Week 8
Subjectivity in objective grid systems, Martin Gauer's Gameboy website, changing habits to chase my dream and considering whether the dream is worth the sacrifices.
[Thoughts] What’s important in your grid system?
As a designer, you’ve been led down the path of grid systems at one point or another.
Grid systems essentially break down a surface into chunks that are interrelated as part of a larger system.
In order to begin any grid system, you choose a base unit which then helps you to derive other subsequent units.
For example, in the image above, the base unit is one rectangle which is then duplicated 3 times horizontally (leaving space between each) and this row is then repeated 3 times vertically, leading to an equidistant rectangular grid.
In documents where there is a dominating graphical element, grid systems are derived using the object as the base unit.
In the image above, the base unit is either the word ‘THE’ or the word ‘GRID’, and the size of other elements are derived using that.
In cases such as these, the starting point for your (objective) grid system is a (subjective) choice. The size of the font used for the word ‘GRID’ dictates the size of everything else on that poster.
Therefore, unless the starting point for your grid system is not the page itself (as is for the Canons of Page Construction), you will always be using artistic intuition even to derive a very logical, geometric grid.
This was a thought that I had while making this poster on Sunday:
[Cool People] Martin Gauer
I don’t quite remember how I came across Martin’s portfolio website but boy, was it a treat to visit.
This dude essentially made a Gameboy-themed portfolio website (with an actual GameBoy + game) with just HTML and CSS. All the code is open-access as well.
Fantastic storytelling and a heavy serving of personality, something that I wish to include more of in my next portfolio update.
[Personal Changes] The Butterfly Effect and My Promised Hour of Self-Work Everyday
In a TED talk by Laura Vanderkam titled How to gain control of your free time, she puts forward a rather straightforward point: you don’t have the time to do the things you want to do, because they aren’t a priority for you.
I was instantly taken aback. What she said is so true. All of us have 24 hours in a day. We say we have jam-packed, point-to-point schedules and yet if an emergency pops up, we make time for it.
After shifting to Mumbai and beginning my first full-time job, I realised how passions could so easily die down if not actively pursued. In my two months here, I rarely continued my research work or made something from my ever-growing idea list. The TED talk put things in perspective and I decided to add in a new habit to my life, inspired by the butterfly effect.
Justin Thomas Miller explains the concept quite well in this article: The Butterfly Effect is all about how small changes in a complex system can equal results that are virtually impossible to predict. What might seem like a very small and insignificant change in one place could result in large differences somewhere else or at a later stage.
The fact that a 1% improvement every day could lead to a compounded improvement over time hit home for me. Everyday at work, at least for the past 2 weeks, I’ve been getting up at 5 pm and heading out to work on my own HCI / creative coding projects. In the last 10 days, I’ve brushed up on research paper formats (in order to prepare my two publications planned for this year), figured out a bit of complex maths for a project and ideated on building an autonomous system to show whether the computer prefers peace or anarchy if left to its algorithms.
Yes, I’m not able to spit out projects every two days and, sometimes, the hour goes by without me ever reaching a solid checkpoint. Heck, some days I come home and pursue whatever I had started in the office and not be able to figure it out by midnight. Even then, it is still a step upward on this humongous mountain that I hope to someday conquer.
Maybe this is my learning from all my years of climbing, now transferred over to my work ethic in design. My mentors would be proud, I finally figured it out.
[Thoughts] Rushing or not?
It was Kirthana, a dear friend, who started this chain of thought by asking me if my priorities are right and why I live under the constant pressure of making something of my life, that too as soon as possible, at the cost of human relationships.
This past week, I was looking at the MIT Media Lab again: the work that they do, the people who’re currently there, the application process … everything. At this point, I am sure I’ve gone through most of the stuff available on the internet about the Media Lab and how people get in.
The more I see it, the more I want to be there. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of people working at the lab (through a video or a photo) and I can instantly place myself there. On those tables, with wires jumbled all around me, talking to other researchers about solving a tiny problem in the design of something and everyone equally geeking out about it.
At this point in my life, there is no guarantee that I’ll be 1 of the 65 that they let in every year. Heck, there are more chances of me being one of the rejected 64. The desire to be at that place takes over everything, especially when you’re dealing with odds such as those. Every avoidable second spent not chasing the Media Lab makes me feel guilty and pushes me further away than I was.
Over time, I’ve deliberated whether this all-consuming dream is worth the sacrifice. Since I moved to Bombay, I’ve had the time to talk to one person and one person only: the person I’m living with. Juniors, mentees, friends back in Delhi, people who’ve been trying to reach me, friends I made in Bangalore; everyone, gone. As much as I want to give them the time they desire, I simply cannot do so.
On one side is the guilt of not chasing my dream and on the other, is the guilt of not being there for others. On one side, I become a failed friend/mentor but on the other, I become a failed human being/son.
Which tag is the easier one to live with?