Hitler finds out he's banned from Xbox Live

Part of the literally hundreds of Hitler parody videos

Valorised Designer, thoughts (global design)

Design eduction seems to be split up into three moods of thought:

1) One section wish to train students for fight the last war. This section is on a never ending circle jerk around The Bauhaus and International school - constantly harboring back the "glory days" when design was pure, women kept their mouths shut and blacks didn't exist expect to be beaten and lynched. Though it is important to know the respect the past (maybe) it is not necessary to glorify it at the expense of the "here and now".

2) The second section wishes to play it safe. They're goal is to train students for the tried and true design practices as they relate to consumerism, which is inescapable in a capitalist society. Branding, marketing, advertising, motion design, web design, interactive design, etc. Perfectly valid, expect it seems these tried and true practices are being outsourced in ever greater amounts.

3) The third and final beast, er, section wishes to look into the future and prepare students for what dreams may come. They attempt to put the pieces together, see around the curb and make sure students are ready for the future. Problem is no one has a ownership over the future and their guess is a good as mine. While its fantastic to place emphasis on whats new, this mood of thought runs the risk of preparing students for a world that only make sense in their professors head (plus the classroom) and for careers and jobs that do not exist at all.

Of course that's just my opinion and opinions are like assholes - everyone's got one.

The Project (thesis)

THE PROJECT:

Construct “Channel X”  - a collective platform (think tank / lobbyist) to formulate and promote the structural reinvention of the way content (popular music) is distributed through:

1. The decentralization of Music Industry
2. Re-writing of current copyright laws
3. The systemic design necessary for a legal open source free exchange network for the creation, sharing and distribution of popular music.

Such a platform will prove that:

1. Free distribution and file sharing are: viable economic frameworks;  sustainable business model(s): and allow for broader connection with fans. Open sourse is the free-ist form of a free market enterprise.
2. Increased competition and more control amongst individual record labels / Artists through decentralization will free up innovation and growth.
3. “One-size fits all” business models are detrimental to the business of music. Pushing for multi-level business model(s) reflect cultural trends towards how a growing section of the population consumes content i.e. popular music.

The designer will organize this collective platform (process facilitators), but bring together those who have shared sensibility including, but no limited to: lawyers, engineers, computer scientist, popular musical acts, marketers and those who work in the music industry - into a shared collective.

Cooperation. Not Conglomeration.

SCHEDULE:

FEB. 7 – Designing Project; Draft Presentation Layout; Re-work paper

FEB. 14 – Designing Project; Draft Layout for paper; Finalize paper

FEB. 21 – Finalize Presentation Layout; Draft version actual presentation

FEB. 28 - Finalize paper layout; Designing Project

MARCH. 7 – Turn “the paper” into “the book” PDF; send to printer.

MARCH.14 – Complete presentation layout and content.

MARCH. 21 – GONE FISHIN’

MARCH. 28 – Final Project; Final “book”; Final presentation.

APRIL. 4 – Window dressing & preparation

APRIL. 11 –‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’   ‘ ‘ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’   ‘ ‘ ‘’ ‘

APRIL. 18 - ’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’   ‘ ‘ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’   ‘ ‘ ‘’ ‘

APRIL. 25 - ’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’   ‘ ‘ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’   ‘ ‘ ‘’ ‘

The Inspiration (thesis)

1) Make It Right Nola (Foundation)

Mission: To be a catalyst for redevelopment of the Lower 9th Ward, by building a neighborhood of safe and healthy homes that are inspired by Cradle to Cradle Design thinking, with an emphasis on high-quality design, while preserving the spirit of the community’s culture.

 

 

 2) The Heritage Foundation (Political think tank)

Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense

3) Our Project (Educational)

OurProject.org (OP) is a web-based collaborative free content repository. It acts as a central location for the construction and maintenance of social/cultural/artistic projects, providing web space and tools, and focusing in free knowledge. It claims to extend the ideas and methodology of free software to social areas and free culture in general.

Other sources...

4) Urban Youth Collective

 The Urban Youth Collaborative brings New York City youth together to fight for change through local and citywide organizing strategies. We strive for social and economic justice throughout our communities — overcoming obstacles to make sure youth voices are heard and youth empowerment is emphasized.

5) TechDirect

Techdirt blog uses a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow.

6) Global Zero
The international Global Zero movement launched in December 2008 includes more than 300 political, military, business, faith and civic leaders — and hundreds of thousands of citizens — working for the phased, verified elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide.

7) OiNK Pink Palace

OiNK Pink Palace (a precursor to iTunes) was an invitation only BitTorrent tracking community with about 180,000 users created by programmer Alan Ellis in 2004. It was a genuine community. OiNK placed an emphasis of the sharing of torrents for high quality MP3’s and multiple lossless audio formats such as FLAC. One of OiNK’s rules was that users could not pay to gain membership to the site, but had an opportunity to donate money to the site.

BitTorrent is a peer 2 peer protocol, or method, that allows people to share data much more efficiently and at much greater transfer speeds than previous file-sharing software. What BitTorrent does is remove limitation by allowing a virtually unlimited number of people to connect to one another and share the same file at the same time.

 

What To Value (global design)

It starts with audacity. That certain willing-ness to put it all out there ill regardless of what the ramifications might be.

Honesty and integrity are also something to value. However they runs risk of being as pegged and just being asshole-ish. At the same time brazen audacity runs close to being misinterpreted and “shock”. But if this cocktail is organized in such a way where no misinterpretations can be made  – no misunderstandings can be ascertained – and combined the education (another item to value), the results can be truly uplifting.

“I Love My Boo”  is an anti-homophobic campaign launched by the GMHC (Gays Mens Health Center). The purpose of the campaign fights homophobia & increases visibility of gay men of color. African American and Latino American inner city (and abroad) communities being gay is treated as a taboo issue. Something that is rarely acknowledged and often marginalized or keep hidden. 

This was my breakthrough. This was that spark. Suddenly all the pieces begin to move into place. Personally I had been following the campaign even before it officially launched. The posters themselves are ripe with: honor, honesy, commitment, affection, integrity, public education and a certain brazen audacity.

 

But this is not enough – As a reference / historical poster it was too recent. Now, its time to work backwards -- to seek out inspiration with similar values, but prevalent during a time when I was not yet alive.

Searching the backlogs of my memory as well as the public domain I stumbled across these two posters: One from the an Los Angeles County AIDS awareness campaign launched in 1984 ‘Don’t forget your rubbers’ and the other "IF" poster is from the Texas Department of Health, used in the 1980’s – respectfully. 

Both posters are using public service in the form of education to bring awareness to AIDS - which during the 1980's was a massive health crisis. Both utilize a certain audacity in their approach – the willingness to unapologetically lay it all out there. Both are honest. The “IF” poster spells out the problem using the doctors eye chart as a inspiration while the “Don’t forget…” utilizes a bit of humor as well the celebrity status of Zelda Rubenstien best know for her role in the Poltergeist films, but also well known in most circles as an early and out spoken supporter of gay rights.

My task will be to draw upon some of the values found in the posters (public service, education, humor etc.) – combined with what I value (brazen audacity, honesty) to create a poster (within the realm of public service or education) dealing with the issue of suicide in America or amongst gay teens, which is disproportionately higher than other teens.

Suicide amongst gay youth has gained some attention recently due to the issues surrounding bullying. But at the same time suicide in American, in general, is relatively high.

The question then becomes, “Why suicide?” In my life’s journey I’ve had two ex boyfriends whom both been suicidal. One even went as for as (before I met him) as to slit his wrists with a razor blade. Though he survived, it should have never gotten to that point. Call it “the hero complex” but I have a certain need to help those troubled by this affliction – this mindset, not because I want to but because I have to.

 

That sick generation

What can I say about my homeboy Tanner. He's the funniest guy - I never get to see anymore. His creativity (http://boredlarry.tumblr.com) is something to be jealous of. In truth, most (if not all) of my inspiration comes not from the classes I take nor the books I'm forced to read, but rather the people I see and the peeps I know. The young generation - That sick generation.

Test

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