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Posts Tagged ‘Art And Design’

Part 2: SHARED UNDERSTANDINGS: THE CONVERSATION CENTERED WITHIN A DESIGN What Does The Designer…

Posted by learntobead on October 16, 2020

Practice-By-Design Series

What Kinds Of Things Does The Designer Need To Know?

The designer needs to be able to assess and manage shared understandings all through-out the design process. The designer needs to …

(1) Be clear about the role designers should play, and how to relate to the client

Design is an occupation in the throws of becoming a profession. “Design” and the designer role are claimed by three very different perspectives — what are called paradigms — about what the designer role should be about. These ways of looking at things come down to whether designers see their roles as craft, art or design. This can make it a little confusing about how the designer should go about assessing and managing shared understandings, and how the designer should relate to the client. To do so successfully, the designer may have to change their preferred paradigm, that is, how they think through what they should do.

(2) Be aware of the primacy of subjective experiences

How people interact with designs is very subjective. The designer can predict some universal understandings about color, object and placement. But the designer also needs to be prepared to ferret out those subjective assumptions, perspectives and values of the client (and the client’s various audiences).

(3) Be familiar with how designs have shared understandings, and why the development of these shared understandings is a social process

Conception, creation and implementation do not occur in a vacuum. They emerge as part of a social process. The recognition of a design — what it is, how useful it is, how enduring it is — is not wholly determined by that design’s objective characteristics. It is jointly determined.

Designers Operate Within One Of Three Professional Paradigms

There are three different paradigms or approaches within which designers operate — Craft, Art or Design. Each paradigm is very coherent and rule- and expectation-bound. Each is a standard perspective and set of ideas.

Each approach seeks to provide the answers to the question: Who Am I As A Designer? Each approach steers the designer to play out their role differently. Each approach leads the designer to make different assumptions about the process, what skills and abilities need to come to bear, how to approach and interact with the client, and how to evaluate the success of the outcome. Each approach provides guidance about the outcome the designer should strive for.

Designing is about making choices. Each approach gives you different advice about the norms for acceptable conduct. It is important to be aware of all this, and if you are to develop the necessary skills and insights for assessing and managing shared understandings, you may have to change the paradigm-perspective you have been operating under.

THE CRAFT APPROACH

By far, the most typically-encountered approach is called the Craft Approach.
The design process here is very mechanical. Tasks are reduced to step-by-step instructions, almost like paint-by-number. Things are very systematic. There is a clear beginning where you start your project, an organized middle, and a clear end when you finish it. Tasks are specified and carried out generically, that is, applied similarly over many design projects. The primary focus is on getting the job done with some attention to beauty and appeal.

The Craft Approach assumes:

1. That the designer is either born with creative talents or not. Creativity is not something that you can learn.
2. The only thing that matters in design is to complete the task.
3. Designing is something anyone can do. It requires little to no specialized knowledge that must be garnered through a professional degree program.
4. In unfamiliar or new situations, there are no issues of adaptability. There is sort of a Have-Design-Will-Travel mentality.
5. Disciplinary literacy and fluency result from repetition and practice. The designer learns to be able to produce the same object over and over again.

Some consequences:

a. Since the singular goal is to get the job done, little thought or concern is placed on anticipating consequences and responding to them as they arise.

b. Appeal and beauty are primarily based on simply completing the project — no matter how it looks or feels or holds up with wear or use. It is assumed the project will be functional.

c. The designer is taught to start with a set of instructions, flow-chart or a pattern, and follow these mechanically. The instructions are assumed to be written correctly, need no further clarification, and should not be altered.

d. The better designer is one who has done more and more projects.

e. Easy to define an acceptable outcome — completing the project instructions from start to finish. It is assumed that there are few compositional issues, and that the project will be appreciated universally simply because it has been completed.

THE ART TRADITION

A second approach designers gravitate towards is the Art Tradition. The Art Tradition believes that the designer needs to learn a set of rules that can be used to apply to any situation where you are making designs. It is less important that you follow a set of steps. It’s more important to know how to apply art theories — things like color, perspective, dimension, pattern, texture, balance, harmony, composition and the like — to your project at each stage of the process, whatever that process is, and wherever that process takes you.

These art theories detail what defines successful (and unsuccessful) manipulation of design elements — universally and objectively — within any piece of art or design. There is some acknowledgement that subjectivity influences perceptions, but this is minimized. The focus, is instead, on universally accepted ideas about harmony in design. Design is seen as either a subset of painting or of sculpture. It is not seen as having its own discipline and medium, with its own special rules, theories, techniques and approaches, apart from those in art. Design is judged apart from the setting in which it is put into use.

What is nice about the Art Tradition, is that the goal is Beauty and there are issues of choice to be solved. The designer is not encumbered by having to follow specific steps or patterns. Nor is the designer encumbered by the structural and functional properties of all the pieces she or he uses — only their beauty. The designer does not have to compromise Beauty for Functionality.

The Art Tradition assumes:

1. While different people have different creative abilities, everyone has some creative ability, and can be influenced in how to apply these creative talents.
2. What matters in design is how you approach the process. It is irrelevant whether the designer is deliberative or spontaneous. It does matter whether the designer has applied the rules intuitively and correctly at each increment of the way. The end result will be a very beautiful piece of jewelry.
3. Design as art is really a form of sculpture or painting, and should be judged by the rules of sculpture or painting. The focus is on how you think through the process and make it intuitive.
4. The designer can achieve universally-accepted combinations and arrangements of design elements incorporated into any specific design piece or project.
5. Disciplinary literacy and fluency result from rehearsing theories and applying them over and over again until they become intuitive for any design choices you make.

Some consequences:

a. Little thought is given to issues of wearability or usability or durability.

b. The beauty of the design is as if it had been painted or sculpted. This is paramount.

c. The designer is taught that design is a matter of making choices, there are smarter choices to be made, and there are consequences when making any one choice. There is recognition that the designer may need to adapt to new or unfamiliar situations.

d. Design requires professional training and development over time.

e. Success results from universal understandings about how design elements should be combined and arranged so that they are harmonious, preferably with a bit of variety.

f. The full attention is on managing composition. Little attention or concern is placed on managing construction.

THE ART AND DESIGN PERSPECTIVE

A third approach to design is called the Art and Design Perspective. This paradigm recognizes the importance of the Art Tradition, especially in understanding the design process as the culmination of a series of choices, each sensitive to the context within which they are made, and each with elements of risks, rewards and consequences. This approach adds, however, to the types of choices the designer is seen as making beyond those involving beauty and appeal. These include such things as functionality, usability, durability.

· Design creates its own challenges which the Art Tradition either ignores or cannot meet.

· Designs function in real (or virtual) 3-dimensional spaces, particularly sensitive to position, light/shadow, volume and scale.

· Design must stand on its own as an object of art, while simultaneously interacting with the people around it while they are using or utilizing it. Design alters people’s relationships to it in the moment, across situations and settings, and over time.

· Design has to succeed where the responses to it are primarily subjective, even quirky. It serves many purposes for many wearers and viewers and users and responders. Some are aesthetic. Some functional. Some social, cultural and/or psychological.

In the Art and Design Perspective, designers learn their roles developmentally. That means, certain steps and rules should be learned before others, and that continual learning keeps building upon itself. While many designers initially learn their profession in a more shot-gun, less-than-organized way, it is necessary for them to, at some point, return to some basics and begin that developmental, hierarchical process. Only in this way will they truly begin to comprehend how everything interrelates and is inter-dependent.

There are many things to know and learn that present themselves in the design process — some art, architecture, engineering, behavioral science, social science, psychology, physics, mechanics, planning, marketing, administering, many techniques, many different materials, perhaps some computer coding and technology management, and the list goes on. The only way to become to become fluent in design is to gain an intuitive understanding how all these things are integrated, inter-related, and inter-dependent. That means developmentally learning how to become a design professional.

Designers work backward. That is, they first assess the shared understandings of all their clients involved, and how they anticipate the design project will be understood as finished and successful. Then the designers begin to clarify what tasks they need to perform to get there. How deliberate they are in specifying and following through on the ordering of the tasks to be performed will vary, depending on their personality, experience and comfort level. They may not do everything a full scientific management approach might suggest if there is no cost-benefit in the use of this time and the materials; that is, if their assessment of shared understandings informs them that particular tasks are unnecessary to do.

The Art and Design Tradition assumes:

1. Everyone has creative abilities, but for most people, these need to be carefully groomed and attended to developmentally. Expressing creativity is not a matter of turning a switch on and off. It’s a process that can be influenced by ideas and situations. The challenge is to teach people to become more intuitive in expressing their creative abilities and ideas.
2. What matters in design is that your project be judged as a work of art. In this case, the definition of “art” is specific to the design, in anticipation of how it will be used or utilized. Design can only be understood as “art” as it is put into use.
3. The end-user — the wearer or viewer, the buyer, the seller, the exhibitor, the collector, the student, the interactor, the inhabiter — responds to design mostly in a very subjective way.
4. Disciplinary literacy and fluency result from continual learning, rehearsing, and applying sets of integrated skills in different situations.

Some consequences:

a. This approach focuses on design issues. Beauty and appeal, along with functionality, wearability, durability, context, movement are all key considerations in selecting parts and interrelating these parts in a design. Very concerned with how you select parts and materials.

b. The beauty of the piece involves its construction, its lay-out, its consistency with rules of art theory, and how it holds up (physically and aesthetically) as it is worn in different situations. The focus is on how you organize your construction, piece by piece.

c. The jewelry designer is taught that design is a matter of making choices, there are smarter choices to be made, and there are consequences when making any one choice. Choices involve making strategic tradeoffs among appeal, functionality, and contextual relevance. There is recognition that the designer may need to adapt to new or unfamiliar situations.

d. Design requires continue professional training, development and re-training and re-development over time.

e. The full attention is on managing composition, manipulation and construction, and making hard choices where strategies conflict.

f. An acceptable outcome is one where the design maintains a sense of itself as art, as the piece is worn, inhabited or otherwise utilized. The piece or project should feel finished, usable and resonant to its intended client audience. The piece or project should reflect the designer’s hand while at the same time reveal its intimacy with the client.

The Universal and the Subjective

In design, we play with, organize and arrange design elements and objects, some of which are universally understood, like color schemes, and others in which clients respond to in very subjective ways.

For things universally shared and understood, we do not have to take the time to delineate and convey all the relevant information. Some of the relevant information is already understood. Designers do not have to spend a lot of time trying to anticipate and assess these universal and shared understandings.

These universals typically are predetermined. Sometimes by biology where our brains are prewired to either approach or flee. Universals are things which we approach. Other things we might have to interpret and figure out, perhaps deciding to flee. Othertimes, by culture or society, where we learn automatically to recognize various symbols, objects and meanings, and play out certain roles. And, yet, still othertimes by psychology, where we make certain assumptions, interpretations and value judgments where we accept things as fact without needing further proof.

Most things we will encounter, however, are not universals. They are subjective. Our work, our interactions with clients, our marketing our products and services all revolve around interpretation. Interpretation is subjective and judgmental.

What designers do need to figure out, when working with any client, is how that person’s assumptions, perceptions, expectations and values will impact the design process and the resulting piece or project so designed.

About the Shared Understanding Series…

For any design, it is a long journey from idea to implementation. This journey involves different people at different times along the way. People will not use a design if their agendas and understandings do not converge in some way. They will not buy a design or contract with the designer unless there are some shared understandings about what should happen and when, what will happen, and what the risks and rewards of the finished project will be. Shared understandings are about recognizing intent and risk. Design is both an outcome as well as an instrument for new shared understandings, new relationships, new behaviors, new reflections. As such, any design represents a commitment to a conversation — between designer and self and designer and client. The conversation allows for the management of shifting assumptions, expectations, perspectives and values. Better designs show the designer’s conscious awareness of all the things affecting shared understandings.

Continue Reading With…
PART 1: What Are Shared Understandings?
PART 2: What Part Does The Designer Need To Know?
PART 3: How Assumptions, Perceptions, Expectations and Values Come Into Play?
PART 4: How Does The Designer Establish Shared Understandings?

Baker, Jamie Feild. What is Shared Understanding? 6/24/2009. As referenced:

http://reverbconsulting.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-shared-understanding.html

Bittner, Eva Alice Christiane, and Leimeister, Jan Marco. Why Shared Understanding Matters — Engineering a Collaboration Process for Shared Understanding to Improve Collaboration Effectiveness in Heterogeneous Teams. Year: 2013, Volume: 1, Pages: 106–114, DOI Bookmark:10.1109/HICSS.2013.608.

Canel, Melissa. The Role of Perceptions in Conflict. April 9, 2016. As referenced:

https://prezi.com/auvtd6yylkkf/the-role-of-perceptions-in-conflict/

Cheung, Chung Fai. A Connected Critic: Can Michael Walzer Connect High-Mondernity with Tradition? Understanding, 2006. As referenced:
http://www.emonastery.org/files/art/critic/2understanding.html

Clark, Garth. Shards. Ceramic Arts Foundation and Distributed Art Publications, 2003.

Cooper, J. David, Robinson, M, Slansky, J.A., and Kiger, N. Literacy: Helping Students Construct, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning, 2015.

Dunlop, Cole. You Are Not Worried Enough About Perceptions and Assumptions. May 7, 2014. As referenced:
https://www.authoritylabs.com/worried-enough-perceptions-assumptions/

Feld, Warren. Backward Design Is Forward Thinking. 2020. As referenced:
https://medium.com/@warren_29626/backward-design-is-forwards-thinking-design-in-practice-series-6f9a9f4f8cd9

Feld, Warren. Jewelry Design: A Managed Process. Klimt02, 2/2/2018. As referenced:
https://klimt02.net/forum/articles/jewelry-design-managed-process-warren-feld

Hector, Valerie. The Art of Beadwork. NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2005.

Kroeger, Andrew. Prevent Conflict By Knowing Your talent’s Needs, Expectations, and Assumptions. n.d. As referenced: https://leadthroughstrengths.com/prevent-conflict-knowing-talents-needs-expectations-assumptions/

Mausolf, Judy Kay. How To Avoid 4 Communication Pitfalls:
Assumptions, Perceptions, Comparison Expectations and Commitments. Spring, 2014. As referenced:
https://www.practicesolutionsinc.net/assets/docs/communication_pitfalls.pdf
Progressive Dentist Magazine

Mazumdar, Pravu. All Art is a Critique of Reality. About Critique. Interview with Pravu Mazumdar. Klimt 02, 6/25/18. As referenced:
https://klimt02.net/forum/interviews/all-art-is-critique-reality-about-critique-interview-pravu-mazumdar-carolin-denter?utm_source=phplist908&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=Criticism+is+not+the+application+of+a+norm+to+judge+a+work%2C+but+a+mode+of+cooperation+with+the+art.+All+Art+is+a+Critique+of+Reality%2C+the+new+klimt02+interview+about+critics%2C+with+Pravu+Mazumdar…+and+much+more.+Klimt02+Newsletter+423

Murray, Kevin. US VERSUS THEM IN THE CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY WORLD, 06/18/2018. As Referenced:
https://artjewelryforum.org/us-versus-them-in-the-contemporary-jewelry-world

Norbeck, Edward. Rite of Passage. As referenced:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/rite-of-passage

Ravick, Joseph. The Role Of Assumptions, Perceptions And Expectations In Conflict, n.d. As referenced: https://adm.viu.ca/workplace-conflict/assumptions-perceptions-expectations

Saylor Academy. Understanding Culture, Chapter 2. 2012. As referenced:
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s04-understanding-culture.html

Skinner, Damian. ALL THE WORLD OVER: THE GLOBAL AMBITIONS OF CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY. 6/15/12.

Schultz, Quentin. Servant Leadership Communication is Shared Understanding — Not Transmission, Influence, or Agreement. 9/25/17. As referenced:
https://quentinschultze.com/communication-is-shared-understanding

Spool, Jared M. Attaining a Collaborative Shared Understanding. 7/3/18. As referenced:
https://medium.com/@jmspool/attaining-a-collaborative-shared-understanding-dc70cf03f98f

ThoughtWorks Studios. “How do you develop a Shared Understanding on an Agile project? 2013. As referenced:
http://info.thoughtworks.com/rs/thoughtworks2/images/twebook-developing-a-shared-understanding.pdf

Unumeri, Godwin Ogheneochuko. PERCEPTION AND CONFLICT. Lagos, Nigeria: National Open University of Nigeria, 2009. As referenced:
https://nou.edu.ng/sites/default/files/2017-03/PCR%20276%20PERCEPTION%20%26%20CONFLICT_0.pdf

Verwijs, Christiaan. “Create shared understanding with ‘What, So What, Now What’ 8/4/2018. As referenced:
https://medium.com/the-liberators/create-shared-understanding-with-what-so-what-now-what-6dda51d5bcf9

Vilajosana, Lluis Comin. Connotations and Contributions of the Maker: The Value of Jewels. 6/26/18.

Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design, 2nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.

Yusuf, Bulama. Understanding Shared Understanding: 5 Ways to Improve Shared Understanding in Software Teams. 12/8/2019. As referenced:
https://dev.to/bulsyusuf/5-ways-to-improve-shared-understanding-in-software-teams-1f62

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

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Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, Design Process, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

Part 1: SHARED UNDERSTANDINGS: THE CONVERSATION CENTERED WITHIN A DESIGN What Are Shared…

Posted by learntobead on October 16, 2020

Practice-By-Design Series

How You Are Reflected Back In Your Own Work

A piece of jewelry, a website landing page, the interior of a room, the public face of a building, all these so designed, are objects of beauty and functionality. But they are more than that. Things which are designed are unique forms of artistic expression. They are not stationery in the sense of paintings hung in a museum. They have a different type of relationship with the user or utilizer. They have a specific relationship to the body. They might move with the person, or have the person move with them or through them. They might adjust positions as the person walks, sits, runs, turns, bends, maneuvers. They might relate to clothing and hair styles and dexterity and maneuverability and body shapes and sizes. They might flow through many contexts, environments and situations. Design is expressive. Relational. Both an object and, more importantly, an intent.

Design represents a commitment to a conversation — between designer and self, designer and client, and less directly, designer and all the various audiences of that client. Otherwise people would not use the design. Or influence others to use and buy it. Or bring it into a public space with them. Or interact with it. Or buy it.

That conversation does not happen all at once. It does not start and stop at the beginning of the design process. It does not fully resolve itself even after the piece or project is finished and then used or bought or shared. That conversation continues as that piece or project is introduced to others and they react to it.

The things we design and make and inhabit and wear speak about ourselves as artists and our clients as persons. The designer can be somewhat alone, but never alone. In his or her head, but simultaneously complicit or perhaps collaborative with others, either in reality, or virtually and in the abstract. Design emerges from this dialogue, imaginative or otherwise. And only emerges with some level of commitment to a conversation.

This commitment to a conversation, centered around any piece of jewelry or other designed product or project, then is progressive. It is perspective shifting. It is reflective. It keeps going as everyone who interacts with the design begins to formulate whether they like it or not. Whether it excites them or not. Whether they would wear it or buy it or inhabit it or utilize it or not. Whether it feels finished. Whether it seems successful. Whether it would suit some purpose, or fulfill some agenda. But the shifting perspectives and emerging collective, shared understandings about the design always reflect back on the authentic performance of the designer. Endlessly reflective.

Some designers are very aware of their thinking during their authentic performance in design; others are not. While the former is a more powerful position to be in, all designers will need to figure out — before, during and after the design process — what criteria these various audiences will use to assess any design as meeting their needs, desires and requirements. How do they evaluate a design as coherent, relevant and resonant for them? How do they determine how much the designer’s own design sense contributed to coherency, relevancy and resonance? How do they share these understandings with others as they use and interact with the design publicly? What makes these understandings contagious so that others get excited about the design, as well?

The better designer anticipates answers to these questions. The designer uses this information as evidence in formulating and judging the smartness of the choices to be made when designing and constructing something. This evidence — good, bad or indifferent — forms the basis for criticality. It is a measurement. It states a position and measures the deviation. That criticality guides the designer all along the way from inspiration to aspiration to design to introducing the piece or project publicly.

Evidence in this knowledge-building experience is assessed, managed and controlled. All designers want to get good at this. It is their way of inspiring their clients to recognize the designer’s power in translating thoughts and feelings into design, that is, to reflect back the designer in their own design. We call this coherency. It is their way to excite their clients on an emotional level. We call this resonance. It is their way of influencing their clients to want to wear and buy and utilize their designs. We call this contagion. As the clients use these designs publicly, we also want to get their audiences to see and experience coherency, resonance and contagion.

Design is both an outcome as well as an instrument for new shared understandings, new relationships, new behaviors, new reflections. It is a two-way mirror. It is a catalyst for exchange. It is a marker of validity. Design is a product of creativity. Design is a tool of engagement. Design is a means toward criticality and legitimacy. Better designs show the designer’s conscious awareness of all these things and how they might play out in any situation. Authentic performances in anticipation of shared understandings and with no apologies. That’s the goal, at least.

Why Shared Understanding Matters

For any design, it is a long journey from idea to implementation. This journey involves different people at different times along the way. The designer’s ability to solve what is, in effect, a complex problem or puzzle becomes a performance of sorts, where the designer ferrets out in various ways — deliberate or otherwise — what the end users will perceive as making sense, having value and eliciting a desire powerful enough to motivate them to wear a design, inhabit it, buy it, utilize it, exhibit it or collect it. The designer, however, wants one more critical thing to result from this performance — recognition and validation of all the creative and managerial choices he or she made during the design process.

People will not use a design if their agendas and understandings do not converge in some way. They will interact with the designer to answer the question: Do You Know What I Know? If they get a sense, even figure out, that the answer is Yes, they share understandings! — they then become willing to collaborate (or at least become complicit) with the designer and the developing design.

Sometimes this convergence of understandings and meanings and intents occurs in a happenstance sort of way. But more often, it won’t happen without some degree of assertive leadership on the part of the designer. It is primarily up to the designer to establish these shared understandings. That is, the designer must take the lead to anticipate how they themselves should relate to their understanding of reality. The designer must invite the client to engage. So the designer, too, will ask the same question of the client that the client has asked of them: Do You Know What I Know?

The answer to this simple question — Do You Know What I Know? — is more than how the designer impresses the client and how the client impresses the designer. It is deeper than that. It is not surface meaning. It is not something descriptive. It is something critical. At its core are ideas about intent and desire. Its vocabulary gets very caught up in ideas about risks and rewards. The conversation to establish these shared understandings — we might call this a dance — proceeds on many levels, some assumptive, some perceptual, some through expectations, some through values and desires.

The designer, in effect, bridges the gap between how the designer sees the risks and rewards within any design process and outcome, and how the client might see these same risks and rewards. Both want to assess ahead of time whether the project will be satisfactory, feel finished, and meet their needs and desires. Both want to assess ahead of time whether there will be consequences, and what these consequences might be, should these communications and shared understandings about risk somehow fail or not meet expectations.

The designer wants to avoid any miscommunication. Any frustration. Any discomfort. So an in-depth, intuitive knowledge about shared understandings, how to anticipate them, and how to incorporate them into the design process is necessary for the success of any design.

The designer should not assume there will be shared understandings. The designer should not assume that there will be a pleasant, conflict-free relationship with the client. The designer should not assume that any disagreement or miscommunication will be worked out at the beginning of the process and not have to be dealt with again. Nor, conversely, should the designer assume that any disagreement about elements of the design would negate shared understandings. The designer and client can agree to disagree as long as they share certain understandings.

Shared understandings are about recognizing intent and risk. They are about

· Getting a sense of where the ideas for the design originate

· How the design process is to unfold

· What the design might be able to accomplish and what it might not

· What happens if conditions or intents and desires change over the course of the process

· How adaptable the designer is

· The chances the final design will feel finished and successful

· What criteria the final design needs to meet

If neither designer nor client understand intent and risk as each other sees it, there will be no shared understandings. The design will be ill-defined and poorly articulated. The designer’s performance will be inauthentic. There will be no trust. No legitimacy. No satisfactory outcome.

While the need for establishing shared understanding in the design process might seem obvious, it does not often occur. Designers too often assume this will happen automatically. They present designs as fait-accompli — their success predetermined and prejudged as successful. They lose some level of management control when the client responds negatively. They fail to adapt or become too inflexible when the situation changes. The designs get implemented imperfectly. When the client takes possession of the design, the relationship ends.

About the Shared Understanding Series…

Continue Reading With…
PART 1: What Are Shared Understandings?
PART 2: What Part Does The Designer Need To Know?
PART 3: How Assumptions, Perceptions, Expectations and Values Come Into Play?
PART 4: How Does The Designer Establish Shared Understandings?

Baker, Jamie Feild. What is Shared Understanding? 6/24/2009. As referenced:

http://reverbconsulting.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-shared-understanding.html

Canel, Melissa. The Role of Perceptions in Conflict. April 9, 2016. As referenced:

https://prezi.com/auvtd6yylkkf/the-role-of-perceptions-in-conflict/

Clark, Garth. Shards. Ceramic Arts Foundation and Distributed Art Publications, 2003.

Cooper, J. David, Robinson, M, Slansky, J.A., and Kiger, N. Literacy: Helping Students Construct, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning, 2015.

Dunlop, Cole. You Are Not Worried Enough About Perceptions and Assumptions. May 7, 2014. As referenced:
https://www.authoritylabs.com/worried-enough-perceptions-assumptions/

Feld, Warren. Backward Design Is Forward Thinking. 2020. As referenced:
https://medium.com/@warren_29626/backward-design-is-forwards-thinking-design-in-practice-series-6f9a9f4f8cd9

Feld, Warren. Jewelry Design: A Managed Process. Klimt02, 2/2/2018. As referenced:
https://klimt02.net/forum/articles/jewelry-design-managed-process-warren-feld

Hector, Valerie. The Art of Beadwork. NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2005.

Murray, Kevin. US VERSUS THEM IN THE CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY WORLD, 06/18/2018. As Referenced:
https://artjewelryforum.org/us-versus-them-in-the-contemporary-jewelry-world

Norbeck, Edward. Rite of Passage. As referenced:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/rite-of-passage

Ravick, Joseph. The Role Of Assumptions, Perceptions And Expectations In Conflict, n.d. As referenced: https://adm.viu.ca/workplace-conflict/assumptions-perceptions-expectations

Saylor Academy. Understanding Culture, Chapter 2. 2012. As referenced:
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s04-understanding-culture.html

Skinner, Damian. ALL THE WORLD OVER: THE GLOBAL AMBITIONS OF CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY. 6/15/12.

Spool, Jared M. Attaining a Collaborative Shared Understanding. 7/3/18. As referenced:
https://medium.com/@jmspool/attaining-a-collaborative-shared-understanding-dc70cf03f98f

Vilajosana, Lluis Comin. Connotations and Contributions of the Maker: The Value of Jewels. 6/26/18.

Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design, 2nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, Design Process, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 3: YOUR PASSION FOR DESIGN: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Posted by learntobead on September 12, 2020

Practice-By-Design Series

How Is Your Passion For Design Developed?

I continued working in the health care field, teaching graduate school, doing consulting, government health policy planning, and, my last professional job, directing a nonprofit membership organization of primary health care centers. Working in health care had become such a hollow experience for me, that I jumped off the corporate ladder when I was 36 years old. With a partner, we opened up a retail operation, in Nashville, Tennessee, where we sold finished jewelry, most of it custom made, as well as selling all the parts for other people interested in making jewelry themselves.

My partner was the creative one, and the design aspects of the business were organized around her work. I was the business person. I made some jewelry to sell, but my motivation was purely monetary. No passion yet.

During the first few years, it was painfully obvious that my jewelry construction techniques were poor, at best. The jewelry I made broke too easily. This bothered me. I was determined to figure out how to do it better.

This was pre-internet. There were no established jewelry making magazines at that time. In Nashville, there was a very small jewelry / beading craft community. No experience, no support. So I did a lot of trial-and-error. Lots of experimentation.

In these early years in our retail jewelry business, two critical things happened which started steering me in the direction of pursuing my jewelry design passion.

First, our store was located in a tourist area near the downtown convention center. Many people attending conventions lived in areas, especially California, where there were major jewelry making and beading communities. They shopped in our store, and from watching their shopping behaviors, seeing what they liked and did not like, and talking with them, I learned many insights about where to direct my energies.

Second, I began taking in jewelry repairs. It became almost like an apprenticeship. I got to see what design choices other jewelry makers made, and I looked for patterns. I got to see where things broke, and I looked for patterns. I spoke with the customers to get a sense of what happened when the jewelry broke, and I looked for patterns. I put into effect my developing insights about jewelry construction and materials selection when doing repairs, and I looked for patterns.

No passion yet, but I took one more big step. And passion was beginning to show itself on the horizon.

I was developing all this knowledge and experience about design theory and applications. Suddenly, I wanted to share this. I wanted to teach. But I wanted to have some high level of coherency underlying my curriculum. My budding passion for design saw design as a profession, not a hobby. I did not want to teach a step-by-step, paint-by-number class. I wanted to teach a way of thinking through design. I wanted my students to develop a literacy and fluency in design.

I inadvertently cultivated my passion for design over time. I did not really follow one. It was a journey. My passion for the idea of design did not necessarily match a particular job. I coordinated it with the job I had been doing. And over time, my job and my passion became more and more intertwined and coherent. For me, it was a long process. I honed my abilities. I leveraged them to create value — personal satisfaction and some monetary remuneration. My passion became my lifestyle. My lifestyle resonated with me.

Passion involves deep introspection. It requires you to be metacognitive — always aware of the things underlying your choices. It requires talking with people and testing out how different ideas or activities resonate with you. What do you care about? What changes in the world do you want to make? What is driving you? What if this or that? Are you willing to give up something else for this? Would people respect me if…?

During this journey, you will systematically test your assumptions about what you think your personal sense of purpose should be. For the most part, there may not be a single answer or one that will last forever. But you reach progressive levels of clarity which give you a sense of direction and fulfillment.

As a designer, it is more important to focus on personal connections represented in your passion, rather than on creating some material thing. You can steer your job to spend more time exploring the tasks you are passionate about and the people you like to share your passion with. Look for inspirations. Reflect on what you care about. It is a good idea to know yourself as a designer and why you are enthusiastic about it. Self-discipline and management go hand-in-hand with passion so that you maintain perspective and continue to create designs. You won’t necessarily love everything you do, but your passion will keep you motivated to do it.

It’s a cycle of self-discovery. But don’t sit around waiting for the cycle to show up and start rotating. Keep trying new things. Exploring. Taking charge of your life. Revisiting things which interested you when you were younger. Thinking about things you never tire of doing. Thinking about things you do well. Recognizing things you like learning about.

What If You Have A Passion For Something,
But You Don’t Do Anything About It?

What if you have a passion for something, but you don’t do anything about it? There could be several reasons for this.

You have a good job, make good money, but are not passionate about it
You have time constraints
You are afraid of change or the unknown and unfamiliar
Your family and social network are not supportive
You tried something similar before, and were not successful
You dislike the people you work with or play with
The skills integral to your passion are not in demand or favor; they don’t make you marketable, or sufficiently marketable to earn a living wage
You cannot support yourself during the extended timeframe it would take to develop your skills

But, I think, one of the major reasons people do not cultivate their passion is that they do not understand it. It is not a pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow. It won’t necessarily satisfy all your needs. It is a sensation without clear boundaries. It is best expressed among an audience that already is sensitive to and aware of your passion and how it fits with their own needs and desires. It is best expressed in a context in which it is respected.

Developing your passion takes work and commitment. Mastery of design does not spring from discovered passions. Instead, passion provides the motivation for you to learn and grow within the design profession. Initially, you might be pretty bad at professional tasks. They need to be learned and applied, then applied again. Eventually your mastery earns you some satisfaction, autonomy and respect.

What Are The Characteristics of a Passionate Designer?

A prominent country music star and her six-person entourage entered my store. They had heard about our jewelry design work, and were eager to see what we could make for the singer.

She had some specifics in mind. A necklace. It had to be all black. She wanted crosses all around it. Each cross had to be different. Each cross had to be black.

We accepted the challenge.

We began laying out some different ideas and options on the work table. The singer said No! to each idea. The entourage chimed in like a Greek chorus. (Admittedly a little weird and unnerving.) We weren’t really getting anywhere, so we set another meeting date. We would put together more options, and get their opinions. Agreed.

The color of black was easily accomplished. We could string black beads or use black chain or black cord. It would be a challenge to find or design a lot of black crosses, but not impossible.

We put in a lot of hours gathering materials and developing some more prototype options.

The second meeting was no more fruitful than the first. The artist and her entourage could offer no additional insights about what they wanted. Our mock-ups were unacceptable.

We ended the meeting.

We were not, however, going to throw in the towel.

In fact, we were intrigued by the puzzling puzzle put before us.

We decided we needed more information about why this country music artist wanted this necklace, what outfit and styling she would wear it with, and why an assortment of differing black crosses was important to her.

We put on our anthropology, psychology and sociology hats and played Sherlock Holmes. We approached members of her entourage individually. Her entourage was made up of her stylists. We were able to fill in a lot of the blanks by talking with them. She was going to wear this piece on the road, performing in several concert venues. We got into some discussions about her religion, more specifically, how she practiced it. The best way to describe this was a pagan-influenced Christianity. We had enough information to go by. This was particularly important in picking out crosses, and arranging them around the necklace.

They loved our prototype, and we only had to do a little tweaking.

You know you are passionate when you…

1. Start your days early

2. Passions consume your thoughts all the time

3. Get more excited about things

4. Get more emotional, frustrated and even angry about things

5. Take more risks

6. Devote more of your time and other resources to your work — working harder, practicing more, spending more time developing your skills

7. Are eager to share what you are working on

8. Fight within yourself as well as with others (friends, family, clients) about managing the balance between work and everything else

9. Are optimistic about the future

10. Surround yourself with their work

11. More easily accept (and get past) failures and consequences

12. Do not easily give in to criticism or skepticism.

13. Have focus and plan things out more

14. Inspire others

15. Radiate your passions

Three Types Of Passions For Design

There are three types of passions designers might cultivate:

(1) The Passion To Do Or Make Something
(2) The Passion For Beauty and Appeal
(3) The Passion For Coherency

(1) The Passion To Do Or Make Something

The designer’s passion is focused on an activity. They believe it is possible to make something out of nothing. Designers do, see, touch, compose, arrange, construct, manipulate. This passion is very hands-on and mechanical. Its drive is orderly, methodical, systematic, and directional.

(2) The Passion For Beauty and Appeal

The designer’s passion is focused on beauty and appeal. They believe it is possible to do whatever it takes to create or develop something of beauty. Designers select, feel, sense, compose, arrange, construct, manipulate. This passion is very emotional and feeling. Its drive follows the senses, the intuitive, the inspiration with an eye always on the ultimate outcome — beauty and appeal.

(3) The Passion For Coherence

The designer’s passion is focused on resolving tensions, typically between the need for beauty concurrently with the need for functionality. They believe it is possible to resolve these tensions. Designers think, analyze, reflect, organize, present, resolve, solve. This passion is very intellectual. Its drive is meaning, content, sense-making, conflict resolution and balance.

Whatever type of passion you see yourself as pursuing, it is passion nonetheless which motivates your creativity and sustains your attention long enough to get something done for someone else and fulfill their desires.

How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Not every professional designer is passionate about what they do. Nor do they have to be in order to do a good job and make money.

Passions do not solve your problems at work — the stresses, the difficult interpersonal relationships, the need to find people to pay you for what you do. They guide you to better resolve them.

Passions make the work extra special. The work becomes less a job, and more a process of continual growth and self-actualization. Passions help you more easily clarify the ambiguous and unfamiliar. They help you more readily overcome obstacles. They assist you in finding that sweet spot between fulfilling your needs and intents, and meeting those of others who work with you, pay you for what you do, critique, evaluate and recommend you.

Having a passion for something does not equate to having a professional career. Careers don’t necessarily happen because you have a passion for them. But it is great to have your career and passion co-align. You have to build upon your passion, implement it, fine-tune it, and manage it over time.

The secret for successfully bringing all this together — your desires, the tasks you want to do and those you are required to do, the various audiences whose acceptance in some way is necessary for what you must accomplish — is how you manage your passions.

Good passion management results in…

· More work getting done and more engagement with that work

· More work satisfaction and intrinsic rewards

· More self-actualization and development professionally

· Higher levels of creativity

· More trust in colleagues and clients

· More likely to feel purposeful and connected

· More capability in putting your imprint (your artist’s hand) on your work to the point your work is meaningful and acceptable to others

· More fix-it strategies to store in your designer tool box, allowing you to be more adaptable to new or difficult situations

Just like with all good things, too much can be damaging.

Bad passion management could result in…

· Becoming a workaholic

· Having others exploit your willingness to work, do the hard stuff, take on unnecessary challenges and strive for success

· Losing a good balance between work life and personal life

· Suffering burn-out

· Becoming too over-confident, less likely to seek feedback, less likely to collaborate, less likely to seek clarification

· Becoming irritable, stressed, rigid, unwilling to compromise

Again, your passion must be managed. You want balance. You want to set aside times for self-reflection and self care.

Don’t wait to follow your passion. Define and develop it within the context of your professional design career.

While it is not necessary to have found your passion in order to be a good and successful designer, developing your passion for design can be very beneficial and worth the effort. With passion comes greater satisfaction, self-affirmation, creativity and motivation. With passion comes a greater ability to gain acceptance from clients about what your designs mean and can do for them. People are not born with passions. They find them, often in a round-about, circuitous way over a period of time. Once found, they need to be developed, cultivated and managed. And you don’t want to get overwhelmed by your passions to the detriment of balance in your personal and work lives.

Continue with…
PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

_________________________________

FOOTNOTES

Chen, Robert. “The Real Meaning of Passion,” Embrace Possibility, March, 2015.
As referenced: https://www.embracepossibility.com/blog/real-meaning-passion/

Financial Mechanic. “Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Bad Advice,” Published: 05 July
2019 — Updated: 23 February 2020
As referenced: https://www.getrichslowly.org/follow-your-passion-is-bad-advice/#:~:text=They%20found%20that%20people%20who,interest%20if%20it%20becomes%20difficult.

Fisher, Christian. “How To Define Your Passion In Life,” Chron (Houston
Chronicle), n.d.
As referenced: https://work.chron.com/define-passion-life-10132.html

Hill, Maria. “Are Passion and Creativity The Same Thing?” Sensitive Evolution,
11/11/2019.
As referenced: https://sensitiveevolution.com/passion-and-creativity/

Hudson, Paul. “10 Things That Truly Passionate People Do Differently,” Elite Daily,
April 9, 2014.
As referenced: https://www.elitedaily.com/money/entrepreneurship/10-things-that-truly-passionate-people-do-differently

Jachimowicz, Jon M. “3 Reasons It’s So Hard To ‘Follow Your Pasion’”, Harvard
Business Review, October 15, 2019
As referenced: https://hbr.org/2019/10/3-reasons-its-so-hard-to-follow-your-passion

Koloc, Nathanial. “Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Pretty Bad Advice,” Hot Jobs On
The Muse
As referenced: https://www.themuse.com/advice/why-follow-your-passion-is-pretty-bad-advice

Millburn, Joshua Fields. “’Follow Your Passion’ Is Crappy Advice,” The
Minimalists.
As referenced: https://www.theminimalists.com/cal/

Pringle, Zorana Ivcevic. “Creativity Runs On Passion,” Psychology Today, 10/2019.
As referenced: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-the-art-and-science/201910/creativity-runs-passion

Robbins, Kyle. “15 Things Truly Passionate People Do Differently,” Lifehack, 2018.
As referenced: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/15-things-truly-passionate-people-differently.html

Thompson, Braden. “What Is Passion and What It Means To Have Passion,”
Lifehack, 10/15/2019.
As referenced: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/what-means-have-passion.html

Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Passion: An Essay On Personality. NY: The Free
Press, 1984.
Book downloadable: http://www.robertounger.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/passion-an-essay-on-personality.pdf

— — — — — — — — — —

I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, Career Development, design thinking, Passion, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 2: YOUR PASSION FOR DESIGN: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?

Posted by learntobead on September 12, 2020

Practice-By-Design Series

Where Does Your Passion Come From?

It was always just a whispered aside. Something quiet. A glance in one direction, then back so no one would notice. A comment. And the only comment ever said out loud. But hushed. Always and only in that hushed voice. A voice conveying alarm. Embarrassment. Bravery. Humiliation. Horror. Survival. History. Culture.

“She has a number tattooed on her arm. Did you see it?”

And I had. It was difficult to hide. Everyone spoke with so many gestures and drama, whatever the subject, and the sleeves pulled up on their arms.

And not another word was said about it. It — the situation. The larger situation. I never knew their specific experiences. Nor their views. Nor their feelings. Nor their understandings.

They never shared their terror. Or spoke about their anxiety. Or explained what they thought had happened, or how they had managed to survive.

I could not see anything in their faces. Or their eyes. There was nothing different about their skin. Their height. Their weight. The way they walked. Or talked.

There were those in the room who escaped to America during or immediately after the war. There were those in the room who had escaped similar horrors, but many decades earlier, fleeing Poland and Russia and the Middle East. There were their children. And there were their children’s children, I being one of them.

And while I was only 4 or 5 or 6 years old, I remember the collective feeling — even 60 years later — of the hushed voice and the tattooed numbers. I was never privy to any person’s history. I never heard about anyone’s experience. It was inappropriate to talk about it. But that one memory conveyed it all. The full story. I wrote the full story in my mind. And attached all the full emotions.

Passion Starts With Curiosity

It is the little things that come up every so often that imbues a curiosity in you. That makes you want to make sense of the world. Find understanding. Make sense of things where you do not know all the details. Or where things are headed. But you fill in the blanks anyway. And keep asking questions. To clarify. To intensify. To soften. To connect with other stories your curiosity has led you to.

Passion starts with curiosity. But not just curiosity. Passion is sparked by curiosity, but goes further. It creates this emotional energy within you to make meaning out of ambiguity. For passion to continually grow and develop, such derived meaning must be understood within a particular context, and all the people, actually or virtually present, who concurrently interact with that context, and your place in it.

Passion involves insights. Passion is about finding connections. Connections to insights and meanings. Connections to things which are pleasing to you. Connections to things which are contradictory. Connections to thinbgs which are unfamiliar or ambiguous. Connections to others around you. And finding them again. And reconnecting with them again. And again and again.

Passion requires reflection. It demands an awareness of why you make certain choices rather than others. Why particular designs draw your attention, and others do not. Why you are attracted to certain people (or activities), and others not.

Passion affects how you look at things and people. It is dynamic. It is communicative. It affects all your interactions.

Passion is not innate. You are not born with it. It is not set at birth waiting to be discovered. It is something to find and cultivate.

The elemental roots of my passion were present at a very early age. I was very curious. I tried to impose a sensibility on things. While I wanted people around me to like me, that wasn’t really a part of my motivation. I wanted people to understand me as a thinking human being. And I was always that way.

In some respects, this situation when I was around 5 years old has been an example of the root of my passion. My jewelry designs resonate with that hushed, quiet voice. That voice conveys my intent through the subtle choices I make about color and proportion and arrangement and materials and techniques. I usually start each design activity by anticipating how others will come to understand what I hope to achieve. How they might recognize the intent in my designs. How my intent might coordinate with their desires.

My jewelry designs tell stories. They tell my stories. They tell my stories so that other people might connect with them. And understand my passion for design.

Are Passion and Creativity the Same Thing?

As designers, we bring our creative assets to every situation. But we must not confuse these with the passion within us. Passion and creativity are not the same thing. We do not need passion to be creative. Nor do we need passion to be motivated to create something.

Passion is the love of design. Creating is making an object or structuring a project.

Passion is the love of jewelry. Creating is making a necklace.

Passion is the love of color. Creating is using a color scheme within a project.

Passion is the love of fashion. Creating is making a dress.

After college, I had some great jobs. Lots of creativity. Not much passion.

I was a college administrator for a year. I was hired to organize the student orientation program. As new students arrived at the university in the fall, I created social activities, like dances and mixers and discussions. I arranged for greet and meets in each of the dorms. I worked with each club to generate their first meetings and some of the marketing materials. I set up religious orientations and services for Jewish, Christian and Islamic students. I set up orientations for women’s affinity groups, black groups, latino groups, and many others. I wrote, photographed and published an orientation handbook and a new faces book. I even planned the food services menus for the first week. I did a lot. I loved it. It was very creative.

But not my passion.

I also had an opportunity to become the Assistant Editor of the American Anthropologist for a year. The regular Assistant wanted to go on a sabbatical. The Editor knew me and asked if I wanted to do her job for a year. I edited and saw to the publication of 2 ½ issues. I worked with anthropologists all over the world in helping them translate their work into publishable articles. I loved this job too. I did a lot. It was very creative.

But not my passion.

I decided to pursue a degree in City and Regional Planning. I was getting an inkling that I liked things associated with the word “design.” I liked the idea of designing cities and neighborhoods and community developments. I was intrigued with transportation systems and building systems and urban development.

I was about to enter graduate training in City Planning, which meant moving from where I lived, but a family crisis came up. Physical planning — buildings, cities, roads, neighborhoods — had captured my interest. But I resigned myself, in order to accommodate family needs, to attend a graduate program close to home which emphasized social and health planning, instead.

I got a job as a city health planner, and worked for a private revitalization agency. I assisted in getting government approval for a rehabilitation center. I developed a local maternal-child health system. I organized a health fair. I loved this job. I did a lot. It was very creative.

But not my passion.

As I have come to believe over many careers and many years, the better designer needs both passion and creativity. They reinforce each other. They accentuate. When both are appropriately harnessed, the joys and stresses of passion fuel creativity, innovation and design. Passion inspires. It is insightful. It motivates. Creativity translates that emotional imaging and feeling into a design. Creativity is opportunistic. It transforms things. It generates ideas. It translates inspirations into aspirations into finished projects.

The design process usually takes place over an extended period of time. There can be several humps and bumps. Passion gets us through this. It is that energizing, emotional, motivating resource for creative work. Passion is that strong desire and pressing need to get something done. Passion helps us, almost forces us, in fact, to build our professional identities around that activity we call design.

Passion reveals an insatiability for self discovery and self development. But this sense of self is always contingent upon the acceptance of others. Sounds a lot like the design process and working with clients. You don’t need to be passionate to do design and do it well. You need passion to do design better and more coherently. You need passion to have more impact on yourself and others.

Continue with…
PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

_________________________________

FOOTNOTES

Chen, Robert. “The Real Meaning of Passion,” Embrace Possibility, March, 2015.
As referenced: https://www.embracepossibility.com/blog/real-meaning-passion/

Fisher, Christian. “How To Define Your Passion In Life,” Chron (Houston
Chronicle), n.d.
As referenced: https://work.chron.com/define-passion-life-10132.html

Hill, Maria. “Are Passion and Creativity The Same Thing?” Sensitive Evolution,
11/11/2019.
As referenced: https://sensitiveevolution.com/passion-and-creativity/

Koloc, Nathanial. “Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Pretty Bad Advice,” Hot Jobs On
The Muse
As referenced: https://www.themuse.com/advice/why-follow-your-passion-is-pretty-bad-advice

Millburn, Joshua Fields. “’Follow Your Passion’ Is Crappy Advice,” The
Minimalists.
As referenced: https://www.theminimalists.com/cal/

Thompson, Braden. “What Is Passion and What It Means To Have Passion,”
Lifehack, 10/15/2019.
As referenced: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/what-means-have-passion.html

Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Passion: An Essay On Personality. NY: The Free
Press, 1984.
Book downloadable: http://www.robertounger.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/passion-an-essay-on-personality.pdf

— — — — — — — — — —

I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, Career Development, design thinking, Passion, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 1: YOUR PASSION FOR DESIGN: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?

Posted by learntobead on September 12, 2020

Practice-By-Design Series

Can You Really Follow A Passion?

Is it necessary to have a passion?

Sometimes I get so sick and tired of this question. I get perplexed. What does it really mean? What are people really telling me when they say I should follow my passion?

What job or career or avocation should I pursue? Do I have an intense interest in anything? Does anything drive me? Motivate me? Capture my undivided attention? What do I wish I would have done? Or should have done? Or could have done? Is something to do with design the answer? Passion! That word is spoken so often.

Follow your passion! Follow your passion! Follow your passion!

You get told this over and over again so many times that you begin to question whether anyone has ever really been successful, or even been substantially motivated, to follow their passions. Especially those people who tell you to do so — surely, they have not actually found their passion. It seems so hard to find. A good goal, but let’s get real. Insurmountable. There are lots of things I like and get very enthusiastic about, but I can’t say I’m passionate about them. And you can’t forget you have to earn a living, whether you are passionate about what you do or not.

You hear and read about finding your passion, so much so, that you feel if you haven’t found yours, something must be wrong with you. And, certainly you think no one else has, either. The pressure, the pressure. Why is it so important to my family and friends and my inner still voice that I be passionate about something?

Their admonitions take different tones, from command, to pleading, to expressing concern and sorrow, to lowering their expectations for you. You see / feel/ know what they are really trying to say to you — sympathy, empathy, pity — by those variations on the memes they throw at you.

You don’t have to make a decision about a career until you find your passion!

Don’t worry, you’ll find something to be passionate about!

Not everyone finds their passion.

You begin to feel like a failure in life for not finding your passion. Or that so-and-so you went to school with found theirs… and you didn’t.

The only way to stave all these folks off is to get a job that makes a lot of money. Pursuing money apparently is seen as a legitimate substitute for following your passion.

And that’s what I did.

For almost 40 years.

I pursued money.

Until I found my passion.

My passion for design.

Specifically, jewelry design.

What Is Passion?

Passion, I have discovered over many years in the design world, is something key to a more fulfilling and successful career.

Passion makes sense for design.

Passion is an emotion.

Passion provides the fuel firing you to action.

Almost in spite of yourself.

Passion is often equated with determination, motivation, and conviction — all moving you in a particular direction. But these do not adequately capture what passion is all about. Passion challenges you. It is intriguing. It provides the principle around which you organize your life.

Passion is something more than a strong interest. Passion is a bit more energetic, directional. And when you want to change direction, emotionally, passion makes this very difficult. Passion is simultaneously a response somewhat divorced from any reason, but in the service of reason, as well. Once you have it, passion can be very sticky and hard to shake off.

Passion puts you to work. It helps you overcome those times when you get frustrated. Or bored. Or anxious.

Passion reveals what you are willing to sacrifice other pleasures for.

Passion is what helps you overcome those times when you get frustrated when something isn’t working out exactly as you want, or when you are anxious about your ability to do something, or you get bored with what you are trying to do at the moment.

But passion is somewhat amorphous. Intangible. Not something solid enough or clear enough to grab and grip and get ahold of.

Is it Necessary To Have A Passion For Design?

In high school, I decided that my passion would be archaeology. I read books and articles about Middle East history and settlement patterns. I loved the idea of traveling. I loved history. I selected a college that had an excellent and extensive archaeology program.

That first fall semester, I took two archaeology classes. In one of these classes, week after week for 18 weeks, I sat through the examinations and resultant reports looking at the remains of a small grouping of houses in Iran. I saw the partial remains of some walls. An area the remains of which suggested it was a kitchen. And lots of dust and dirt and not much else.

The archaeological reports were each done by teams from different countries. From the scant evidence, the Russian report found the settlement to be communal and socialist. They based their conclusions on the positioning of the walls, the proximity of the kitchen area to the walls, and the remains mostly consisting of chicken bones. The German report found the settlement to be more democratic but still communal. Their evidence was based on the positioning of the walls, the proximity of the kitchen area to the walls, and the remains mostly consisting of chicken bones. And the American report found the settlement to be an early example of democracy and capitalism. Their evidence — can you guess? — was based on the positioning of the walls, the proximity of the kitchen area to the walls, and the remains mostly consisting of chicken bones.

I made a discovery in myself and about myself that first semester of college. Archaeology was not my passion. I changed majors. But still no passion.

I still yearned to be passionate about something, however. A goal. A Task. An activity. A career. Anything. My search took almost another 20 years.

Not having a passion did not affect my ability to work and do my job. But I felt some distance from it. Some disconnection. Something missing and less satisfying.

While it took me a long time to find my passion, for others it happens very quickly. You never know. In either case, passion is not something that falls down from the sky and hits you on the head. It is something that has to be pursued, developed and cultivated over time.

Pursuing your passion has many advantages. When you are passionate about something, you can more easily accomplish things which are difficult and hard. Your work and job and life feel more fulfilling. You feel you are impacting the world around you.

A passion for design enables you to become the best designer you can be. It builds within you a more stick-to-it-iveness, while you develop yourself as a designer over many years, and learn the intricacies of your trade and profession. Having a passion for design is a necessity if you are to come to an understanding of yourself as a professional practicing a discipline.

Passion gives us purpose. It attaches a feeling to our thoughts, intensifying our emotions. It is transformative. Empowering. Passion allows us to realize a vision within any context we find ourselves.

A passion for design allows us to navigate those tensions between the pursuit of beauty and the pursuit of functionality. It allows us to incorporate the opinions and desires of our clients into our own design work, without sacrificing our identities and integrities as designers. In a sense, it allows our design choices to reaffirm our ideas and concepts, tempering them with the needs, desires, and understandings of our client and the client’s various audiences. It allows us, through our design decisions, to manage the vagaries in any situation and, ultimately, to get the professional recognition we seek. However, most of us — including and especially me — have not known how to pursue our passions. And we fail to do so.

Not only should we have to pursue a passion for meaningful work, but we must incorporate our passion into our everyday lives. Passion is not just about ourselves. Passion affects our friends and families and work mates. They suffer or benefit (or both) from our driven selves. Passion affects how we utilize our time. It affects how we see the world, define problems and anticipate solutions.

Passion can be a bitch, and it must be managed. Otherwise, without some ongoing management and a bit of reflection and skepticism, passion can have the opposite effect from what we desire in life. Poorly managed and integrated into our lives, passion can lead to less happiness, less satisfaction, less contentment and less personal growth. In spite of all this, having passion for what you do will result in many more positives than negatives in your design work.

Pursing our passion requires that we bring on our journey these four understandings:

(1) Passion is not innate to the individual. Passion must be developed.

(2) It is not easy to take this journey to find your passion, especially as it gets drawn out over a long period of time.

(3) Passion makes it easier to mediate and sustain our pathways through our interactions at work and through life.

(4) Passion can lead us astray, blinding us to its limits.

Continue with…
PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

_________________________________

FOOTNOTES

Chen, Robert. “The Real Meaning of Passion,” Embrace Possibility, March, 2015.
As referenced: https://www.embracepossibility.com/blog/real-meaning-passion/

Fisher, Christian. “How To Define Your Passion In Life,” Chron (Houston
Chronicle), n.d.
As referenced: https://work.chron.com/define-passion-life-10132.html

Hill, Maria. “Are Passion and Creativity The Same Thing?” Sensitive Evolution,
11/11/2019.
As referenced: https://sensitiveevolution.com/passion-and-creativity/

Thompson, Braden. “What Is Passion and What It Means To Have Passion,”
Lifehack, 10/15/2019.
As referenced: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/what-means-have-passion.html

Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Passion: An Essay On Personality. NY: The Free
Press, 1984.
Book downloadable: http://www.robertounger.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/passion-an-essay-on-personality.pdf

— — — — — — — — — —

I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, Career Development, design thinking, Passion, professional development | Leave a Comment »

Doubt / Self-Doubt: 8 Major Pitfalls For Designers… And What To Do About Them

Posted by learntobead on September 6, 2020

Practice-By-Design Series

For the novice, all that excitement at the beginning, when thinking about designing things, sometimes collides with a wall of developing self-doubt. It’s not easy to quiet a doubt.

The designer organizes their life around an inspiration. There is some fuzziness here. That inspiration has some elements of ideas, but not necessarily crystal clear ones. That inspiration has some elements of emotions — it makes you feel something — but not necessarily something you can put into words or images or fully explain. You then need to translate this fuzzy inspiration into materials, into techniques, into color, into arrangements, into a coherent whole.

You start to create something, but realize you don’t know how to do it. But you want to do it, and do it now. However, to pick up the needed skills, you realize you can’t learn things all at once. You can’t do everything you want to do all at once. That initial excitement often hits a wall. Things take time to learn. There are a lot of trial and error moments, with a lot of errors. Pieces break. Projects don’t gel. Combining colors and other design elements feels very awkward. Silhouettes or structural layouts are confusing. You might get the right shape for your piece, but it is difficult to get the right movement, drape and flow, without compromising that shape. Or you might get the right placement of objects, but difficult to get everything into the frame, without compromising the placements. Things take time to do.

To add to this stress and strain, you need to show your designs off. You might want someone to like it. To want it. To need it. To buy it. To wear or use it. To wear or use it more than once. To wear or use it often. To exhibit it. To collect it. To publicize it. And how will all these other people recognize your creative spark, and your abilities to translate that spark into a wonderful, beautiful, functional design, appropriate for the wearer or user and appropriate for the situation? Things need to be shared.

Frequently, because of all this, the designer experiences some sense of doubt and self-doubt. Some paralysis. Can’t get started. Can’t finish something. Wondering why they became a designer in the first place.

Doubt holds you back from seizing your opportunities.

It makes getting started or finishing things harder than they need to be.

It adds uncertainty.

It makes you question yourself.

It blocks your excitement, perhaps diminishing it.

While sometimes doubt and self-doubt can be useful in forcing you to think about and question your choices, it mostly holds you back.

Having doubt and self-doubt is common among all artistic types. What becomes important is how to manage, channel and overcome it, so that doubts do not get in the way of your creative process and disciplinary development.

8 MAJOR WAYS DESIGNERS FALL INTO SELF-DOUBT

There are 8 major ways in which designers get caught beginning to fall into that abyss we call self-doubt:

1) What If I’m Not Creative Enough or Original Enough or Cannot Learn or Master or Don’t Know a Particular Technique?

2) What If No One Likes What I Make?

3) What If No One Takes Me Seriously As An Artist And Designer?

4) I Overthink Things and Am A Bit of a Perfectionist.

5) How Can I Stay Inspired?

6) Won’t People Steal My Work?

7) Being Over Confident or Under Confident

8) Role Confusion

1. What If I’m Not Creative Enough or Original Enough or Cannot Learn or Master or Don’t Know a Particular Technique?

Everyone has some creativity baked into their being. It is a matter of developing your way of thinking and doing so that you can apply it. This takes time.

So does originality. Originality is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Originality grows in stages. At first, you’ll try different ways of personalizing projects. There are always things you can do to bring some aspects of originality to your pieces. This might be the choice of colors, or using a special component or object, or rearranging some elements in your composition. Again, as with creativity, the ability to be more and more original will evolve over time. It is helpful to think of originality, not necessarily as coming up with something completely new, but rather as differentiation — how you differentiate yourself from other designers.

For almost everyone, you don’t begin your design career at the height of your levels of creativity and originality. Yes, if you look around you, other people are more creative and original than you or have more skills than you. Don’t let these observations be a barrier to your own development as a designer. You get there through persistence and hard work. You handle your inner critic. You may not be there, yet — the key word here is yet. But you will be.

2. What If No One Likes What I Make?

We all have fears about how our creativity and originality are going to be evaluated and judged. We project our self-doubts to the doubts we think we see and feel from others. What if no one wants to wear my pieces, or buy my works, or use my projects?

We can’t let these outsider reactions dictate our lives and creative selves. A key part of successful design is learning how to introduce what we do publicly. At the least, it is the core nature of the things we create that they are to be worn on the body. Design is a very public thing.

Turn negative comments into positive ideas, motivators, insights, explorations. Allow yourself some give and take, some needs to step back awhile, some needs to tweak. Design is an iterative processes. It in no way is linear. Your outcomes and their success are more evolutionary, than guaranteed.

Distressing about what others may think of your work can be very damaging to your self-esteem. It can amplify your worries. Don’t go there.

Don’t become your worst critic.

3. What If No One Takes Me Seriously As An Artist And Designer?

Design is an occupation in search of a profession. You will find that a lot of people won’t recognize your passion and commitment. They may think anyone can design. They may think of design as a craft or some subset of art, not as something unique and important in and of itself. They may wonder how you can make a living at this.

The bottom line: if you don’t take yourself seriously as a designer, no one else will.

People will take you seriously as they see all the steps you are taking to master your craft and develop yourself as a professional.

4. I Over Think Things And Am A Bit Of A Perfectionist

Some designers let a sense that their work is not as good as imagined get in the way. They never finish anything. They let doubt eat away at them.

Perfectionism is the enemy of the good. It’s great to be meticulous, but emotionally, we get wrecked when anything goes astray, or any little thing is missing, or you don’t have that exact color or part you originally wanted.

Go ahead and plan. Planning is good. It’s insightful. It can be strategic. But also be sure to be adaptable and realistic. Each piece is a stepping stone to something that will come next.

The better designer develops a Designer’s Toolbox — a collection of fix-it strategies to deal with the unfamiliar or the problematic.

Overthinking can be very detrimental. You can’t keep changing your mind, trying out every option, thinking that somewhere, someplace there exists a better option. Make a choice and get on with it. You can tweak things later.

Yes, attention to detail is important. But so is the value of your time. You do not want to waste too much time on trivial details.

Be aware when you begin over-analyzing things. Stop, take a breath, make a decision, and move on.

5. How Can I Stay Inspired?

Designing something takes time, sometimes a long time. That initial inspirational spark might feel like it’s a dying ember.

Don’t let that happen.

Translate that inspiration into images, colors, words, sample designs, and surround your work space with these.

Talk about your inspiration in detail with family and friends.

6. Won’t People Steal My Work and Ideas?

Many designers fear that if they show their work publicly, people will steal their work and ideas. So they stop designing.

Yet design is a very communicative process which requires introducing your work publicly. If you are not doing this, then you are creating simple sculptures or paintings, not designed work.

Yes, other people may copy your work and co-opt your ideas. See this source of doubt as an excuse. It is a self-imposed, but unnecessary, barrier we might impose to prevent us from experiencing that excitement as a designer. Other people will never be able to copy your design prowess — how you translate inspiration into a finished piece. That is unique and special to you, and why the general public responds positively to you and your work.

7. Over Confidence can blind you to the things you need to be doing and learning, and Under Confidence can hinder your development as a designer.

Too often, we allow under confidence to deter us from the design tasks at hand. We always question our lack of ability and technical prowess for accomplishing the necessary tasks at hand. It is important, however, to believe in yourself. To believe that you can work things out when confronted with unfamiliar or problematic situations. It is important to develop your skills for thinking like a designer. Fluency. Flexibility. Originality. There is a vocabulary to learn. Techniques to learn. Strategies to learn. These develop over time with practice and experience. You need to believe in your abilities to develop as a designer over time.

With over confidence comes a naivete. You close off the wisdom to listen to what others have to say or offer. You stunt your development as an designer. You overlook important factors about materials and techniques to the detriment of your final designs and products. You close yourself off to doubt and self-doubt, which is unfortunate. Doubt and self-doubt are tools for asking questions and questioning things. These help you grow and develop as an artist and designer. These influence your ability to make good, professional choices in your career.

8. Role Confusion

Designers play many roles and wear different hats. Each has its own set of opportunities, requirements, and pressures that the designer must cope with. It’s a balancing act extraordinaire.

First, people who design often wear different hats: Artist and Designer, Manufacturer, Architect and Engineer, Distributor, Retailer, Accountant, Exhibitor, Marketer and Promoter.

Second, people who design have different needs: Artistic Excellence, Recognition, Monetary Gain, or Financial Stability.

Third, the designer needs to please and satisfy themselves, as well as other various clients.

Fourth, the designer constructs things which need to function in different settings: Situational, Cultural, Sociological, Psychological.

Last, the designer must negotiate a betwixt and between situation — a rite of passage — as they relinquish control over the piece or project and its underlying inspirations to the user (and the user’s various audiences), who have their own needs, desires and expectations.

This gets confusing. It affects how you pick materials and supplies. Which techniques you use. What marketing strategies you employ. How you value and price things. And the list goes on.

It is important to be aware (metacognitive) of what role(s) you play, what goals you have, what clients desires you need to satisfy, in what contexts your work will function, when, and why. Given these things, it is important to understand the types of choices you need to make, when constructing an object or a project. It is critical to understand the tradeoffs you will invariably end up making, and their consequences for the aesthetic, emotional and functional success of your designs.

Some Advice

While doubt and self-doubt can hinder our development as designers, some degree of these may be helpful, as well.

To develop yourself as a designer, and to continue to grow and expand in your profession, you must have a balanced amount of both doubt and self-doubt. Uncertainty leads to questioning. A search for knowledge. Some acceptance of trial and error and experimentation. A yearning for more reliable information and feedback.

Design uses a great deal of emotion as a Way of Knowing. Emotions cloud or distort how we perceive things. They may lead to more doubt and worry and lack of confidence. But they also enhance our excitement when translating inspirations into designs.

· Don’t let your inner doubts spin out of control. Be aware and suppress them.

· Be real with yourself and your abilities.

· Keep a journal. Detail what your doubts are and the things you are doing to overcome them.

· Create a developmental plan for yourself. Identify the knowledge, skills and understandings you want to develop and grow into.

· Remember what happened in the past the last time doubt got in your way. Remember what you did to overcome this doubt. Remember that probably nothing negative actually happened.

· Talk to people. These can be friends, relatives and colleagues. Don’t keep doubts unto yourself.

· Don’t compare yourself to others. This is a trap. Self-reflect and self-evaluate you on your own terms.

· Worrying about what others think? The truth is that people don’t really care that much about what you do or not do.

· Don’t beat yourself up.

· Get re-inspired. This might mean surrounding yourself with images and photos of things. It might mean a walk in nature. It might me letting someone else’s excitement flow over to you.

· Take breaks.

· See setbacks as temporary.

· Celebrate small steps.

· Keep developing your skills.

· Set goals for yourself.

__________________________________________

Footnotes

(1) Henri Neuendorf, A Young Artist’s Brief Guide to Art World
Ambition, Art World, November 18, 2016
As referenced: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/4-motivations-that-make-
artists-successful-752957

(2) Drew Kimble, Five Fears That Can Destroy An Artist, Skinny Artist,
As referenced: https://skinnyartist.com/5-fears-that-can-destroy-an-artist/

— — — — — — — — — —

I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, Business, design thinking, jewelry design, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 1:THE FIRST ESSENTIAL QUESTION EVERY DESIGNER SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER: Is What I Am…

Posted by learntobead on August 16, 2020

PRACTICE-BY-DESIGN SERIES

In order to make better artistic and design choices, the Fluent and Empowered Designer should have answers to 5 essential questions. In this article, I present the first essential question: Is What I Am Doing Craft, Art, or Design?

Jane landed her first real client. She had designed websites and social marketing campaigns for some friends and family. But this was the first real contract. She was excited, as you would expect, and could not wait to begin.

The client was a furniture manufacturing company. They wanted to promote themselves by holding a contest online. It was to take the form of a sweepstakes and furniture give-away. This company had been online for several years, but this was the first contest they had ever done. They wanted this effort to have a huge marketing impact.

The first task was to design a Landing Page for this contest. The page was to coordinate with general look and feel of the company’s website. It should generate excitement about the contest, and persuade people to register their email addresses for future company marketing. It needed to be completed within 6 weeks.

Jane began outlining and sketching some things to share with the client.

· She felt the colors in the client’s logo did not completely work as a harmonious color scheme. So, for the Landing Page, she tweaked them a bit.

· She had posted her draft page on her own website, using her own domain name. She understood that this would be temporary.

· She researched a set of 25 key words relevant to furniture sales. She used these key words to develop three descriptive paragraphs.

· She located the email text-box on the left side of the web-page, and the submit button on the right side, parallel on the page with the text box. The submit button text was SUBMIT.

· She was unfamiliar with responsive web page design, so she did not consider any implications for various browsers and screen sizes.

At the 3-week mark, she met with the client, and presented her work to them. They were not happy. The tweaking of the logo colors did not go over well. They were confused about the domain name. The key words, and subsequent descriptions, did not resonate with them. The look of the Landing Page on a cell phone was very disjointed, and the submit button ended up about 4” below the email text box — not visible without scrolling down.

Jane was at a loss. She did not know what she should do next.

Designers, like Jane, need to learn to think like designers. They need to become fluent in the disciplinary way of defining problems, developing solutions, anticipating the client’s understandings, and introducing these solutions publicly. They need strategies to adapt to changing or unfamiliar circumstances.

However, what all this specifically means, and how all this plays out, gets a bit muddled. There is a lot of advice to sift through. Designers learn what they do from several sources, including teachers to books to online videos. It turns out that what perspective the advisor, teacher, how-to author is coming from affects what they suggest you do. Because of this, and especially because of this, every designer must get straight in their heads that to think like a craftsperson or to think like an artist is not the same as thinking like a designer.

There are three competing perspectives (or what are called paradigms) for how designers should be taught and practice — (1) The Craft Approach, (2) The Art Tradition, and (3) The Art and Design Perspective. Each provides a different set of advice for telling the designer what to do. Each uses different criteria for judging success.

Had Jane been able to answer the question: Craft, Art or Design?, she may have managed the design process much better. She probably would not have hit this wall with the client. She could have come up with ideas to fix and overcome the problems.

Fluency and Empowerment

The fluent designer is able to think like a designer. The designer is more than a craftsperson and more than an artist. The designer must learn a specialized language, and specialized way of balancing the needs for appeal with the needs for functionality. The designer must intimately recognize and understand the roles design plays for individuals as well as the society as a whole. The designer must learn how art, architecture, physical mechanics, engineering, sociology, psychology, context, even party planning, all must come together and get expressed at the point where the design meets the boundary of the individual.

And to gain that fluency, the designer must commit to learning a lot of vocabulary, ideas and terms, and how these imply content and meaning through expression. The designer will need to be very aware of personal thoughts and thinking as these get reflected in all the choices made in design. The designer will have to be good at anticipating the understandings and judgements of many different audiences, including the user and all the user’s own clients.

With fluency comes empowerment. The empowered designer has a confidence that whatever needs to be done, or whatever must come next, the designer can get through it. Empowerment is about making and managing choices. These choices could be as simple as whether to finish a piece or project or not. Or whether to begin a second piece or project. The designer will make choices about how to draw someone’s attention to the work, or present the work to a larger audience. She or he may decide to submit the work to a magazine or contest. She or he may want to sell the work and market it. The designer will make choices about how the work might be used, or who use it, or when it might be used, in what context.

And for all these choices, the designer might need to overcome a sense of fear, doubt, boredom, or resistance. The designer might need to overcome anxiety, a sense of giving up, having designer’s block, feeling unchallenged, and even laziness.

This makes it critical for any designer, in order to flourish and succeed, to be able to answer these 5 essential questions, beginning with question 1.

Question 1: Should Design work be considered ART or CRAFT or DESIGN?

All designers, whether making jewelry, building buildings, creating interiors, putting together websites and digital marketing plans, confront a world which is unsure whether design is “craft” or “art” or its own special thing I’ll call “design”. This can get very confusing and unsettling. Each approach has its own separate ideas about how the designer should work, and how he or she should be judged.

CRAFT: When defined as “craft,” design is seen as something that anyone can do — no special powers are needed to be a designer. Design is seen as a step-by-step process, almost like paint-by-number. Designers color within the lines. The craft piece or project has functional value but limited aesthetic value.

If following the Craft Approach, the designer would learn a lot of techniques and applications in a step-by-step fashion. The designer, based on their professional socialization into Craft, would assume that:

a) The outlines and the goals of any piece or project can be specified in a clear, defined way.
b) Anyone can do these techniques.
c) There is no specialized knowledge that a designer needs to know beyond how to do these step-by-step techniques and applications.
d) If a particular designer has a strong sense of design, this is something innate and cannot be learned or taught.
e) There is little need to vary or adapt these techniques and applications.
f) The primary goal is functionality.
g) There are no consequences if you have followed the steps correctly.

As “craft”, we still recognize the interplay of the artist’s hand with the piece and the storytelling underlying it. We honor the technical prowess. People love to bring art into their personal worlds, and the craftsperson offers them functional objects which have some artistic sensibilities.

ART: When defined as “art”, design is seen as something which transcends itself and its design. It is not something that anyone can do without special insights and training. The goal of any project would be harmony with a little variety, and some satisfaction and approval.

“Design as art” evokes an emotional response. Functionality should play no role at all, or, if an object has some functional purpose, then its functional reason-for-being should merely be supplemental to the art. For example, the strap on a necklace is comparable to the frame around a painting, or the pedestal for a sculpture. They supplement the art. The borders, and perhaps the footer and side navigation bars, on a website home page would also be understood as supplemental to the design. As supplemental components, these would not be included with nor judged as part of the design work. In an extreme example, from the art perspective, the beauty, balance and harmony of a website’s appearance should be unencumbered by any considerations of user experience and navigatability.

If following the Art Tradition, the designer would learn a lot of art theories and rules about the manipulation of design elements, such as color, movement, perspective, within the piece or project. Then, the designer would keep rehearsing these until their application becomes very intuitive. The designer, based on their professional socialization into Art, would assume that:

a) Whether the piece or project outlines are clear from the beginning, or emergent or process-like, what is most important is that art theories and rules be applied at each little increment along the way.
b) The designer as artist must learn some specialized knowledge — art theories and rules — in order to be successful.
c) The outcomes — either pieces or projects — would be judged on visual and art criteria alone, as if they were paintings and sculptures on display.
d) While everyone has within them the creative abilities to design as an artist, for most people, this must be learned.
e) The primary goals are beauty and appeal. Beauty and appeal are typically judged in terms of harmony and variety.
f) If you have not applied the theories and rules optimally, the piece or project would be judged as incomplete and unsuccessful.

What is nice about the Art Tradition, is that the goal is Beauty. Beauty is achieved through smart choices and decisions. The designer as artist is not encumbered by having to follow specific steps or patterns. Nor is the designer encumbered by the structural and functional properties of all the pieces or elements she or he uses — only their beauty. The designer does not have to compromise Beauty for Functionality.

DESIGN: When defined as “design”, you begin to focus more on construction and functionality issues. You often find yourself making tradeoffs between appeal and functionality. You incorporate situational relevance into your designs. You anticipate what the client (and the various audiences of the client) understands as something which is finished and successful. You see “choice” as more multidimensional and contingent. You define success only in reference to the design as it is worn, placed, constructed or used.

If following the Art and Design Perspective, the designer would have to learn a lot of things. These would include things in art, architecture, engineering, social science, psychology, behavioral science, and anthropology. The designer would develop those professional skills and insights, what we might call disciplinary literacy, so that she or he could bring a lot of disparate ideas and applications to the fore, depending on what the situation warranted.

The designer, based on their professional socialization into Art and Design, would assume that:

a) Whether the piece or project outlines are clear or emergent, what is most important is the ability to bring a wide range of design principles and applications to the situation.

b) The designer must learn a lot of specialized knowledge, some related to art, and some related to several other disciplines, such as architecture and social science.

c) The outcomes — either pieces or projects — must find the best fit between considerations about appeal with concerns about functionality. Functionality is not an add-on. It is an equal, competing partner with beauty and appeal.

d) The designer does not design in a vacuum. She or he must anticipate the shared understandings among self, client and the various audiences of the client about what might be seen as finished and successful. These anticipations must be incorporated into the design process and how it is managed.

e) Anyone can learn to be a designer, but fluency and literacy in the profession involves development of skills and insights over a period of time.

f) The primary goal is to find the best fit between appeal and functionality.

g) The consequences for not finding that best fit is some level of client dissatisfaction.

The Art and Design Perspective is very relevant for the education and training of designers. Here, the designer is seen as a multi-functional professional. The designer must bring a lot of very different kinds of skills and abilities to bear, when constructing a piece or developing a project. The professional has to be able to manage artistic design, functionality, and the interaction of the piece or project with the client as well as that client’s environment. This approach also believes that “Design” should be appreciated as its own discipline — not a subset of sculpture or painting. And that a piece or project as designed can only be understood as these are placed in use.

How you define your work as ART or CRAFT or DESIGN (or some mix) will determine what skills you learn, how you apply them, and how you introduce your pieces to a wider audience. The Craft Approach ignores the need to learn a specialized knowledge and approach. The Art Tradition focuses solely on the artistic merits of the project, and assumes the client will have more passive relationship to it, as if the client were standing in front of the project in a museum. The Art and Design Perspective focuses on how to anticipate shared understandings and incorporate these into how best to make tradeoffs between appeal and functionality.

So, returning to the situation with Jane, she had not yet become fluent in design thinking. She tried to apply art theory to balance the colors in the logo, and that’s not what the client wanted. She had applied the techniques she knew, but did not arrive at an acceptable place. She became stumped about the next steps she needed to take after the client expressed reservations. She was unable to delineate a learning plan for herself so that she could make the web-page responsive. She researched key words without putting them to some kind of reality test with the client.

Many people begin to explore design as a hobby, avocation, business or career. This requires, not only strong creativity skills, but also persistence and perseverance. A lot of the success in this pursuit comes down to an ability to make and follow through on many artistic and design decisions within a particular context or situation. Developing this ability — a fluency, flexibility and originality in design — means that the designer has to become empowered to answer these 5 essential questions: (1) whether creating something is a craft, an art or design, (2) how they think creatively, (3) how they leverage the strengths of various materials and techniques, and minimize weaknesses, (4) how the choices they make in any one design evoke emotions and resonate, and (5) how they know their piece is finished and successful.

Design is more than the application of a set of techniques. It is a mind-set. This fluency and empowerment enable the designer to think and speak like a designer. With fluency comes empowerment, confidence and success.

Continue reading about the Second Essential Question every designer should be able to answer: What Should I Create?

The 5 Essential Questions:
1. Is What I Am Doing Craft, Art or Design?
2. What Should I Create?
3. What Materials (And Techniques) Work The Best?
4. How Do I Evoke A Resonant Response To My Work?
5. How Do I Know My Piece Is Finished?

Thank you. I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

______________________________

FOOTNOTES

Feld, Warren. Jewelry Design: A Managed Process. (2020)

Feld, Warren. Teaching Disciplinary Literacy. (2020)

Feld, Warren. Backward-Design Is Forward Thinking. (2020

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, design, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 5: THE FIFTH ESSENTIAL QUESTION EVERY DESIGNER SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER: How Do I Know…

Posted by learntobead on August 16, 2020

PRACTICE-BY-DESIGN SERIES

In order to make better artistic and design choices, the Fluent and Empowered Designer should have answers to 5 essential questions. In this article, I present the fifth and last essential question: How Do I Know When My Design Is Finished?

I taught a bead weaving workshop where my students followed a basic pattern to make an amulet bag. When they finished the bag itself, they were then given free rein on making a strap and adding fringe.

And they went to town. They added some fringe. Then some more fringe. Then some longer fringe. And fringe with more beads on it. And bigger beads. And some tiny charms. And some more fringe.

Yes, it’s fun to create fringes. But the star of the piece should have been the design of the amulet bag itself. Not the fringe. The fringe detracted. It competed. It made the piece feel very overdone. Not particularly artistic, or designed well.

My students needed to think about editing. As they continued to build each component of the amulet bag and its fringe, they should have repeatedly asked themselves would the addition of one more thing make the project more or less satisfying. Designers should be able to answer these 5 essential questions, especially question 5: How Do I Know When My Design Is Finished?

QUESTION #5: When is enough enough? How does the designer know when the piece is done? Overdone? Or underdone? How do you edit?

It is the challenge for the designer not to make the piece or project under-done or over-done. Each and every material and component part should be integral to the work as a whole. Things should not get too busy, or not busy enough. Things should not be too repetitive. The work should feel, not merely coordinated and balanced, but coherent, as well. The work should not convey a sense that you are not quite there yet.

For every design, there will be that point of parsimony when enough is enough. We want to find that point where experiencing the “whole” is more satisfying than experiencing any of the parts. That point of parsimony is where, if we added (or subtracted) one more thing, we would detract from the whole of our design. The design would be less satisfying. Less resonant.

Finding that point of parsimony is also related to anticipating how and when others will judge the piece as finished and successful. And what to do about it when judged unfinished or unsuccessful.

Parsimony vs. Unity/Variety

In art, the traditional measure of completion and success is a feeling or sense of “Unity.” Unity signifies how everything feels all right. All the Design Elements used, and how they were coordinated and placed, are very coordinated, matching, clear, balanced, harmonious and satisfying. I think the idea of unity begins to get at the place we want to end up. But this concept is not concrete enough for me as a designer.

What bothers me the most is that you can have unity, but the piece still be seen as boring when there is no variety. Criteria provided from the art perspective recognize this. But somehow tempering unity with variety starts to add some ambiguity to our measurements of finish and success. Our work too easily can be judged as lacking coherence. This ambiguity is unacceptable as a principled outcome of construction and design.

Another concern I have, is that you can have unity with variety, but, from the art perspective, these assessments rely too much on universal, objective expectations about design elements and their attributes (for example, the use of color schemes).

A lot of client reactions to our work and a lot of our own design decisions can be very subjective. They can be very culture- and context-related. And sometimes, we intentionally want to violate these universal, objective expectations. We want to give a little edge to our work, or a splash of color, or a shout-out. We may find we have limited material resources, or all the colors / patterns / textures which ideally should be used are unavailable to us. We may want to personalize things so people recognize who the designer is behind the design.

Resonance is not about picking the correct color scheme (or any other design element). It is more about how that color scheme (or design element) is used, manipulated, leveraged or violated within the piece. We must not leave the artist, the user, and the situation out of the equation. We must not minimize the artist’s hand — the artist’s intent, thinking, strategizing, arranging, pushing the boundaries, even violating the universal, objective rules.

Design and the act of creation usually demand a series of judgment calls and tradeoffs. Tradeoffs between aesthetics and functionality. Tradeoffs between artist goals and audience understandings and expectations. Tradeoffs between a full palette of colors-shapes-textures and a very limited one.

Any measure of completeness and success needs to result from the forced choice decisions of the artist. It needs to account for the significance of the results, not just the organization of them. It needs to explain the Why, not just the What.

For me, the Art criteria are insufficient when applied to design. The more appropriate concept here is Parsimony. Parsimony is when you know enough is enough. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes, as understood by designer and client alike, will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.

Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as Economy, but the idea of economy in art is reserved for the visual effects. Design not only pays homage to the visual, but to the functional, socio-cultural-psychological and situational, as well. The designer needs to be able to decide when enough is enough with all these multi-dimensional cues.

The Traps of Over-Doneness and Under-Doneness

Among designers, you will find a lot of over-doers and under-doers.

· There is a tendency of designers to over-do:
— over-embellish the surface
— add too much fringe
— repeat themes and design elements too often
— use too many colors

· Or a fear or self-doubt causing designers to under-do:

– not sure if someone will like it

– hesitant to push forward too far, for fear of a negative reaction

– uncertain if they can learn a new technique

– feeling choosing alternative colors, materials or techniques by be too risky

With over-doneness comes a naivete. The designer shuts him- or herself off from what should be that inner designer voice warning about parsimony. It stunts your development as a designer. You begin to allow yourself to overlook important factors about materials and techniques to the detriment of your final products. You close yourself off to doubt and self-doubt, which is unfortunate. Doubt and self-doubt are tools for asking questions and questioning things. These help you grow and develop as an artist and designer. These influence your ability to make good, professional choices.

On the other extreme is under-doneness. Often this results from a lack of confidence in our design abilities, including the ability to introduce our work publicly. We question our lack of ability and technical prowess for accomplishing the necessary tasks at hand. We fear we cannot work things out when confronted with unfamiliar or problematic situations. Here, doubt and self-doubt become excuses for less than satisfying results, rather than tools for improvement. Doubt and self-doubt become self-imposed, but unnecessary, barriers we impose to prevent us from thinking like a designer, and experiencing the full excitement of design.

Designers need to build within themselves that key sense of parsimony. Keep things simple and parsimonious. Edit your ideas. You do not want to over-do or under-do your pieces. You do not have to include everything in one piece or project. You can do several pieces or projects. Showing restraint allows for better communication with your audiences. Each work you make should not look like you are frantically trying to prove yourself. These should look like you have given a lot of thought about how others should emotionally engage with your piece.

Thank you. I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online. Check our my video tutorials on DOING CRAFT SHOWS and on PRICING AND SELLING YOUR JEWELRY.

Add your name to my email list.

_______________________________

FOOTNOTES

Feld, Warren. The Goal Oriented Designer: The Path To Resonance. Art Jewelry
Forum, 2018.

Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design: A Managed Process,” Klimt02, 2/2/18. https://klimt02.net/forum/articles/jewelry-design-managed-process-warren-feld

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, design, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 4:THE FOURTH ESSENTIAL QUESTION EVERY DESIGNER SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER: How Do I Evoke A…

Posted by learntobead on August 16, 2020

PRACTICE-BY-DESIGN SERIES

In order to make better artistic and design choices, the Fluent and Empowered Designer should have answers to 5 essential questions. In this article, I present the fourth essential question: How Do I Evoke A Resonant Response To My Work?

Jason seemed to never be able to get past “That’s nice.” His clients always said, “That’s nice,” and that was about it.

His colors were balanced and harmonious. They fit rules about color schemes and color proportions. His placement of shapes and sizes were always pleasing to the eye. The little bit of math he had to do always checked out. His clients liked him.

They had approved the initial sketches. Their comments were positive. They never complained about his approach. But they were never satisfied enough for Jason to make that final sale.

Even though the feedback always seemed positive, he rarely had repeat business.

He was perplexed, and felt a little defeated.

What was it about his work that somehow fell short?

Jason was stuck with the impression that if someone said they liked something, that this would translate into them doing something more, like buying it. All designers need a firm and comprehensive understanding about the differences among like, need, want, demand, and parting with some money for it. Another way to put this is that designers need to recognize the differences between an emotional response and a resonant one. Designers should be able to answer these 5 essential questions, especially question 4: How Do I Evoke A Resonant Response To My Work?

Question 4: Beyond applying basic techniques and selecting quality materials, how do I evoke a resonant response to my work?

An artistic and well-designed piece or project should evoke, at the least, an emotional response. In fact, preferably, it should go beyond this a bit, and have what we call “resonance”. The difference between an emotional response and resonance is reflected in the difference between someone saying, “That’s beautiful,” from saying “I need to wear that piece,” or, “I need to buy that piece,” or, “I need to implement that project.”

Quite simply: If no resonant response is evoked, then the piece or project has some remaining issues including the possibility that it is poorly designed. Evoking a resonant response takes the successful selection and arrangement of materials or objects, the successful application of techniques as well as the successful management of skills, insights, and anticipating the client’s needs and understandings.

Every designer should have but one guiding star — Resonance. If our piece or project does not have some degree of resonance, we keep working on it. If the process of creative exploration and design does not lead us in the direction of resonance, we change it. If the results we achieve — numbers of pieces made and numbers of pieces sold — is not synced tightly with resonance, we cannot call ourselves designers.

The Proficient Designer specifies those goals about performance which will lead to one primary outcome: To Evoke Resonance. Everything else is secondary.

Materials, techniques and technologies are selected with resonance in mind. Design elements are selected and applied with that idea of Resonance in mind. Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation are applied with that idea of Resonance in mind, with extra special attention paid to the Principle of Parsimony — knowing when enough is enough.

People may approach the performance tasks in varied ways. For some this means getting very detailed on pathways, activities, and objectives. For others, they let the process of design emerge and see where it takes them. Whatever approach they take in their creative process, for all designers, a focus on one outcome — Resonance — frees them up to think through design without encumbrance. It allows them to express meaning. It allows them to convey expressions in meaningful ways to others.

This singular focus on resonance becomes a framework within which to question everything and try to make sense of everything. Make sense of what the materials and techniques can allow them to do, and what they cannot. Make sense of what understandings other people — clients, sellers, buyers, students, colleagues, teachers — will bring to the situation, when exploring and evaluating their work. Make sense of why some things inspire you, and other things do not. Make sense of why you are a designer. Make sense of the fluency of your artistic expression, what works, how it works, why it works.

We achieve Resonance by gaining a comfort and ease in communicating about design. This comfort and ease, or what we can call disciplinary fluency, has to do with how we translate our inspirations and aspirations into all our compositional, constructive and manipulative choices. It is empowering. Our pieces resonate. We achieve success.

Resonance, communication, success, fluency — these are all words that stand in place for an intimacy between the designer and the materials, the designer and the techniques, the designer and inspiration. They reflect the designer’s aspirations. They reflect the shared understandings of everyone the designer’s piece or project is expected to touch. They reflect the designer’s managerial prowess in bringing all these things together.

Evoking An Emotional Response vs. A Resonant One

What is the evidence we need to know for determining when a piece or project is finished and successful? What clear and appropriate criteria hone in at what we should look at? What clues has the designer provided to let the various audiences become aware of the authenticity of the performance?

There are different opinions in craft, art and design about what are the most revealing and important aspects of the work, and which every authentic jewelry design performance must meet.

The traditional criteria used in the art world are that the designer should achieve unity with some variety and evoke emotions. These, I feel, may work well when applied to paintings or sculpture, but they are insufficient measures of success when applied to design. Design involves the creation of objects or projects where both artistic appeal as well as practical considerations of use are essential. Unity and variety can feel harmonious and balanced, but yet boring, monotonous and unexciting. Art, in contrast to Design, can be judged apart from its use and functionality. The response to Art can show some positive emotion without the client having to show any strong commitment. Design doesn’t share that luxury.

Finished and successful designed objects or projects not only must evoke emotions, but, must resonate with the user (and user’s various audiences), as well.

Achieving Resonance is the guiding star for designers, at each step of the way.

Resonance is some level of felt energy which extends a little beyond an emotional response. The difference between emotion and resonance can, for example, be like the differences between saying that piece or project is “Beautiful” vs. saying that piece or project “Makes me want to wear it”. Or that “I want to touch it.” Or “My friends need to see this.” Or “I need to implement this at once.”

Resonance is something more than emotion. It is some kind of additional energy we see, feel and otherwise experience. Emotion is very reactive. Resonance is intuitive, involving, identifying. Emotion is very sympathetic. Resonance is more of an empathetic response where artist and audience realize a shared (or contradictory) understanding without losing sight of whose views and feelings belong to whom.

Resonance results from how the artist controls light, shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. Resonance results from how the artist leverages the strengths of materials, objects and techniques and minimizes their weaknesses. Resonance results from social, cultural and situational cues. Resonance results from how the artist takes us to the edge of universal, objective understandings, and pushes us ever so slightly, but not too, too far, beyond that edge.

Continue reading about the Fifth Essential Question every designer should be able to answer: How Do I Know My Piece Is Finished?

Thank you. I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online. Check our my video tutorials on DOING CRAFT SHOWS and on PRICING AND SELLING YOUR JEWELRY.

Add your name to my email list.

____________________________________

FOOTNOTES

Feld, Warren. The Goal Oriented Designer: The Path To Resonance. Art Jewelry Forum, 2018.

Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design: A Managed Process,” Klimt02, 2/2/18.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, design, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 3: THE THIRD ESSENTIAL QUESTION EVERY DESIGNER SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER: What Materials…

Posted by learntobead on August 16, 2020

PRACTICE-BY-DESIGN SERIES

In order to make better artistic and design choices, the Fluent and Empowered Designer should have answers to 5 essential questions. In this article, I present the third essential question: What Materials (and/or Techniques) Work The Best?

Ferity was determined to make a Kumihimo bracelet. Kumihimo is a braiding technique. You make a braid and attach a clasp. Ferity thought it would be cool to incorporate some beads in her braid. So she strung up a lot of beads on various cords, and braided them. She glued on end caps on either side, and attached a clasp.

But she wasn’t liking her piece. She couldn’t figure out why. All the different colors, widths and materials of the cords she used were very upscale and attractive. She used a mix of crystal, gemstone and hand-made beads in the project — all very expensive and all very attractive.

But braided all together was somewhat unsatisfying. She didn’t think she would wear it very often. She didn’t think she could sell it. And she couldn’t figure out why.

A successful design has character and some kind of evocative essence. The choice of materials often sets the tone. And a choice of techniques cements that tone in place. Techniques link the designer’s intent with the client’s expectations. The successful designer has a depth of knowledge about materials, their attributes, their strengths, their weaknesses, and is able to leverage the good and minimize the bad within any design. The same can be said of techniques.

For some designs, the incorporation of mixed media or mixed techniques can have a synergistic effect — increasing (or decreasing) the appeal and/or functionality of the piece or project better than any one media or technique alone. It can feel more playful and experimental and fun to mix media or techniques. But there may be adverse effects, as well. Each media or technique will have its own structural and support requirements. Each will enable the control of light and shadow, space and mass, dimension and movement in different ways. Each will react differently to various physical forces impacting the piece when worn or the project when used. So it becomes difficult for the designer to successfully utilize any one medium or technique, as well as much more difficult to coordinate and integrate more than one media or technique.

Ferity had little understanding about the materials and their combined use within a Kumihimo technique. All designers need a firm and comprehensive understanding about selecting materials and techniques, and should be able to answer these 5 essential questions, now with question 3: What Materials (and/or Techniques) Work The Best?

QUESTION 3: What kinds of MATERIALS work well together, and which ones do not? This applies to TECHNIQUES as well. What kinds of TECHNIQUES (or combinations of techniques) work well when, and which ones do not?

The choice of materials and the choice of techniques set the tone and chances of success for your piece. Materials and techniques establish the character and personality of your designs. They contribute to understandings whether the piece is finished and successful.

However, there are no perfect materials (or techniques) for every project. Selecting materials (or techniques) is about making smart, strategic choices. This means relating your choices to your design and marketing goals. It also frequently means having to make tradeoffs and judgment calls between aesthetics and functionality. Last, materials may have different relationships with the designer, wearer or viewer depending on how they are intended to be used, and the situational or cultural contexts.

There are many implications of choice. There are light/shadow issues, pattern, texture, rhythm, dimensionality, proportions, placement and color issues. There are mechanics, shapes, forms, durability, drape, flow and movement issues. There are positive and negative space issues. There are user experience issues.

It is important to know what happens to all these materials (or applications of techniques) over time. It is important to know how each material (or technique) enhances or impedes architectural requirements, such as allowing an object to move and drape, or assisting the object in maintaining a shape or allowing a project to adapt to its audience and environment, or utilizing an object to direct navigation or viewing.

Each material or technique has strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons, and contingencies affecting their utilization. The designer needs to be able to leverage the strengths and minimize the weaknesses.

All of these choices:
… affect the look
… affect the movement
… affect the feel
… affect the durability
… affect both the designer’s and user’s responses
… relate to the context

Continue reading about the Fourth Essential Question every designer should be able to answer: How Do I Evoke A Resonant Response To My Work?

Thank you. I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online. Check our my video tutorials on DOING CRAFT SHOWS and on PRICING AND SELLING YOUR JEWELRY.

Add your name to my email list.

______________________________

FOOTNOTES

Feld, Warren. Materials: Knowing What To Know. Art Jewelry Forum, 2020.

Feld, Warren. Techniques and Technology: Knowing What To Do. Art
Jewelry Forum, 2020.

WASTIELS, Lisa and WOUTERS, Ina. Material Considerations in Architectural
Design: A Study of the Aspects Identified by Architects for Selecting Materials. July, 2008. As referenced in:
http://shura.shu.ac.uk/511/1/fulltext.pdf

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, design, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

PART 2: THE SECOND ESSENTIAL QUESTION EVERY DESIGNER SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER: What Should I…

Posted by learntobead on August 16, 2020

PRACTICE-BY-DESIGN SERIES

In order to make better artistic and design choices, the Fluent and Empowered Designer should have answers to 5 essential questions. In this article, I present the second essential question: What Should I Create?

Selma got by very well in life by asking her teachers, and in subsequent years, her bosses, what she should do. She followed their instructions to the letter, and was particularly good at coloring within all the lines. Everyone was always pleased with her work. So pleased, in fact, that her current boss promoted her into a designer position.

In her new position, she was to work with construction, architectural and interior design firms. She was to assist them and guide them into choosing textiles with which to incorporate into their interior and exterior building plans.

When she met with various clients, she started byasking them to tell her what they wanted. But no one could really articulate much more than general ideas about colors. For Selma, this was disconcerting. She thought she could do a great job, but needed more information and direction. These were never forthcoming.

At the core of Creativity is the ability to generate options, and then narrown them down. Creativity is not innate; it is developed. Creativity is a muscle requiring attention and practice. This is something Selma never really worked on.

This was critical for Selmer, as well as any other designer, in order to flourish and succeed, to be able to answer these 5 essential questions, now with question 2.

QUESTION 2: How do you decide what you want to create? What kinds of things do you do to translate your passions and inspirations into design?

Applying yourself creatively can be fun at times, but scary at other times. It is work. You are creating something out of nothing. There is an element of risk. You might not like what you end up doing. Your friends might not like it. Nor your family. You might not finish it. Or you might do it wrong. It may seem easier to go with someone else’s project.

Applying creativity means developing abilities to generate options and alternatives, and narrowing these down to specific choices. It means developing an ease and comfort generating fix-it strategies when approaching unknown situations or problematic ones. It means figuring out how to translate inspiration into design in a way that inspires others and taps into their desires. It means differentiating yourself from other designers as a measure of your originality.

Creative people…

Set no boundaries and set no rules. They go with the flow. Don’t conform to expectations.

Play. They pretend they are kids again.

Experiment. They take the time to do a lot of What Ifs and Variations On A Theme and Trial and Error.

Keep good records. They make good notes and sketches of what seems to work, and what seems to not work.

Evaluate. They learn from their successes and mistakes.

As designers gain more and more creative experiences, they begin to assemble what I call a Designer’s Tool Box. In this virtual tool box are a set of thinking routines, strategies and fix-it strategies whichhave worked well in the past, are very workable in and of themselves, and are highly adaptive when used in unfamiliar situations. Every designer should develop their own Tool Box. This vastly contributes to adaptability and success in creative thinking and application.

Creativity

Creativity isn’t found, it is developed. Creativity is a phenomenon where both something new and, at the same time, somehow valuable is created. While some people come to creativity naturally, in fact, everyone can develop their creative ability.

Thinking creatively involves the integration and leveraging of three different kinds of ideas — insight and inspiration, establishing value, and implementing something.

We work through creative thinking through divergence (that is, generating many possibilities), and convergence (that is, reducing the number of these possibilities).

Kierkegaard — and I apologize for getting a little show-off-y with my reference — once described Creativity as “a passionate sense of the potential.” And I love this definition. Passion is very important. Passion and creativity can be summed up as some kind of intuitive sense made operational by bringing all your capabilities and wonderings and technical know-how to the fore. All your mechanical and imaginative abilities grow over time, as do your abilities for creative thinking and applications. Creativity isn’t inherently natural. It is something that is developed over time as you get more and more experience in design.

You sit down, and you ask, What should I create?

For most people, especially those getting started, the answer to this question is very basic. They look for patterns and instructions in magazines or how-to books or websites online. They let someone else make all the creative choices for them. The singular creative choice here is picking what you want to make. And, when you’re starting, this is OK.

As you grow as a designer, and feel more comfortable with materials and techniques, you can begin to make additional choices. You can choose your own colors. You can make simple adaptations, such as tweaking colors or placements or dimensions or proportions.

Eventually in your designer career, however, you will want to confront the Creativity issue head on. You will want to decide that pursuing your innermost designer, no matter what pathway this takes you along, is the next thing, and right thing, to do. That means you want your projects or objects to reflect your artistic hand. You want to develop a personal style. You want to come up with your own designs.

Sometimes creativity seems insurmountable, after finishing one project, to decide what to do next. Exercising your creative abilities can sometimes be a bear. But it’s important to keep pushing on. Challenging yourself. Developing yourself. Turning yourself into a designer. And pursuing opportunities to exercise your creative talents even more, as you enter the world of design.

Types of Creativity

Creativity has two primary components: (1) originality, and (2) functionality or value.

The idea of originality can be off-putting. It doesn’t have to be. The projects or objects, so creatively designed, do not have to be totally and completely new and original. The included design elements and arrangements do not have to be solely unique and never been done before.

Originality can be seen in making something stimulating, interesting or unusual. It can represent an incremental change which makes something better or more personal or a fresh perspective. It can be something that is a clever or unexpected rearrangement, or a great idea, insight, meaningful interpretation or emotion which shines through. It can include the design of new patterns and textures. It can accomplish connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and generate solutions. It can be a variation on a technique or how material gets used. It can be something which enhances the functionality or value of the piece.

Creativity in design marries that which is original to that which is functional, valued, useful, worthwhile, desired. These things are co-dependent, if any creative project is to be seen as successful.

For designers, creativity is not the sketch or computer aided drawing. It is not the inspiration. It is not the piece which never sees the light of day. Creativity requires implementation. And for designers, implementation is a very public enterprise.

How Do We Create?

It’s not what we create, but how we create!

The creative process involves managing the interplay of two types of thinking — Convergence and Divergence. Both are necessary for thinking creatively.

Divergent thinking is defined as the ability to generate or expand upon options and alternatives, no matter the goal, situation or context.

Convergent thinking is the opposite. This is defined as the ability to narrow down all these options and alternatives.

The fluent designer is able to comfortably weave back and forth between divergence and convergence, and know when piece or project is finished, and when the final choices will be judged as successful.

Brainstorming is a great example of how creative thinking is used. We ask ourselves What If…? How about…? Could we try this or that idea…? The primary exercise here is to think of all the possibilities, then whittle these down to a small set of solutions.

Continue reading about the Third Essential Question every designer should be able to answer: What Materials (And Techniques) Work The Best?

Thank you. I hope you found this article useful.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

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FOOTNOTES

Besemer, S.P. and D.J. Treffinger. Analysis of Creative Products: Review and
Synthesis. Wiley Online Library, (1981).

Black, Robert Alan. Blog: http://www.cre8ng.com/blog/

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (August 6, 2013)

Feld, Warren. Creativity: How Do You Get It? How Do You Enhance It? (2020)

Guilford, J.P. Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444–454, 1950.

Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. Last Century Media (April 1, 2014).

Lucy Lamp. “Inspiration in Visual Art Where Do Artists Get Their Ideas. As
reference in:
https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/inspiration-in-visual-art-where-do-artists-get-the

Maital, Shlomo. “How IBM’s Executive School Fostered Creativity,” Global Crisis Blog, April 7, 2014. Summarizes Louis R. Mobley’s writings on creativity, 1956.

March, Anna Craft. Creativity in Education. Report prepared for the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, March, 2001.

Seltzer, Kimberly and Tom Bentley. The Creative Age: Knowledge and Skills for the New Economy. Demos, 1999.

Torrance, E. P. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking-Norms-Technical Manual Research Edition-Verbal Tests, Forms A and B-Figural Tests, Forms A and B. Princeton, NJ: Personnel Press, 1966.

Torrance, E. P. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking-Norms-Technical Manual Research Edition- Verbal Tests, Forms A and B- Figural Tests, Forms A and B. Princeton, NJ: Personnel Press, 1974.

Turak, August. “Can Creativity Be Taught,” Forbes, May 22, 2011.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, creativity, design, design thinking, professional development | Leave a Comment »

HOW TO CRIMP THE WAY BETTER DESIGNERS DO: Using Crimp Beads, a Crimp Pliers and Flex Wire

Posted by learntobead on April 25, 2020

How to Crimp Using Crimp Beads, a Crimp Pliers and Flex Wire

Crimping is a technique for securing a clasp to beads strung on cable wires. Here crimp beads are used instead of tying knots.

Mechanically, crimping does three things:

In the first steps in crimping, you need to separate two wires that lead to the clasp component. One wire is your spine — what your beads are strung on. The other wire is your tail — extra wire you will need to cut off.

Second, you need to create a lock to literally lock the two wires in place.

Last, you need to make it pretty. The crushed crimp is ugly, and you need to make it look more like a bead again.

So with your pliers and your crimp bead, you separate the wires and create a lock and make things pretty again. The process is relatively simple and requires only a little practice.

If using a traditional crimping pliers, you would follow the 4-Steps listed below.

However, you can also use what is called a One-Step Crimper. This crimping pliers does all four steps in one step. If crimping is a technique that you will be doing often, then I suggest investing in a One-Step Crimper.

My warnings to you:

(a)Usually the instructions on the package that comes with your crimping pliers is inadequate to the task. Better designers know this from experience. Less experienced designers, however, rely on these inadequate instructions.

(b) There are over 55 different crimping pliers on the market. The only ones that truly work are the original and the more recent One-Step Crimper. The originals are made in China. I’ve noticed that the major craft stores now sell copies of the original ones. These are made in India. Total disaster. They don’t do the job at all because they have a poor configuration of the jaws.

(c ) When students and customers say they are having trouble crimping, they usually blame themselves or the pliers. What I have found is that have bought cheap crimp beads, usually from one of the craft stores. With crimp beads, you get what you pay for. The plated aluminum ones sold in craft stores break when you crush them. The cheap sterling ones have nickel in the alloy (sterling is 92.5% silver and 7.5% something else we call an alloy), which makes the sterling brittle. Sterling is supposed to have copper in the alloy, which makes it malleable, but many manufacturers substitute nickel to keep the cost of sterling down.

Successful crimping requires that you understand the following:

1 . Which cable wires are best for which projects

2 . How the materials you use affect your success

3. The mechanical process itself, how it works, why it works, and why we do each step

CABLE WIRES

Cable wires are nylon coated, braided wires and are very flexible. These are made for stringing.

[What is called Hard Wire — wire that is not braided and is not encased in nylon — in contrast, is not meant for stringing.]

Cable Wires come in 3 quality grades.

Tiger Tail.The low end is called Tiger Tail. Tiger Tail was the original cable wire product. Today it is the low end of the cable wire line. Most spools of Tiger Tail do not have the words “tiger tail” on their labels. You know it is Tiger Tail because of the price — typically $5.99 or less for a 30ft spool you would find in a bead or craft store.

Tiger Tail wire breaks very easily in and of itself. It kinks easily, and even with the beads on the wire, the kink often shows. The way you attach Tiger Tail to a clasp is that you take the wire through the loop on the clasp, and tie an over-hand knot. You can tie a single knot or a double knot. This actually gives you a very secure connection to the clasp. This is one positive of Tiger Tail.

Unfortunately, when you use crimp beads with Tiger Tail, they too easily cut into the Tiger Tail and make it break. So that is why we suggest tying knots. If you do not like the look of the knotted cable wire here, you can either use beads on each end and which have larger holes so that they swallow the knots. Or, you can slide a crimp cover over the knots, press the two ends on the cover together, and you have something that looks a like a bead to hide your knots.

Flex Wire. The middle quality level — what I suggest people start with, if they want to use cable wire as their stringing material — is called Flex Wire. This wire does not break easily. It does not kink easily. However, it is difficult to tie into a knot. So, we use a crimp bead to secure the wire in place.

The price on this is considerably more than the Tiger Tail. It will start between $10.00 and $20.00 for that 30-foot spool.

Professional or Artistic Wire. The top of the line is referred to as Professional or Artistic Wire. Most of these wires are very expensive, and we don’t suggest this level as the place to start.

There are many brands of cable wire. I am particularly fond of two brands — Soft Flex and Flexrite. I find the wire of other brands too stiff, and sometimes not strong enough.

Cable Wires come in different diameters or widths, usually stated in inches.

We recommend the following:

.014″ — .015″ for necklaces: here you want the best drape you can get, and still have a durable piece

.018″ — .019″ for bracelets: here you want the most durability, yet your piece still feels good when worn

.019″ — .024″ for eyeglass leashes: here durability is you primary factor

About Selecting Cable Wires

There is a lot of information on the labels of cable wires. However, while most of this information is necessary, it is not sufficient for determining which wire is best.

The only true measure of cable wire strength is called Tensile Strength, and you will not find this information on the labels. The strength of a cable wire will come from what the wire is made of, what the nylon sheathing is made of, and how thick that nylon sheathing is. You cannot assume that a 49-strand product is stronger than a 21-strand product, without knowing more about the wire composition and the sheathing. That 49-strand product may actually be weaker.

Nor can you assume that a product, the label of which indicates 20-pound strength is necessarily stronger than a product that indicates 10-pound strength. “Pound Strength” is very unreliable as a measure. In most cases, these pound strength numbers on the label are somewhat made up.

Governments provide two definitions for pound strength — what it takes to hold up a fish of a certain weight, and what it takes to reel in a fish of a certain weight. But they leave it up to the factory to determine exactly how to measure and report pound strength. So you are at the mercy of some factory worker in a place like Taiwan, high on Toluene, having the motivation to maintain a pound strength standard.

On most cable wire products, measures of pound strength are not included. Many years ago, pound strength was listed on all cable wires. The people at the factories responsible for the labels, however, could never get the same pound strength listed from batch to batch. One time it might list 20 pounds; another 2 pounds; another 6 pounds; then back to 20 pounds. So the manufacturers told them to leave this information off.

It is very difficult to compare cable wires across brands. Each company organizes its line, from low end to high end, differently. Some companies, like Beadalon, use 7-strands for Tiger Tail, 19-strands for Flex wire, and 49-strands for their Professional wire. But other companies do not use this ordered arrangement of number of strands to quality. In the Soft Flex line, their top-of-the-line 7-strand product is stronger than their 49-strand middle-range product. And don’t assume one brand’s 49-strand wire is equivalent to another’s. They are not. The Soft Flex 49-strand middle range produce is stronger and more subtle than Beadalon’s top of the line 49-strand product.

I actually only recommend 2 brands — Soft Flex and Flex Rite. These are considerably stronger and more subtle than other brands.

Know this: What makes cable wire strong is the nylon sheathing’s ability to maintain the twist in the cable wire. As soon as the integrity of the nylon sheathing is violated, the wires inside immediately untwist and break. I find that the nylon sheathing on most brands is very thin, sometimes porous, and weak chemically.

CRIMP BEADS, CRIMP COVERS, and HORSESHOE WIRE PROTECTORS

Crimp Beads

Crimp beads come in many styles, sizes and finishes. These are used to secure cable wires to clasps. You take your cable wire up through the crimp bead, through the loop on the clasp, and back down through the crimp, forming a loop. The crimping process involves crushing the crimp onto the cable wire loop, first, separating the tail and spine wires, then, locking them in place, and finally, re-shaping the crushed crimp so it looks like a bead again.

Sterling silver crimps are usually made the best, especially ones you buy in places other than the big craft stores. For plated crimps, if they are plated over brass (and years ago, they all were plated over brass), than they were very good. Brass is your best jewelry metal. The major issue was that the plating would wear off and you would have a black crimp (basically, tarnished brass). Now, most plated crimps are over aluminum. These break easily when crimped.

I tend to use sterling silver crimps for every piece, though my crimp covers and horseshoes may or may not be sterling, based on the value of the piece, and the finish colors I want to end up with.

Crimp Covers

These are U-shaped parts that slip over the crushed crimp. You can slide crimp covers over your crushed crimps. You can also use these to slide over any knots, to hide the knots. Crimp covers come in different sizes, finishes, and texturing. Crimp covers are optional pieces. They act as lamp-shades to hide something ugly, but they serve no structural role, per se.

Closing a crimp cover is done in 2-steps, not one.

(1) Using the tips of your crimping pliers, you push the two sides of the U together, so you have a pretty bead. These are made of a soft metal, so you don’t want to push too hard, or you will crush them. After you get the two sides to meet, you’ll find that the lip on either side doesn’t meet up perfectly, line up perfectly or close perfectly.

(2) At this point, you return the crimp cover to your crimping pliers, this time resting it between the top notch in each jaw. Gently push the jaws to force the lips to meet more perfectly. Sometimes you have to position the pliers in an awkward or odd position, in order to push in the desired direction. The two half-cup shaped ditches in the top position on each jaw helps to keep your crimp cover rounded while you apply pressure to it and shift the relative positioning of each open side.

Horseshoe Wire Protectors

This part is basically a bent tube, with the top of the tube at the arch cut out. These come in many finishes and metals. There is some variation in size relative to how wide an opening the tube has.

Using these serve several purposes.

It forces you to leave the correct size loop in the cable wire, so that you have the appropriate support system or jointedness. Without the loop, you would be pushing the crimp all the way to the clasp. This is a No-No. You never push the crimp all the way to the clasp — this creates stiffness with metal parts, and general movement would cause these to break.

The horseshoe also makes the loop more finished looking — better than a bare-wire loop. Your eye/brain wants you to push the crimp all the way to the clasp. It hates a bare, exposed loop. The horseshoe fools the eye/brain here, making it think that the loop is finished and more organically a part of the whole composition.

The horseshoe prevents the cable wire from folding into a “V-shape” over a period of time and wear. If the wire were to change from an arched loop to a V-loop, the wire then would more easily bend back and forth and eventually break.

You will find that the legs of some horseshoes you will buy have too-narrow openings and won’t fit your cablewire. Also, the thickness of the cablewire along its length will vary somewhat. And sometimes where you cut your cablewire, it sometimes broadens or flattens out the end, making it too big to shove up into the leg. The morals here: have extra horseshoes on hand, and be prepared to cut off some more of the cablewire to get to that area on the wire that has the perfect width.

There are many choices to make when selecting crimp beads:

– Do you want to use a tube shape or a round shape

A crimp is a crimp. There is no difference in “holdability” between the tube and the round, but most people prefer the tubes. They sense that the tube covers more area, so it will be more secure.

A round bead actually starts as a tube. They blow air into the tube to puff it up and make it look round.

– If you want to maintain a silver color, how do you do that?

You have several choices here, each with pros and cons. You can use a sterling silver crimp. Sterling silver softens at body temperature. If your sterling crimp rests on the wrist or the neck, there is some risk that it will soften and release its hold. From experience, this risk, if you have crimped correctly, is very small, but the risk exists.

Another option is to use a silver-plated crimp. Silver plated crimps are plated usually over brass. Brass is your best jewelry design metal. Once you crush that brass, you never have to lose any sleep over it. Unfortunately, the plating wears away somewhat quickly, and you are left with a black crimp — basically tarnished brass.

Some people use silver plated crimps and slide sterling crimp covers over them. This adds about $0.90 per piece.

Another option: Use an argentium silver crimp. Both argentium silver and sterling silver are 92.5% silver. It’s the alloy that is different. Argentium is more expensive. There is no risk of argentium silver softening at body temperature.

– How do you achieve a satisfactorily re-rounded bead?

In the traditional crimping processing, you flatten the crimp and then you re-round it so that it looks like a bead again. You do not end up with a great look. Some people can live with this; for others, they are bothered by not seeing a perfectly round bead again.

There is a crimping pliers, which I do not recommend, called the Magical Crimping Pliers. This re-rounds that bead perfectly, but I find, in doing so, it weakens the hold.

You can always crush your crimp bead, and then slide a crimp cover over it, to get that pretty look.

– How many crimp beads should you use on each end — 1 crimp or more than one?

If you have crimped correctly, using 1 crimp on each end of your piece is more than sufficient, even if your beads are very heavy.

Using more than 1 crimp on each end is too risky. Sometimes your mind, or your best friend, thinks that if 1 is good, 2 or more would be better. No! When you crush your crimp onto the wire, it becomes like a little razor blade. All jewelry moves, so your crimp is constantly trying to saw through the cable. Using more than one crimp on each end increases the chances that one will saw through. All you are doing is adding razor blades.

– Should you use a plain tube or a twisted tube?

The twisted tubes (sometimes called Tornado or Cyclone crimps) are a little more expensive than the plain ones. When you crush the twisted tubes, they look decorative enough that you don’t have to re-round them. You definitely need to re-round the plain ones.

– Should you use regular and long tubes or short and half tubes?

Short tubes or half tubes are primarily used in pieces like illusion necklaces, where you have a cluster of beads, and the cord shows, another cluster of beads, the cord shows, etc. Half tubes are used on either side of the clusters to keep the beads in place. When you crush the half tube, the volume of space it takes up is not noticeable. When you crush the regular sized tube, its volume of space is too noticeable and detracts from the general look of the piece.

One mistake people make with the short or half tubes, is that, when they use them to finish off the ends of jewelry, their mind tells them, since these are shorter than usual, to use 2 or 3 of them so that they will “hold better.” A crimp is a crimp, and if you crimped correctly, there is no difference in holdability between the short and longer tubes. Each crushed crimp you add becomes like a little razor blade. All jewelry moves, so you’re increasing the chances one of these crimps will cut through the cable wire. One crimp on either end is enough.

– Are there differences or variations on quality/grade of crimp beads?

The short answer is Yes! Basically, you get what you pay for!

Here’s how crimp beads are made: You start with a sheet of metal. You roll the metal into a tube. You buff along the seam where the two sides meet, so that it looks like it’s been soldered together. However, there’s really a seam there.

So often, people come into our shop and tell sad tales of failed crimps and broken bracelets and necklaces. They blame themselves. They blame the pliers. But they never blame the crimp beads. In most cases, the crimp is at fault.

Cheap crimps, usually bought in small packages, usually at craft stores, are not made well. When you crush these, they tend to split along the seam. Sometimes you can see the split. Othertimes, you can’t quite see that the two sides of the tube have started to separate. Your cable wires pull out. Or your crimp edges have cut into the cable wire.

An A- grade crimp, usually costing about 3 times what the cheap crimps cost, can hold up to your initial crushing, as well as another 8 or so clamping down on it during the re-rounding process.

There are heavy-duty or A+ grade crimps. These run about 6–8 times what the cheap crimps do. You don’t have to worry about any splitting, no matter how much you work the crimp bead with your pliers.

– How do you know what size of crimp bead to buy?

Manufacturers are inconsistent in how they label the sizes of crimp beads. In general, although you may not know exactly what their measurement refers to, when they list:

2mm, this is the average size For .014, .015, .018, .019 cable wires

1.5mm, this is small For .010 and .012 cable wires

2.5mm, this is slightly more than average For .019 and .024 cable wires

3.0mm and 4.0mm, these are large for .024 cable wires, or thicker cords, or bringing more than 1 strand through at a time

LET’S PRACTICE OUR CRIMPING

How to Crimp Using Crimp Beads, a Crimp Pliers and Flex Wire

Supplies:
2mm sterling silver crimp tubes
silver plated crimp cover
silver-plated horseshoe wire protectors
.019” soft flex cable wire
toggle clasp
enough beads to make a bracelet

Chain Nose Pliers
Crimping Pliers
Flush Cutters or Cable Wire Cutters

Work Surface
Bracelet Sizing Cone
Bead Board
Bead Stoppers or Hemostats

Before we get started on our bracelet, we are going to practice crimping.

The Traditional Crimping “Pliers”

The traditional crimping pliers works with all sizes of crimp beads. In fact, I find it works better than most other types of crimping pliers, whether the micro-crimpers, macro-crimpers or magical crimpers.

If you look closely at the jaws, you will see that each jaw has two notches or ditches on it. The bottom notch or ditch in each jaw (those closest to your hand) is a full ditch on one side, and a ditch with a pyramid or triangle in it on the other side. It is important that you be able to see that pyramid. This is critical to the crimping process. Sometimes when you buy these, and other times when you use these awhile, the pyramid isn’t there or wears away.

The top notch in each jaw (furthest from your hand) has a full ditch on either side.

There are four steps in the crimping process. Basically, you use the crimping pliers first to separate the two wires (spine and tail), then second, to lock them in place. The last step is to make things pretty again.

We do the first two steps using the bottom notch in each jaw. We do the last two steps using the top notch in each jaw.

Hold your pliers parallel to the table, with curved part of jaws facing you.

[NOTE: There is also a new 1-step crimping pliers which works very well.]

The “Loop”

Position the crimp and the wires, so you leave an adequate “loop” (joint).

The clasp should be able to move freely.

You never push the crimp bead all the way up to the clasp.

Your eye/brain cognition wants you to push the crimp all the way up to the clasp; it sees the bare loop as ugly. You must fight your inner self on this, in order to build in appropriate level of support or jointedness. You are going to have to sacrifice some beauty in order to build in more durability and adaptability to movement.

When crimp/wire/clasp are too tight, and can’t move, then you basically have stiff metal bending back and forth against itself, and it breaks. If the bare loop bothers you, you can always cover the loop with 15/0 or 11/0 seed beads, or 13/0 charlottes.

Or you can use a horseshoe wire protector to cover the loop. What I like about the horseshoe wire protector is that it forces you to leave an ideal sized loop, and also makes what was a bare loop look very finished and appealing.

The “Tail”

You need to leave about a 3–4” tail on either side. You want to hold the tail so that it runs parallel to the spine, though not touching.

When you crimp by closing and letting go of your pliers, don’t let go of the tail. This is a mistake many people make. When they let go of the pliers, they let go of the tail. Don’t do this. If you let go of the tail at the same time, the tail will either bend over far to one side, creating a “V” with it and the spine. Or, it will cross over the spine.

When we trim our tails, we do not cut them off at the crimp. Instead, we feed back the tail through at least the first (or last) bead, and preferably several other beads, and then cut the tail as close to the hole of the bead it is exiting as possible. You want to be sure that at least your first bead and your last bead have large enough holes, so that they can slip over both the spine and the tail.

Tail sticking out too far and tail crossing over wire:

Finishing Your Piece Off and TrimmingThe Tails

On the first side of your bracelet or necklace, you secure your clasp component with your crimped wire. You then string on your beads. You want at least the first bead, and preferably several beads to slip over both the spine and the tail wires. When you get to the other side, you will add your crimp bead and horseshoe wire protector, slide your remaining clasp component over the tail up into the horseshoe. You need to have a 3–4″ tail remaining. Grab your tail, and bring it back through (top to bottom) of your crimp bead, and through at least your last bead, and preferably several beads.

Now you want to pull things tight, but not too tight, before you crimp that second crimp bead. Hold onto your clasp (or your horseshoe wire protector ) with one hand, and pull the wire with the other, to get everything tight, but not too tight. You do not want your bracelet to have poor “ease” and be too stiff. You should test the length of the bracelet one more time, using a sizing cone or someone’s wrist. Make any necessary adjustments to ease and length.

If your tail is showing on your first side of the bracelet, then trim it off now. Flush cutters or cable wire cutters work well here. If you pull your tail away from the bead, this creates a bit of tension, and when you cut the wire, the wire coming out your bead will pull back a bit into the hole of the bead.

If you haven’t been able to cut the wire flush enough with the bead, and some wire is poking out, work it with your fingers into the hole of the next bead on the string.

Re-check your length and ease.

Now crimp your ending side. Trim the remaining tail as close to the hole of your bead as possible.

NOTE: If you can’t work the tail back through the first bead, then cut it off as close to the crimp as possible. There will be two sharp edges. One will be the crushed crimp itself. The other will be the cable wire. You can’t really cut the wire totally flush with the crimp, so a little bit of a nipple will be protruding. Use an emery board or nail file or metal file and smooth out the rough edges of the crimp, and sharp point of the cable wire. Feel with your finger, until it is smooth. This is not your best option. Your piece will look less finished and be less secure.

Camouflaging the Crimp Bead

You can always make your crimp beads the second and next to last beads, instead of the first and last. In this case, the crimp will look like it is part of a pattern. The ends will look very finished.

Let’s Crimp: A Practice Exercise

Cut a 15″ length of cable wire.

Horseshoe on first. Take your horseshoe wire protector, holding it so that the arch is toward the ceiling and the legs are to the floor. Take your wire from floor to ceiling, up into the leg, over the arch, and back down through the over leg. Give yourself a 3–4″ tail past the horseshoe.

Slide on clasp component. Take your tail wire through the loop on the ring end of your Toggle clasp, and slide that ring’s loop right up into the horseshoe.

Add Crimp Bead. Slide a crimp bead onto the spine of your cable wire, and bring it all the way up to the legs of the horseshoe. As you get close to the tail, you want your crimp to slide over both the spine and the tail.

Pinch the legs of the horseshoe closer together, and get your crimp as close to the legs as possible. You can use your fingers or the tips of your crimping pliers to pinch the horseshoe legs.

Be sure your have left yourself as 3–4″ tail. Make any adjustments.

Crimp. Now grab your crimping pliers, holding them parallel to your table, curved part of the jaws bending towards you.

Pinch the tail and spine near to your crimp bead with your thumb and forefinger, making sure that your tail is parallel, but not touching, the spine.

In Bottom Notches (closet to your hand):
ditch on one side, and pyramid on the other

STEPS 1 and 2: Your goal is to separate the wires. The pyramid in your pliers jaw pushes the wires apart, and makes a scoring line down the middle of your crimp, turning it into a double-tube, one wire in each channel.

Step 1: Crush

Sit your crimp bead between the bottom notches in each side. The loop/horseshoe should be laying horizontally, parallel to the table.

Crush the pliers all the way down onto the crimp bead, and let go of the pliers (but not the tail).

Step 2: Turn over 180 degrees, and crush again

When we crushed the first time, the part of the crimp closest to our hand crushed down, but the part furthest from our hand actually flared out a bit. In Step 2, we crush down the part that had flared up.

You end up with a flat pancake. If you look at this flat pancake, you will see a scoring line down the middle. This line was made by our pyramid.

So we turn the crimp over to its other side, and crush again.

In Top Notches (furthest from your hand): Ditch on either side

STEP 3: The goal is to create a lock.

Step 3: Fold flat pancake to make half-a-flat pancake

Sit your crimp bead between the top pair of notches. Hold so that your loop/horseshoe is vertical, thus perpendicular to the table.

Hold the crushed crimp vertically, and crush, to fold this flat pancake in half along the scoring line. You end up with half a flat pancake.

STEP 4: Your goal here is to make things pretty.

Step 4: Re-Round

Use the top notches to gently force and push the flat crimp back into a rounded tube shape again. If you look at either end of the crimp — from the loop end and from the tail end — you want to see a circular shape again, rather than a rectangular slit. It’s best to keep your pliers steady in one place, and turn your wire/crimp bead as you work the pliers. You do not CRUSH; you PUSH on the metal with your pliers to re-round.

Now, your crimp bead is wider than the width of the jaws the pliers. So, you will have to work the top and bottom of the crimp a little bit independently, so that both ends are round again.

NOTE: Instead of Step 4, you can use a crimp cover, and slide this over the crushed crimp to hide it.

But if using a crimp cover, be sure to do Steps 1 thru 3.

Putting The Beads On.

If you were creating a piece from scratch, and not following a pattern, you would probably use something like clamps, hemostats or bead stoppers. You would cut a length of cable wire — about 12″ more than the bracelet or necklace length you want to end up with. You lay out all your beads and the parts of the clasp assembly on a bead board or other work surface. Then you would clamp one end of your cable wire, slide beads on, and clamp the other end. This would let you add and subtract beads, or change your mind about the patterning, before you finished off the ends with the clasp assembly.

Otherwise, if you are following a particular pattern, you would start by securing one end with a crimp bead, and stringing the rest of the beads on. You would cut your cable wire — about 12″ more than the bracelet length you want to end up with.

Lay out all your beads and the clasp assembly parts on the bead board or some other work surface, in the order they are to be used.

You would attach the largest part of your clasp first — with Toggles, this is the ring — on one end, crimping it in place, and leaving a 3–4″ tail.

Slide on your beads, following the pattern. At least your first bead should slide over both the spine and the tail.

Determine the fit — both length and ease — by clamping or holding with your fingers the open end, and encircling a sizing cone or someone’s wrist with your bracelet. Remember here that the other end of the clasp will add another 1/2″ to this length.

“Ease” — You do not want to pull the cable wire too tight, making it stiff, thus uncomfortable to wear. And you do not want to pull the cable not tight enough, thus allowing the cable wire to show between the beads and the beads and the clasp.

Adjust the number of beads, if necessary.

Add your crimp bead, horseshoe wire protector, the other end of the clasp — in our case, the bar.

Don’t actually crimp things on this side, or trim your tail yet.

Slide the tail back through some beads. Pull tight enough to get an acceptable ease. Test the length and ease again.

When satisfactory, do your final crimping. Slide the tail through some more beads, if possible. Trim the tails on both ends.

Using a Crimp Cover

Use your pointer finger as an easel and your thumb as a clamp.

Sit your crimp cover on the top of the pad on your pointer finger, as if the cover were a cradle (open side up).

Set your crushed crimp on your cable wire right inside the crimp cover.

Immediately, clamp down over the loop/clasp part with your thumb. Your thumb is pushing down on the wire loop/clasp, so that the crimp cover can’t move.

We close the crimp cover in 2 steps.

Take your crimping pliers, and use the tips of each jaw. With these tips, push the opening of the crimp cover closed as best as you can. Press firm but gently. It is easy to crush these crimp covers. The two lips on each side will not meet perfectly, will not be aligned, and there may be a gap.

The second step is to put the crimp cover between the two top ditches on your crimp pliers (both ditches are open), and gently push to get things in place.

You may have to orient your pliers in some weird angles to get the two halves of your crimp covered lined up correctly.

Give It The Once Over…

Once your bracelet is done, look it over carefully. Be sure your cable wire isn’t showing. Be sure that it has sufficient ease.

I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to click the CLAP HANDS icon at the bottom of this article.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, bead stringing, craft, Crimping, jewelry making | Leave a Comment »

Contemplative Ode To A Bead

Posted by learntobead on April 23, 2020

Contemplation

You stare at a bead, and ask what it is. You put some thread on a needle, then the bead on the needle, and ask what to do. You stitch a few beads together, and wonder what will become of this. You create a necklace, and ask how it will be worn. And you stare at each bead again, and think where do all these feelings welling up within you come from — beauty, peace and calm, satisfaction, magic, appeal, a sensuousness and sexuality. Your brain and eye enter into this fantastic dance, a fugue of focusing, refocusing, gauging and re-gauging light, color, shadow, a shadow’s shadow, harmony, and discord.

You don’t just bead.

There’s a lot involved here. You have to buy beads, organize them, buy some extra parts, think about them, create with them, live with some failed creations, and go from there. If there wasn’t something special about how beads translate light into color, shade and shadow, then beading would simply be work. But it’s not.

You have to put one next to another…..and then another. And when you put two beads next to each other, or one on top of the other, you’re doing God’s work. There’s nothing as spectacular as painting and sculpting with light.

This bead before me — why is it so enticing? Why do I beg it to let me be addicted? An object with a hole. How ridiculous its power. Some curving, some faceting, some coloration, some crevicing or texturing, some shadow, some bending of light. That’s all it is. Yet I’m am drawn to it in a slap-silly sort of way.

When I arrange many beads, the excitement explodes geometrically in my being. Two beads together are so much more than one. Four beads so much more than two. A hundred beads so much more than four. The pleasure is uncontainable.

I feel so powerful. Creative. I can make more of what I have than with what I started with.

And the assembling — another gift. String through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align. So meditative. Calming. How could beads be so stress-relieving, other-worldly-visiting, and creative-exciting at the same time?

Contemplation.

To contemplate the bead is to enter the deep reaches of your mind where emotion is one with geometry, and geometry is one with art, and art is one with physics, and beads are one with self.

So these days, I confront my innermost feelings about beads. What I enjoy, and what I do not. What I have learned, and what I have not. What I want to achieve, and what I fear I cannot.

It’s not that, originally, I wanted to bead much of anything. I imagined what I wanted to create, and quickly found I couldn’t create it. This became my Rogue Elephant — the sum of all my jewelry design ambitions, and my fluency and ultimate success with it.

I had very specific ideas of what my beadwork should look like, and how it should function. I did not want to be considered a painter who uses beads, or a sculptor who uses beads. I wanted to be considered a bead artist. A bead artist who legitimately uses beads, and not paints, and not clays or stone. This was my dilemma.

Alas, this was the basis of all my fears. Could bead artists intentionally design with light in a fundamentally different way than painters use paint, or sculptors use clay or stone? If I beaded a mannequin, I’d be painting or sculpting.

But what if I beaded a Rogue Elephant? Something that moved. Something that reacted differently in different situations. Something that appeared in different contexts. Would my beadwork stand up to some test of grammar, poetry, art, vision and even love?

I was tentative, at first, about beading, but that Rogue Elephant kept getting in my way. To tame it, to get rid of it, to make sense of it, I had to bead it.

But how? Should I? Could I? Would I? It’s huge! It’s fast! It’s ornery!

Should I make my Elephant some kind of necklace or anklet to wear? How about a little hat? I can tubular peyote around its trunk OK, but what about its ears? What do I do there? That mid-section is awfully rotund. Fringe would be pretty, hanging around some kind of blanket. But, alas, wouldn’t it just drag along the ground?

The main problem is, though, that this beast keeps moving. How am I ever going to get anything to look good, and stay looking good, on this Elephant if it keeps moving? After all, Rogue Elephants don’t Pose. They’re not “Vogue” Elephants. They’re “Rogue” Elephants. They’re too busy tossing their heads at everything else in sight.

If I use large beads, I can accomplish this feat faster, but not necessarily as elegantly. Should my Elephant be elegant? Sophisticated? Earthy? Adventurous? Bohemian? Fashion-aware or fashion-I-don’t-care?

I can not get this Rogue Elephant out of my mind. The thoughts of beading it seem insurmountable, unconquerable. My eyes strain, my hands ache, my back stiffens at these thoughts. It will never get done. I won’t finish it. I won’t do it. I most certainly don’t have the time. I’ll try something easier, like a toy rabbit or a stick. A small stick. A very small, very straight, perfectly round stick. Surely not an Elephant, a Rogue one at that.

Calm down, I say to myself. Stop hyperventilating. Wipe those clammy palms. Don’t let the task before you scare you before you even start.

I grit my teeth. I stand up straight. I squeeze my hands into a fist. I hold my fisted-hands stiffly and tightly against my right and left sides. I lift my chin up ever-so-slightly until my eyes meet his. I stare that Rogue Elephant right into the face for those few seconds it stands in my field of vision. I will bead you. I will bead you. I will bead you.

I set my mantra going. I try to focus on my inner self. I reach way back to grab my inner being, setting its life force and motivation on track to complete this awesome task.

I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead.

Glue. Thank God someone invented glue. I could corner that Elephant, pour buckets of glue on him, and use a leaf blower to blow a pile of beads right onto that beast. They’ll stick. I’ll be done. Whatever happens, happens. That’s what I’ll do.

But I wouldn’t be happy. And that Elephant would probably want to scratch and itch. Beads would pop off. The glue would yellow. That Elephant wouldn’t be able to walk with any sense of style or grace. It might trip. It would probably fall down, actually. And not be able to get up. Pitiful. It would lose its Rogue-ness. It’s essence of being. I would tame it, yet more than humble it. Where’s the excitement? Glue just won’t do.

I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead.

How about Mardi Gras beads? These beads, already ironed into place onto a string, could be wrapped around and around and around. Purple Iris’s. Topaz AB’s. Olivine Lusters. They’d be colorful. They’d shine. They’d sparkle. It would be like lassoing a steer — over and over again. I don’t know if my Elephant would stand still for that. Perhaps I could corral him. I could tape one end of the bead string to the tail. Then go around and around and around his body until I reached the other end of the trunk. I’d parade the Elephant in front of all the other Elephants out there, and they’d all want to look as dapper. Everyone the Elephant meets, in fact, will want to be wrapped in bead-ropes. How easy, how simple, how divine.

Once I let my Elephant out of the corral, however, I fear the bead-ropes will reposition themselves and slip off and look sloppy. My Elephant would have to lose its Rogue-ness to pull off this look. My Elephant would have to stand still and pose. I don’t think my Elephant would stand for that. In fact, I know he wouldn’t. The jungle is not a circus, and the banks of the jungle watering hole do not provide a level pedestal for such an event. My elephant would be perplexed. And the result would not be satisfactory beadwork. He’d be off in an instant. This would be a mess — a big Mardi Gras mess. Only sanitation workers in New Orleans getting paid much overtime would have any determined appreciation.

I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead.

Just what is the recipe then? Take needle and thread, add beads, mix lightly, separate whites and darks, bake, turn once, and voila? Do I have to have a recipe? A determined strategy? A plan of action? Can’t I just bead it? Do I have to think about how to get the beadwork to stay in place? Look good? Look great? Must the Elephant still be able to run with the beadwork on? If the Elephant runs, must the beadwork stay on? And still look good? Oh, dear, my head is beginning to hurt. I don’t know if I can do all this. And be satisfied.

And the poor Elephant. It looks at me one more time. It’s green eyes dart on me. Challenging me. Daring me. Perhaps fearing me and my determination. Perhaps pondering the why’s and wherefores of my insistence that he be beaded — in totality, Rogue-ness and all. The Elephant turns its head, touching his long torso from shoulder to belly with his trunk. His tusks shift uncomfortably. I’m sure the Elephant is wondering How! — How would the beads go on? How would they be arranged? How could he continue to walk and drink and eat and talk? How would the other Elephants react? How could anyone ever begin to bead a Rogue Elephant?

My Elephant looks at me one more time — staring directly into my eyes. It’s more than a glance. He stares, as if to say, it can’t be done. My Elephant lifts its trunk, extends its ears, snorts, shakes its tail, turns and darts away toward the horizon.

I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead. I will bead you. I can bead.

I follow him.

I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to click the CLAP HANDS icon at the bottom of this article.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, beading, beads, craft, jewelry making | Leave a Comment »

Two Insightful Psych Phenomena Every Jewelry Maker Needs To Know

Posted by learntobead on April 23, 2020

The First Cognitive Thing The Viewer Wants To Do Is Make A Complete Circle

The Cognitive Processes of the Viewer

As a Designer, one thing you need to anticipate is how the piece will be viewed and understood. It turns out that jewelry plays some very important psychological functions for both the wearer and the viewer. By understanding these perceptual and cognitive processes, you the designer have some powerful information to play with. Here I discuss two cognitive processes that happen immediately when the viewer first interacts with a piece of jewelry.

When a viewer walks into a room, and in the room is a stranger who also happens to be wearing a necklace, the viewer has to very quickly determine whether the situation is safe or not. We are pre-wired with an anxiety response, so that we can assess the situation almost instantaneously, and flee or fight, so to speak. The eye/brain looks for clues. One clue is provided by the necklace the stranger in the room is wearing. The eye/brain focuses on the jewelry and performs two simple tests.

When our viewer first cognitively interacts with the piece, her eye/brain tries to “make a complete circle around the piece”. Very simple: Make a Complete Circle. If something about the piece slows her down, or otherwise disrupts this natural cognitive process of trying to visualize a complete circle, she begins to feel some anxiety or discomfort or edginess. This might be a clasp that doesn’t coordinate well with the beadwork. It might be an inappropriate or poor use of color, shape, texture, pattern, or size. It might be a clasp assembly that takes up too much space along the yoke of the piece.

The eye/brain looks to see a complete circle. The viewer, in turn, begins to react to and translate this situation, where things get in the way of or somehow disrupt the process of visualizing that complete circle, as seeing the piece as monotonous or boring or ugly or some other negative, less satisfying characteristic or scary or will cause death. If the brain gets edgy, then the interpretation of the stimuli becomes a negative emotion-laden response. The viewer’s anxiety response is telling this person that it may be time to consider turning around and fleeing, instead of going forward, approaching or even fighting.

These negative traits of the jewelry quickly get associated by implication, with the wearer. The wearer begins to get defined as monotonous or boring or ugly or some other negative, less satisfying characteristic or scary or will cause death. As a designer, you don’t want this to happen.

The Second Cognitive Thing The Brain Wants To Do Is Find A Natural Place For The Eye To Come To Rest

The second thing the brain tries to do, after making that complete circle, is “come to rest.” The eye/brain looks for a natural place to come to rest.

We usually achieve this by creating a focal point. We might use a pendant. We might graduate the size of the beads, or graduate the color intensity or value.

In a very simple piece, the clasp assembly itself might be the natural place for the eye/brain to come to rest. In pieces where there is not a natural place for the eye/brain to make a complete circle and then come to rest, the brain starts to get edgy and feel some anxiety. The piece, in turn, begins to get interpreted as monotonous, boring, ugly, some other negative, less satisfying characteristic, scary, will cause death.

As the piece gets labeled, so does the wearer. Again, you don’t want this to happen. Not to the wearer when wearing one of your pieces. As the viewer runs screaming from the room.

People are prewired with an avoidance response. This occurs in our brain-stem. This protects the viewer from things like snakes and spiders, by making them want to avoid things which are ugly or dangerous.

When someone views the jewelry for the first time, they have to interpret it. One cultural and often subconscious reason people wear jewelry is to make people feel comfortable around them.

As a designer, you can anticipate all this. You now know that the viewer, cognitively when interacting with a piece of jewelry, will first try to make a complete circle, and then will want the eye to come to rest. Otherwise, the brain will start to get edgy and feel anxiety. The person might want to turn around and flee.

The eye/brain wants to make a complete circle, then come to rest.

Design accordingly.

Just one more note: Our brains process a lot of information at once — what we call parallel processing. Other perceptions cognitions co-occuring withthe anxiety response might mitigate the viewer’s reaction. Or might amplify it. Who knows?

Below are two images of one of the entries to our The Ugly Necklace Contest, which somewhat illustrates the point about what happens cognitively. The image on the left shows the whole necklace. The image on the right shows the lower half of the necklace. Look at each image. For each, get a feeling for how motivated you are to make the complete circle, or how satisfied you feel about the necklace.

NECKLACE FULL VERSION: With these beads and this rhythm and configuration, are you less motivated to make the complete circle around the whole piece, or less satisfied when doing so?

NECKLACE CUT IN HALF VERSION: With the necklace shown shorter, with these beads and this rhythm and configuration, are you more motivated to make the complete circle around the whole piece, or more satisfied when doing so?

People typically find that the full version takes more work to motivate yourself to make the complete circle. While the beads vary a bit, they are basically the same color tone. A pattern is set in the lower half of the piece, and the upper half adds little or no new information to excite the viewer. It becomes more work to make that complete circle. It becomes boring.

In the half version, people feel a little more satisfied with it. The artist has made her point, without additional repetition of what feels like monotonous components. People see it as less monotonous, less boring, less ugly. (…And of course, less scary and less likely to cause death.)

In this necklace, the designer created a pendant drop as the natural place rest. There is some awkward treatment, positioning and placement of the protruding elements near the bottom of the necklace, which makes the place to come to rest it a little less satisfying.

I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to click the CLAP HANDS icon at the bottom of this article.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, Cognition, craft, jewelry design, jewelry making | Leave a Comment »

Know Your Anatomy Of A Necklace

Posted by learntobead on April 22, 2020

A necklace, or any type of jewelry, has a structure and an anatomy. Each part has its own set of purposes, functions and aesthetics. Understanding each type of structure or physical part is important to the designer.

If we looked at these sections of a necklace from solely an Art standpoint, we might primarily focus on the centerpiece of the jewelry and consider The Strap (and most other parts) as supplemental and less important to the piece, in a similar relationship as the frame to a painting or the pedestal to a sculpture.

However, jewelry is a 3-dimensional object serving both aesthetic as well as functional purposes. As such, we need to be more sensitive to the entire jewelry-anatomy and both its Art and Architectural reason for being. This kind of thinking is at the core of what makes jewelry design, as a discipline, different than art.

Typical structural parts of a necklace might include,

The Strap: The entire linear component of the piece, comprising Yoke, Clasp Assembly, and Frame

The Yoke: The part of The Strap behind the neck, typically 6–7” including clasp assembly

The Clasp Assembly: Part of The Yoke, and includes, not only the clasp itself, but rather all the pieces it takes to attach your Strap to the Clasp, including clasp, rings, loops or knots or crimps at ends of stringing material

The Frame: The visually accessible part of The Strap, connecting to The Yoke at The Break point. On a 16” necklace, The Frame might be 9–10”

The Break: The point where The Yoke connects to The Frame, often at the collar bone on either side of the neck. Very often, this point is one of a critical change in vector — that means, the angle The Frame lays radically changes from the angle of The Yoke. Think of this as an inflection point.

The Bail: A separate part which drops the centerpiece or pendant drop below the line of the Frame

The Focal Point, Centerpiece, or Pendant Drop: A part which emphasizes or focuses the eye, usually dropped below the line of The Frame, but is sometimes a separate treatment of The Frame itself

The Canvas: Typically the stringing material or foundation of the piece

The Embellishment: Things added to the surface or edge of The Canvas, The Strap, or the Centerpiece which serve as decorative, rather than structural or supportive roles

Each part of the body of a necklace poses its own special design challenges for the jewelry artist. These involve strategies for resolving such issues as:

— Making connections

— Determining angularity, curvature, and roundedness

— Transitioning color, pattern and texture

— Placing objects

— Extending lengths

— Adding extensions

— Creating balance and coherency

— Anticipating issues about compression, stretching, bending, load-bearing, and distortion

— Anticipating issues related to physical mechanics, both when the piece is static (not moving when worn) and dynamic (moving when worn)

— Keeping things organic, so nothing looks like an afterthought, or an outlier, or out of place, or something designed by a committee

— Determining which parts are critical to understanding the piece of jewelry as art as it is worn, and which parts are merely supplemental to the piece

The Strap

The Strap is that continuous line that extends from one end of the clasp to the other. The Strap may or may not consist of the exposed Canvas. The Strap typically delineates a silhouette or boundary. This usually sends the message to the viewer about where they may comfortably and appropriately place their gaze on the wearer’s body.

The Strap is a type of funicular structure. A funicular structure is one where something like a string or chain or cable is held up at two points, and one or more loads are placed on it. Loads increase tension. Loads lead to compression.

The placement can be centered or off-centered. If more than one object is placed on The Strap, each object can vary in mass, volume and weight. We do not want The Strap to break because of the weight or placement of any load or loads. We do want to control the resulting shape of the silhouette or curvature of The Strap which results from the weight or placement of any load or loads.

The span of The Strap is very sensitive to force and stress. A piece of jewelry may have more than one Strap. In this case, the span of each Strap, and their built in support and structural systems, must be tightly coordinated, if to respond optimally to forces and stresses.

The Yoke

The Yoke is one section of the Strap which is the part around the back of the neck, typically including The Clasp Assembly. The length of The Yoke, and whether the beginning and end parts of The Yoke should be exposed on the front of the body is something to be determined by the designer. The designer must also determine the proportional size of The Yoke relative to the remaining part of The Strap. The designer must determine what role the elements, such as beads, which comprise The Yoke, will play, and whether they should be an active part of the visual composition, and/or a critical part in the functional success of the piece, or merely supplemental. The Yoke balances the load requirements of the remaining Strap (The Frame), Bail and Pendant.

The Break

At the point The Yoke connects to the remaining Strap (called The Break leading to The Frame) on either side of the neck, this is a point of vulnerability, often assisted and reduced with the addition of support elements. Because it is at this point — The Break — where The Strap may alter its vector position in a dramatic way — that is, the angular positioning of the Strap at the point of The Break may vary a lot as The Strap continues around the front of the body — this is a major point of vulnerability.

There are always transitional issues at The Break. The designer needs to have strategies for managing these transitions. This might involve using visual cues and doing something with color or pattern/texture or rhythm or sizes. The designer might add support systems, such as rings, at this point. The designer must decide the degree The Frame should be visually distinct from The Yoke.

The Clasp Assembly

The Clasp Assembly is most often part of The Yoke. The Clasp Assembly includes, not just the clasp itself, but also all the other parts necessary to attach it to the Strap. There might be some additional soldered rings. There might be loops left at the ends of the stringing material. There might be crimp beads or knots or glue or solder.

Whenever choosing a clasp, it is more important to think in terms of choosing a clasp assembly. You might want to use a very attractive clasp, but it may take so many parts and turns to attach it to your beadwork, that you end up with a visually ugly clasp assembly.

Occasionally, The Clasp Assembly is part of The Frame. This will present a different set of architectural issues and considerations.

The Frame

The Frame is that part of The Strap which connects to either side of The Yoke at The Break.

Too often, when the designer does not recognize the Yoke as distinct from The Frame — even if the transition is to be very subtle — less-than-satisfying things happen. Proportions may be off. The piece may not lay or sit as envisioned. The Strap may have too much embellishment going too high up The Strap. Sometimes the balance between Yoke and Frame is off — too much Yoke and not enough Frame. The change in vector angles between The Yoke and The Frame may pose many architectural issues for the designer.

Bi-Furcated Frame: A Frame visually split in half, usually at the center and in two equal parts, with a centerpiece focal bead or pendant drop in the middle. Here the designer needs to think whether the two lengths should move in a coordinated fashion, or not.

The Focal Point, Centerpiece or Pendant Drop

While not every necklace has a focal point, centerpiece or pendant drop, most do. The Focal Point gives the viewer’s eye a place to rest or focus. Usually this is done with a Centerpiece or Pendant Drop.

Othertimes, The Focal Point is more integrated with The Strap. This might be created by graduating the sizes or beads or playing with color or playing with rhythm or playing with fringe.

A Centerpiece would be a part that extends beyond the line of The Frame, usually below it, around it, or in front of it. This forces transitional concerns between it and The Frame.

There should be a natural visual as well as functional transition from The Strap to The Focal Point, Centerpiece or Pendant Drop.

The Bail

The Bail is a part that drops the Centerpiece below the Frame, forcing additional transitional visual and functional concerns among Centerpiece, Bail and Frame. We are concerned about its impact on emphasis, harmony, balance, distribution of size and proportion, point, line, plane and shape. We are concerned about its ability to maintain stability, given the effects of gravity, the weight of the drop, and its relationship with and fit to The Frame of The Strap. Most Bails would be considered vertical structures.

The Canvas

The Canvas typically refers to the stringing materials. However, in a layered piece, may refer to any created “background or foundation” off of which or around which the main composition is built. The Canvas might be either a horizontal structure (like an arch or truss) or a vertical structure (like a wall or frame). It might be exposed, partially covered, or fully covered. It might change materials or construction systems along its length, such as transitioning from a cable wire to a chain.

It is important to know what The Canvas is made of, and how its function and appeal might improve or weaken as its Span is lengthened or shortened, widened or narrowed, over time. The steepness of its slope or positioning might also affect its integrity.

Sometimes more than one Canvas are interconnected. You can picture a necklace with additional strands crossing the chest from one side of The Strap to the other. You might also have a necklace where strands radiate out at angles from the neck and across the chest.

Architecturally, additional Canvases which span from one side to the other of a piece of jewelry operate like Trusses, Arches or Support Beams. These types of structures are referred to as Horizontal Structures.

The Embellishment

The Embellishment includes things like fringe, edging and surface decoration. Embellishments are decorative elements added for purposes of improving the visual appeal of a piece. Embellishments typically do not play any support or structural roles.

I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to click the CLAP HANDS icon at the bottom of this article.

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.

Add your name to my email list.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: Art And Design, craft, jewelry design, jewelry making, necklace | Leave a Comment »

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Practice-By-Design Series

What Kinds Of Things Does The Designer Need To Know?

Designers Operate Within One Of Three Professional Paradigms

THE CRAFT APPROACH

THE ART TRADITION

THE ART AND DESIGN PERSPECTIVE

The Universal and the Subjective

About the Shared Understanding Series…

Continue Reading With… PART 1: What Are Shared Understandings? PART 2: What Part Does The Designer Need To Know? PART 3: How Assumptions, Perceptions, Expectations and Values Come Into Play? PART 4: How Does The Designer Establish Shared Understandings?

Other Articles of Interest by Warren Feld:

______________________________ FOOTNOTES

Baker, Jamie Feild. What is Shared Understanding? 6/24/2009. As referenced:

Saylor Academy. Understanding Culture, Chapter 2. 2012. As referenced: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s04-understanding-culture.html

I hope you found this article useful.

Practice-By-Design Series

How You Are Reflected Back In Your Own Work

Why Shared Understanding Matters

About the Shared Understanding Series…

Continue Reading With… PART 1: What Are Shared Understandings? PART 2: What Part Does The Designer Need To Know? PART 3: How Assumptions, Perceptions, Expectations and Values Come Into Play? PART 4: How Does The Designer Establish Shared Understandings?

Other Articles of Interest by Warren Feld:

______________________________ FOOTNOTES

Baker, Jamie Feild. What is Shared Understanding? 6/24/2009. As referenced:

Saylor Academy. Understanding Culture, Chapter 2. 2012. As referenced: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s04-understanding-culture.html

I hope you found this article useful.

Practice-By-Design Series

How Is Your Passion For Design Developed?

What If You Have A Passion For Something, But You Don’t Do Anything About It?

What Are The Characteristics of a Passionate Designer?

You know you are passionate when you…

Three Types Of Passions For Design

How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Continue with… PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion? PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative? PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Other related articles of interest by Warren Feld:

I hope you found this article useful.

Practice-By-Design Series

Where Does Your Passion Come From?

Passion Starts With Curiosity

Are Passion and Creativity the Same Thing?

Continue with…PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion? PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Other related articles of interest by Warren Feld:

I hope you found this article useful.

Practice-By-Design Series

Can You Really Follow A Passion?

What Is Passion?

Is it Necessary To Have A Passion For Design?

Continue with…PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion? PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Other related articles of interest by Warren Feld:

I hope you found this article useful.

Practice-By-Design Series

8 MAJOR WAYS DESIGNERS FALL INTO SELF-DOUBT

1. What If I’m Not Creative Enough or Original Enough or Cannot Learn or Master or Don’t Know a Particular Technique?

2. What If No One Likes What I Make?

3. What If No One Takes Me Seriously As An Artist And Designer?

4. I Over Think Things And Am A Bit Of A Perfectionist

5. How Can I Stay Inspired?

6. Won’t People Steal My Work and Ideas?

7. Over Confidence can blind you to the things you need to be doing and learning, and Under Confidence can hinder your development as a designer.

8. Role Confusion

Some Advice

Other related articles of interest by Warren Feld:

I hope you found this article useful.

Fluency and Empowerment

Question 1: Should Design work be considered ART or CRAFT or DESIGN?

Other Articles of Interest by Warren Feld:

Thank you. I hope you found this article useful.

Continue Reading With…
PART 1: What Are Shared Understandings?
PART 2: What Part Does The Designer Need To Know?
PART 3: How Assumptions, Perceptions, Expectations and Values Come Into Play?
PART 4: How Does The Designer Establish Shared Understandings?

______________________________
FOOTNOTES

Saylor Academy. Understanding Culture, Chapter 2. 2012. As referenced:
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s04-understanding-culture.html

Continue Reading With…
PART 1: What Are Shared Understandings?
PART 2: What Part Does The Designer Need To Know?
PART 3: How Assumptions, Perceptions, Expectations and Values Come Into Play?
PART 4: How Does The Designer Establish Shared Understandings?

______________________________
FOOTNOTES

Saylor Academy. Understanding Culture, Chapter 2. 2012. As referenced:
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s04-understanding-culture.html

What If You Have A Passion For Something,
But You Don’t Do Anything About It?

Continue with…
PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Continue with…
PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?

Continue with…
PART 1: Is It Necessary To Have A Passion?
PART 2: Do You Have To Be Passionate To Be Creative?
PART 3: How Does Being Passionate Make You A Better Designer?