

There was a limited budget for the project so the annual report was printed in black and white. This could have been a problem – annual reports often demand color – but the black and white photos I was provided with were extremely powerful and provided a story in themselves. The photos show program participants doing group work and in meditation.

The content required a serious design so I chose to provide a more corporate framework and let the photos and words from program participants appear without too much design interference. The program’s goal is personal clarity – the design responds to this goal by providing a clarity of design.

IPP Annual Report 2009_2010

Author Bethany Mooradian wanted a cover design for her new book – I Got Scammed So You Don’t Have To. Mooradian has done most jobs you can think of and many jobs that you’ve never imagined. She uses her experience to teach others – via her book, classes and workshops – to determine if a work-at-home or alternative job is a scam or a good opportunity. I wanted the cover to have an impact and reflect Mooradian’s upbeat, funny and friendly personality. The best way to reflect those characteristics is a photograph of the author. The photo supports the strong title type and is contextualized by a big pile of money in the background.

I recently designed a poster announcing this great event. It’s a fund raiser for SPLAB and is scheduled for April 3 at 8pm at Empire Espresso in Seattle. Last year’s marathon lasted for 10.5 hours. This year might break that record. There will be readings, an open mic, writing exercises, films and a special appearance by The Band of Poets.  I enjoyed working on this pro bono project. Once I found the photo of the howling man it came together quickly. Hope to see you there. Also, I’m always interested in providing pro bono design services for non profits.

I want to clean up my portfolio. Over months and even years thing collect, get dumped, abandoned, dusty, ignored. Years of things have collected in my portfolio and it has begun to spill off of shelves and out of boxes. My brilliant design work. My so-so design work. My pay-the-bills design work.

What I hoped to feature in my portfolio is somewhat less exciting than I remember. So how did I misremember it? I think, over time, one adds a certain aura to one’s work. Now with piles of work scattered around me I want to figure out how to organize it honestly. Throwing it all away seems like a possible option. But before I dump everything into the recycle bin I have to decide if there is something worth saving.

I’ll save the good stuff. But what’s the good stuff? I could argue that good design work is the design work that got printed. If it got printed that means that the design fulfilled its purpose for the client. It solved a particular problem and met the client’s criteria for success. But does that make it good design or simply a completed design?

Suddenly I’m becoming more dissatisfied with my work. Perhaps that’s not the right tone to take. I’m trying to promote my unique skills. Designers who get jobs are designers who promote their style and skill sets. I’ve done this to some extent. But creating my portfolio suggests that I’m selecting work that will appeal to others. I’m trying to seduce them by creating a mask, a surface, a lie. The work I’m gathering isn’t based on authenticity. It’s based on my assumptions about what people want, to fill whatever needs they have. I’m creating an audience out of thin air. Who are the people looking at my work? I have an idea, but it’s all a guess. When I think about it I realize I’m sharing inauthentic work with an inauthentic audience. If a gust of wind comes along it will blow this house of brochures away. So how do I identify authentic work?

Well, if I’m going to review my portfolio honestly then I’m actually reviewing myself. I must review my life and the work I’ve done over the years. It’s an interesting process. I remember different jobs and my colleagues. What I learned and the friends I made. This might take a while.

And now I’m getting confused about what it means to identify authentic design. Let me try again. What it’s not. I’m not complaining that design work doesn’t allow me to be creative. I understand the constraints of design. I want to create authentic design work – work that reflects my vision, my honest self. If I’m going to commit to making authentic work I may have to walk away from the work that I’ve done that is inauthentic. This is risky. My portfolio could end up being empty. Or it could have a few design projects from school. But I think it’s time to let go of the untrue work and promote the true.

I’m trying to codify what that word “authentic” means. Currently it’s a gut feeling. I think it’s about showing the work that I enjoyed making. Showing work that has content that somehow affected me. I did design work for ADWAS, Abused Deaf Woman’s Advocacy Services a non-profit that supports deaf abused women. I was involved in developing or helping to edit the content for two of their annual reports. I worked as publications director for Northwest Interpretive Association and created books, publications and programs that supported educational events at National Parks and National Forests and other public land agencies. When some of the past design jobs were boring I often created work for myself. I’d invent a band, write the lyrics and design the CD booklet. Those works were created for an imagined and demanding client. I should probably show those.

But there may not be much to show that I love. This is difficult. I’ll keep looking and thinking. I want to create a fresh place, a new staring point. This economy makes it even more demanding. Can I risk rethinking my portfolio to such an extent that there’s only an echo of the work I do?

I spoke with someone from a freelance design agency last month. She told me to create work that is fresh and vital. That reflected today’s style and looked new. I think she was telling me that I needed to create work that looks like other work. So the market is demanding that I learn to create work that works for someone else. That I develop a skill set that is inauthentic and represents popular design. That’s boring and a dead end I think. What is the argument against that vision of design? I think it’s about authenticity and addressing assignments with integrity and somehow with my self and my worldview intact.

Starting out with a gesture or a form, an image is built up over time. Ignored. Soaked in water. Repainted. Painted out. There are times when the work gets put aside for a month or two.

Over time the paper or canvas accumulates texture and history based on its use, abuse or neglect. Spills, accidents, mistakes, bugs, mold or mildew happen. The color palette shifts from dark to light. Whatever. Something always occurs. As a painter I have certain techniques that I like to use habits when I’m making an image. I like how a charcoal line dissolves under as loose brush full of white paint. It builds light, flashes and subsides.

Now I’m doing web design. As a graphic designer I’m used to moving around blocks of images and type—chunks of information. As a web designer I’m trying to figure out how to use blocks of code to create order. And it’s taking some time to figure it out. For print designs I can use InDesgin, Illustrator and Photoshop to warp, alter or refine information and then move it around the page. It’s fast. I might scan in some sketches, tweak them and then dump them into the mix. I save earlier versions of print projects as I’m working so that I can try another path if the current one doesn’t work out.

So, for now, graphic design is more like painting than web design. It lets me create textures, pentimenti and palimpsests that add depth and texture to my work.

Sometimes I run a canvas through the washer and drier. Sometimes I leave a painting outside in the garden overnight and let the bugs and critters interact with it. Oh, and the rain and mud are a good influence. I find that these natural interventions outside of my control are important to the work and make the painting less precious. “Murder your little darlings,” as the poet Denise Levertov once told me. That means you edit out things that you like in your work. One tends to protect it, cosset it and lose sight of the quality of the entire painting, annual report or web page.

But now I’m stuck. Paint is fast. Code is slow. Using Dreamweaver wasn’t empowering. It got in my way. So now what? Well, I’m using CSS, XHTML, XML and HTML. I took a class. I learned HTML and CSS. The pages worked okay. The links worked, but then I was unhappy with the work. I don’t know how to just slap a new coat of paint on my style sheet or home page. I want to wrinkle up my code and stick it in a bucket of water. Where is the CSS version of a bucket of water?

I’m weaving my way through countless articles and resources for coding on the web (thank you A List Apart). I’m going to write some code and style sheets that will work like paint. I will have to create scripts that work like a cold cup of coffee tossed onto my code. I need to create resources that I can throw around, which will filter, challenge, degrade and texture my code.

I’m trying to think of it this phase as an excursion of sorts. My web coding resources will become my Florence, Italy for the next year. Instead of obscure chapels, I’ll be visiting code sites and logic sites to figure this stuff out. I’ll remember to send postcards.

This work by poet/composer Jackson Mac Low was published in July 1961 in "An Anthology." It comes close to expressing some of the qualities of eroded code that I'm thinking about. Mac Low wrote these instructions for this score: "The text may be used in any way as a score for solo or group reading, musical or dramatic performances, looking, smelling, anything else &/or nothing at all."

The exhibit, as I remember it, was in one or two large, open rooms filled with strange stuff. Stuff I had never seen before at an art museum. The floor of one room was covered with salt as deep as sand on a beach. Scattered around the room and on the walls were small sculptures and objects that offered a chance for the viewer to make an incursion and launch a personal art event. Several of these experiences are still with me. I hope my memories are accurate:

There was a checker game with sandwich cookies as playing pieces. Players were encouraged to eat them while playing a game.

I remember an old TV, like the old Philco my family owned. It was a rectangular wooden box with a cloth-covered speaker on the bottom half and a TV screen on top. The one in this exhibit had the guts removed from it and there was a candle burning inside where the TV screen should have been.

There was a film or photo showing Ben Vautier lying on a sidewalk next to a sign that read “Ben is Art.” Vautier also showed a film where he draws a single thread across a busy street. When the thread spans the street there’s a moment when traffic and pedestrians don’t know what to do. A long moment. And then a car breaks the thread.

Ten years after that exhibit I took a class and at Mass College of Art in Boston. My teacher was Maureen Metzger and the class was called “Beyond Collage.” We started by making collages in 2D and then started talking about what a collage was, what it meant and how could it be stretched. One night I gave each student a small box of cereal, the kind that can be turned into a bowl. Everyone cut open their box, poured the milk and ate the cereal and talked about it, related experiences of eating cereal as kids. I taped the conversation and was going to transcribe it some day. However, I lost the tape along the way.

I had to present a report about an artist or art movement to the class. I chose Fluxus. As I started reading about Fluxus I became intrigued and annoyed. It’s a complex group of artists and issues. I found the paper I wrote a few months ago. Now I’m creating a website about Fluxus based on what I started writing then. I’m reading more about Fluxus so I can challenge some of my assumptios. I recently read “Fluxus Experience” a great book about Fluxus by Hannah Higgins, an art historian, scholar and daughter of Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles – two important Fluxus artists.

Trying to understand Fluxus is still annoying and also makes me happy, aware and more alert to the world around me. I’m somehow finding myself more aware charged moments in my daily life. Art moments? I’m trying to figure out how to get that feeling into the website without it being cloying or shallow. Wish me luck.

Vautier, Higgins and Filliou at Work
Ben Vautier making music.
Dick Higgins in a 1966 Fluxfilm for Stan Brakhage.
Robert Filliou and an egg and a rock.

Here’s my review of “Fluxus Experience” by Hannah Higgins on Goodreads:
Fluxus Experience by Hannah Higgins

View all my reviews >>

Was it my vacation, which caused my discontent? Not discontent, actually. It’s closer to a state of clarity. An absence of social networks restored my unplugged self. While watching the tide roll away I didn’t consider who would respond to my deep thoughts. I enjoyed spending quality time with my ideas without sharing them as tweets or updates.

During my unplugged vacation I started to examine the difference between a social network friend and a real-life friend. Visiting real-life friends during vacation was organic. We hugged. We laughed. We shared family photos and smiles sans emoticons.

Now I’m back from the beach and my photos have been uploaded. But no one is commenting. There aren’t even any “likes” or “unlikes.” Is this rejection? My Facebook page is a version of me and I’m not just being ignored. I’m being “unloved.”

My sad Facebook page has started a cascade. Maybe it’s small tantrum. I’ve decided to “unfriend” some people. I want my social networks to develop into a comfortable neighborhood. Now, none of them are safe – Linkedin, Biznik, Twitter. I’ve lost my faith in these groups because I don’t know if I’m creating real friendships online or simply wasting time with proxies.

Real-life friends see all of our warts. Social network friends get a sanitized version of our selves. Filtering my online self is like getting dressed up to go out. My online self scrubs, buffs, plucks and conceals my embarrassing. My Facebook updates are light and breezy. Tweets allow 140 characters, which barely makes a paragraph let alone a person.

Many years ago I lost a job. I ran into a friend and she asked, “How are you?” I started to cry. Awkward. Painful. Real. She patted my shoulder. She was kind. I saw her a week later. She didn’t know that I saw her see me. She didn’t know that I saw her hide behind a store display to avoid me.

Social networks lack the ability to present our intimate failures. Our foul selves and our struggles don’t appear online. Or is it just me – am I trying to construct an affable, likable character on Facebook?

Social networks pride themselves on transparency and sharing, but I think these networks teach us to become better liars and shallower friends. We’re learning to lie in carefully crafted bursts. We’re training one another to value quirky blurbs of impersonal-personal information. We’re learning to wait for that comforting, warm feeling that proves an update is meaningful. The same feeling an infant gets when he pees in his diaper.

Social networks are a simulacrum – a version of life. I want to live in a Facebook world. I want people to look forward to my status updates and photos. I want them to read my posts. I want them to see me because when they see me I become real.

I’m beginning to think that this is too much to ask from strangers. My social network friends don’t know me. They haven’t held my hand when I was sick. They haven’t sat with me on a beach and watched waves roll in. Facebook is an audience, not a community. We’re not snuggled on a couch. We’re distant specks of light, electric and vague. You’re nothing to me. I’m nothing to you.

I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to hit delete.

During his conversation with Rose, Kilar mentions that hulu has three customers – their audience, their advertisers and their content creators. That breakdown bothers me for some reason. The “audience” is part of hulu’s business model – a silent partner of sorts. Isn’t the audience a separate entity? Kilar is suggesting that viewers are members and participants. He trumpets hulu’s ethos – success is achieved only when each customer group loves their product. They have to love it or they have failed. Love is the word.

Kilar is a member of the High Church of the Serial CEO. He’s worked for Amazon and Disney. He’s studied journalism and media. Watch Kilar and Rose have a conversation. Rose is talking. Kilar is preaching. The language is High CEO – conceptual, lingo-studded, energized – yet cold. Distant even. Media may be hot but Kilar cools it down.

Kilar grows animated when Rose mentions the potential Chinese market. Animated and a little defensive. Several of hulu’s technical/marketing wizards are from Beijing. Kilar’s been to China. He knows the potential there. Rose begins to ask about media in China and there’s a moment when I think he’ll ask Kilar about censorship. But it passes. They’re off talking about content. Saved by the sitcom.

I’m still nervous. No critical conversation about media. A celebration of hulu. No substantive conversation about censorship, ethics or democracy. We’re one-third of hulu’s family. No longer citizens. We’re an audience. Happy Days. Is that on hulu.com?

It appears that I’m actually renting a book from Kindle, not buying it. But what if I want to save certain passages in the Kindle book or the MIT book rental? I’m beginning to imagine lines of people at copying machines with their e-book readers making hard copies of the pages they don’t want to lose. Will I need to purchase a pocket-size e-book reader copier?

Check out the story by Nazlah Salam or visit MIT Press.