Project: Inquiry of "Design Thinking"

77 Perspectives from the Class of 2010

RISD is an amazing and mysterious place. The talent and amount of creative output on our campus is staggering and nearly impossible to quantify. We invite luminaries from around the globe to challenge us, inspire us, and push us to be our best. However, at times we forget to stand back and attempt to understand what RISD has really given us and what we’ve given back.

It is common practice to cite that “students” are what make a school great but in the case of RISD, our students truly play a unique role in that statement. By the nature of the studio environment, the intensity of our pursuits, and the general personality of our work, RISD students stand alone in their importance in shaping the academic environment and experience.

This book isn’t meant to encapsulate the breadth, depth, or richness of that perspective but rather act as snapshot to provide a look into what really makes RISD, RISD. It is the work and people. I hope this will be a resource to provide you with the perspectives of an amazing collection of talented individuals as they make the transition from this school out into the world they will someday hopefully impact.

Thank you to all the students that participated in this exercise (see full list of names at the back of the book).

Conversations with Retiring Faculty at RISD, 2010

As my time at RISD comes to a close and I continue both my personal work on my degree project and my involvement with RISD’s strategic plan I began to consider the place of the faculty perspective in my process. Knowing that Krzysztof Lenk (Graphic Design) was retiring, I became interested in offering retiring faculty the opportunity to speak with me about their philosophies, experiences, and pedagogies as a sort of exit interview. The importance of such an exercise cannot be downplayed and I was justifiably surprised to hear that RISD had no organization for such an activity.

Working under my own direction and motivation, I took the opportunity with three of RISD’s retiring faculty members, Krzysztof Lenk, Maria Tulokas (Textiles), and Brian Kernaghan (Interior Architecture) to hold a meaningful reflective conversation as we each “graduate” from RISD. The results were both surprising and exciting. Hearing from these three individuals who have dedicated much of their careers in service to RISD gave me a new perspective of not only RISD’s institutional structure but also insight into the leadership and organization of creative individuals. Throughout the separate one-on-one conversations I became increasingly aware of the overlap and commonality of their ideas and views. Repeatedly they turned over in their minds RISD’s greatest threats and challenges, each weaving in the richness of their personal philosophies and experiences.

While I could discuss several quotes that stood out to me personally from the conversations, I would rather examine the body of conversations as a complete narrative reflection of these individuals on their time helping to build RISD. By organizing the three conversations in concert, I am inviting the reader to see the connections I have worked to cull from their words. The work was an amazing exercise in discovering the subtext of our conversations and generating a list of themes (seen in the gutter throughout this book) that provide the foundation for their pedagogy and practice.

Though I have only been here for a fraction of the time they have, and in a much different role, lately I have found myself taking more and more time to reexamine and “unpack” my experiences from a broader view -allowing me to slowly form a more cohesive narrative of my time here. By no means am I claiming to have anything close to a complete understanding of RISD or any design institution but the combination of their perspectives and my other research has enabled me to undergo the most meaningful self-reflection of my life. By listening to their thoughts and stories I have found strength in the development of my own ideas. This experience is something I someday hope to pass on.

What I Wrote

Throughout my undergraduate career at RISD, I feel like I have developed almost as much as a writer as a designer. Rarely do I create a design project or undergo any design exercise without pausing for reflection and taking the time for a more critical reflection of my practice through writing. While this has led me to feel empowered to both articulate my thoughts visually and through language, at times I feel the two exist in separate universes within me- the complex division of left and right brain.

In order to remedy this I chose to reinvestigate my entire writing portfolio both for content and a deeper contemplation of my personality with the hope that I would find a more holistic cooperation between my “two sides.” The result, the record you hold in your hands, is a collection of relevant pieces chronologically organized to illustrate the development of my thought process and skill as a writer. To further challenge myself to understand the significance of my writer I have included visual poetic summaries to precede each piece, inviting the reader to better understand the unique combination of my passions.

This complete work has enabled me to re-approach and re-package my thinking, in an exercise that is counter to my normal practice. My ability and failure at times in this challenge have reaffirmed my love for both visual design and writing. At the same time they have provided a coherent and intensely personal record of my undergraduate education.

The Shape of RISD

An evolutionary study on the shape and interactions of RISD:

The cooperation of design, fine arts, and liberal arts.

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On Interviewing Senior Faculty

By examining the process of forming new academic models in an institution with the history and tradition of RISD it is essential to approach the challenge like any other design problem. Just as if you were designing a brand identity or product for an organization or individual, it is essential to not just familiarize oneself with the history and practices of the organization but also of the people and the philosophies of the individuals who make the place what it is.

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Eames & India in 2010

In 1958 Charles & Ray Eames visited India for three months at the invitation of the Indian Government (with sponsorship by the Ford Foundation) to explore the problems of design and to make recommendations for a training program. What they created was the following document that became the founding manifesto of India’s National Institute of Design. It is amazing how their words still hold relevance fifty years later for a school on the other side of the planet, RISD. The comparisons and similarities are uncanny.

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The “Line Community”

There are few connections more fleeting, informal, and inescapably pervasive in our modern society than the one that forms around participation in waiting in a line. Comedians joke about it, theme parks add in-line entertainment, Londoners call it a queue, but it is something we all must face if we intend to exist in this world and work with or within organizations. (what do organizations have to do with this?)

This afternoon, I had an opportunity to experience a high-performing (i.e. emotionally charged) line at the Amtrak ticketing counter of New York’s Pennsylvania Station. If you are familiar with Penn. Station, then you are aware that it is not the most inspiring train station in the world. However, it is a major hub and a point of entry into New York for thousands of people every day and constantly seems to be humming with humanity. The physical line in question was nothing special, made up of portable posts and a tacky velvet rope under a painfully dingy drop ceiling, tucked away in the corner of the station’s main hall. It is however, important to note that this was the Acela express line (as opposed to the Regional line), so the individuals involved tended to be power suit clad, middle-aged to elderly, and altogether more important looking than your typical run-of-the-mill train audience (this will come into play later).

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The Artisan and the Automaton


The FedEx Office employee at work.

Much like its name, FedEx Office, the store formerly known as Kinkos and FedEx-Kinkos, seems to be in a perennial state of reorganization and flux. Much of the very dated and often refurbished location on Meeting Street in Providence, Rhode Island is unused and no longer houses any viable service. For a business that prides itself on its organization and punctuality, (“The World on Time”) FedEx Office feels neither global or of this time. Nearly half of the location’s floor space is occupied by computer workstations behind a glass partition that appears like a mausoleum from a bygone era, when computers were not an everyday commodity. Boxes stacked in several stations serve as storage for the location’s new identity as a printing and shipping outlet – a combination that always seemed a bit awkward.

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Moral Intelligence & The Window of Opportunity

Today in the strategic planning meeting, John Maeda (RISD’s President), came and gave a compelling presentation regarding RISD’s place in the modern world. While we also had the opportunity to work in smaller breakout groups on more specific issues (my group was given “Permeability”) I will save that conversation for a later date, after more substance has been generated around those ideas within our smaller group.

As we, the Core Group within RISD’s Strategic Plan, continue to frame our top level questions, one of the integral factors we have continued to return to is how does RISD assert a stronger leadership role in facing the challenges of modern society and an evolving student body. John, who’s described his job as “talking about RISD and spreading the idea of RISD’s value” beyond the art and design world, spoke about his experiences at the World Economic Forum and other major leadership gatherings – citing that people are curious and excited to be involved with RISD all over the world.

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The Inquiry of Design Thinking

Excerpt from my Independent Study Proposal for this project.

To generate a fuller understanding of my Graphic Design degree thesis I am interested in investigating the topics of “Design Thinking” and leadership in creative organizations from a perspective beyond current art and design literature. While “Design Thinking” has generated a large amount of excitement in both the professional and academic design communities, through my experiences I have my doubts about the substance of the current conversation and the measurable results a “design thinker” can actually achieve given its current definition. Ultimately it is my belief that while successful designers are all inherently “thinkers” there is a greater opportunity to be seized by attempting to integrate the concept of “design thinking” and understand this new philosophy from a more holistic and inclusive set of principles.

As an individual who will be entering the business community in the future, both academically and professionally, I believe that as someone with the unique background of both arts and design as well as business, that it is my responsibility to better understand and utilize these theories that are currently bringing the fields together. In this study I will work with Associate Provost Bogen to read, discuss, and write on these topics to gain a more meaningful appreciation of creative collaboration, leadership, and process toward measurable organizational strategy – the true hope of “Design Thinking.”

Willem Van Lancker © 2010. All rights reserved.

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