Me and the Mc’s
Posted on April 12, 2011 | posted by:
I was asked to be reflective about my own process and because I grew up in a large family, that meant comparing myself to others. Except, in this case, I didn’t assume I was right. Being a relative newcomer to the design process I was interested in its relationship to creative processes in other fields. I was looking for process differences caused by medium, client expectations, and similarities in moments when creativity is most fertile.
I began my research with this question- How do creative processes translate across fields? Where in a clear process are moments where innovation can take place? How do limitations in the medium or goals effect process methodology (inductive and expanding / deductive and narrowing)?
In the end though, I realized I was trying to codify what my process should be.
I began by making a plan to interview Matthew McNerney, a designer at Ralph Applebaum and Adam McClelland, a freelance commercial editor.
My Plan:
Phase 1: Interview Matthew on his process
Phase 2: Review two of Matthews logos with him. One that was process driven. One that came out of an Aha! moment.
Phase 3: Show Adam Matthew’s process map and ask him to alter it as necessary to represent his own process.
Phase 4: Identify points where innovation is most readily accessible
Phase 5: Discuss process differences and similarities
Phase 6: Discuss frameworks, and limitations of mediums and their relationship to potential moments of innovation
Talking to both of these men was incredibly instructive. There are too many interesting parallels to cover here but I’m hoping that in mapping my own insights onto these two generous gentleman’s process maps a hierarchy of my own process priorities will emerge.
The image above is a little taste of the action.