Tierra Lab
Book Review: “Designing Audiences”
For the past few years, the AIGA has put on Fresh Dialogue, a series of panel discussions on emerging topics in graphic design. These are recapped in book form—perhaps not quite as ‘Fresh’ as when the event occurred, but still very relevant. I picked up a copy at the excellent Powerhouse Books (Tierra’s downstairs neighbor) and read it on a recent flight.
Designing Audiences focuses on designing for users/viewers who are also co-creators. Panelists were game designer/educator Katie Salen, designer/illustrator Stephan Bucher (who’s work I love) and Erick Rodenbeck from Stamen, of Digg Labs fame. Stephan Bucher’s discussion of his blog, Daily Monster, is particularly good. He describes how it started off as a space to show off his personal project but evolved into a community when his audience decided that they wanted to create too. Even though Bucher is primarily a print designer, he was really smart about reacting to an enthusiastic online audience. When he found that they wanted to write stories, he made it easier for them to post and share, and nurtured contributors with feedback and praise. Gradually, he came up with creative visual projects for those who weren’t interested in writing.
Katie Salen also makes some well put observations about how audiences’ familiarity with media and design is changing:
I think what we’re seeing today is a rising level of what I’ll just call media literacy. People are more literate today in more media than they’ve ever been before. People learn how to write because they blog. They are learning about video editing and illustration and graphic design, so I think that there’s a broader range of literacy across media…I do think that we’re going to get rid of the concept of amateur—the notion of amateur-made content. Instead we may begin to think of it more as user-produced content…
So true Ms. Salen, so true.
2 Responses to “Book Review: “Designing Audiences””
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December 17th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Is that you creating some user-produced content behind the book Jennifer?
December 19th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
You are quick, my friend!