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Background
Humanity, culture, and the planetary condition need our creative attention. The global climate is rapidly shifting, and our planet is asking for our cooperation. As we globalize, commoditize, and ‘revolutionize’ with technology, humanity is forgetting its pivotal connection with its mother and, consequently, its sense of community and collectivity. As a result, the indigenous worldview and our rich sense of creativity are slowly diminishing from the collective conscious. With solemn respect to our planet, we must advocate a collective mindshift from mindless consumption to active participation and cooperation that once emblazoned the earth-driven communities of our indigenous past. We must get back in touch with our ancestral roots. We must reassert the diverse, vital power of the community and the creative power it affords us!
What is Design Tribe?
Design Tribe is a non-profit organization of thinkers, designers, teachers, children, artists, researchers, and free spirits who are awakening to the need for creative systemic changes. Design Tribe reunites planetary cooperation, indigenous practices, sustainability, design, right-brain thinking, and the creative process so that we can adequately restore an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on Earth. Within the rubric of unity and in functioning outside the confines of our failing systems, the Tribe aims to facilitate prolific, divergent, and creative thinking and problem solving to repair existing systems and establish new ones. New systems must meet the needs of communities while remaining mindful to the fragility of our planetary ecosystems. A polymathic, collaborative, and imaginative approach to design is fundamental in fostering a shift in the way we view our relationship to the planet, our mother. As hearts and minds begin to open to the necessity of this relationship, the need to design more sustainably, practically, and creatively becomes more urgent. Our planet desperately needs our cooperation, and the creative process, design, and our imaginations are the only lifelines left to catalyze such change.
Link to Design Tribe Concept Pitch
An Emphasis on Creativity
Creative cognition seems to be dying. In a world now ruled by repetitions, copies, trends, and patterns, there seems to be little room for a concept that once flourished so vibrantly. Creativity, in its heyday, sent man to the moon, overthrew rigid architectural styles, and opened the world to a whole new way of thinking about art and design. Creativity has challenged archaic ideologies and has opened the minds of many to the social realities we are facing in our present moment of this ever-changing planet of brilliant minds. Despite all of the profound changes the concept has bestowed upon us, however, creativity seems to have become a collective mental afterthought, but why? It seems that never before in human history has the average person been as connected and in tune with the power and opulence of design, art, technology, and sustainability; yet, so many of us fail to realize the transformative power importance of the creative process. By restructuring the creative process, Design Tribe thereby aims to discursively unite the strengths of modernity with the earthly wisdom of our elders to develop creative solutions that will usher in a novel paradigm of creative opulence, humanitarianism, earthly love, imagination, and unbounded, sustainable artistic practice.
The Tribal Custom
Design Tribe unites the creative process with the collective power and community-driven approach of indigenous custom. Design Tribe aims to therefore revitalize the creative drive in communities through discussion, workshops, and collaborative projects. The Tribe will also function as a collaborative think-tank in which members partake in engaging, collaborative projects and discussions by sharing their own ideas, wisdom, and skills. In collaboration, members will design and conceptualize smart solutions for community issues and problems facing the world at large.
Utilizing the creative feedback from the mind power of collaboration, all members will aid in the visual and conceptual delivery of these solutions. Each Design Tribe chapter will thereby creatively address the needs of its own community and then share its creative systemic solutions with other communities around the world. Within a kinship framework, members will share, collaborate, and teach one another through creative practice. Tribal collaboration will emphasize the importance of divergent, unconventional thinking, roleplaying, imagination, and interactive storytelling. Design Tribe will encourage members to always think “outside the box” and far beyond to manifest the creative expression and diversity present within the community. Communities will also utilize the raw power of technology in a proper, sustainable manner to regenerate holistic, dynamic, and creative thinking, making, and doing. Design Tribe thereby aims to revitalize a sense of community in order to empower members to cultivate social change, creative learning, collaboration, and ultimately the prosperity of humanity and the planet.
Sustainable Solutions
When undergoing the creative process it is key to consider sustainability, social responsibility, cultural adaptation, ethnography, and systems thinking. Understanding the creative process empowers minds to dig deeper and think beyond the reaches of the imagination in order to facilitate idea and design development that has the power to purposely and appropriately propel innovation into the future. Smart and sustainable systems design is the key to a better future for all of humanity, and it begins with the creative process.
Sustainability will punctuate all Design Tribe workshops and collaborations, empowering members to consider all aspects of the creative process and how these processes ultimately effect others and culture on a larger scale if translated into solutions. Design Tribe therefore emphasizes the importance of considering longevity and impermanence within design and idea development. Understanding how the earth manufactures, tools, and recycles things is paramount to mastering smart and sustainable design. The transformative power of divergent and convergent thinking fosters the necessary foundation for sustainable learning in all workshops and design solutions produced within a Design Tribe community. Ultimately, these solutions aim to reveal that the best designs (and all thinking in general) do not use the past to solve the complex problems of the present, but instead use the present to reveal the possibilities of the future.
Areas of Address
Innumerable problems currently need humanity’s creative attention. Social marketing, publications, educational material, exhibitions, informational design, public services, television, and charitable causes are among the many realms that are in drastic need of creative and collaborative help. Design Tribe collaborations will creatively and sustainably address these among many other struggling systems on both a local and global level, yielding unique, unusual, yet appropriate solutions. Solutions will sustainably address brand identity, web design, consumption, creative education, artistic practice, outreach, community systems design, marketing, advertising, social media, and technology among others. Insights from diverse communities and collaborations with local organizations will aid each Design Tribe in conceiving and fabricating meaningful solutions to highly problematic and relevant issues.
Goals
Background
Humanity, culture, and the planetary condition are at a momentous crux point. The global climate is shifting as we are consuming all of the resources afforded to us by our mother earth without giving a second thought to the consequences. As we globalize, commoditize, and ‘revolutionize’ with technology, humanity is rapidly losing its pivotal connection with its ‘mother’ and, as a result, its sense of community and collectivity. The indigenous worldview is also rapidly diminishing from the collective consciousness. With solemn respect to our planet, we must advocate a collective mindshift from mindless consumption to active participation and cooperation that once emblazoned the earth-driven communities of our indigenous past. We must take a leap and reassert this diverse, vital power of the community. By filling our appropriate role on this planet we can then adequately restore an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence with mother earth.
Project Summary
In conjunction with grassroots outreach, the campaign will involve a series of posters and/or billboards that highlight the necessary return to and connection with the indigenous worldview. Specific messages and imagery will reveal this essential return, and convey a much needed awareness to particular communities that suffer most directly from the perils of passive consumption. Each message will highlight a particular, vital aspect of indigenous practice or belief to promote awareness and encourage viewers to adopt this practice/belief into their individual and community planetary frameworks. Indeed, all of us are either consciously or unconsciously aware of this impending necessity; therefore, the campaign will then serve to expose, remind, and facilitate this vital shift within the collective consciousness by visually and linguistically weaving together the indigenous and modern worldviews.
The End Result
The campaign aims to…
Project Summary
Serving the ultimate prosperity of humanity, the Cabbage mobile application will utilize the raw power of technology in a proper, sustainable manner to regenerate holistic, dynamic, and creative thinking, making, and doing. Cabbage will be a community-driven mobile application that will allow users to share ideas, knowledge, and skills on a global scale. At the local level, members will exchange this same information, but, more importantly, they will physically barter goods and services, i.e. seeds, soil, food, equipment, tools, sustainability practices. Individual or business members will simply create a Cabbage account to gain access to the knowledge database and the marketplace where they can begin posting and bartering goods and services. To encourage participation, the application will then function as an exchange bank that will record the member’s bartering and purchasing balance as well as keep track of a community’s “connectivity” status in an enriching manner. By employing a community-based currency or reward system called “seeds,” use and exchange value will be established based on specific community standards. Allowing individual communities to establish their own value standard will create much more meaningful transactions than those afforded by the dollar system. Consequently, localized communities will flourish individually based on their own needs and standards. At the global level, the application will then serve as networking framework for the exchange of imperative, sustainable, creative knowledge between these local communities. Using the ubiquitous mobile application format, the Cabbage community will share, trade, communicate, diversify, teach, empower, and unify for a better world.
The End Result
The Cabbage concept will solidify a long overdue system shift and will…
Single-Minded Message
Empower humanity, for the future of the world and our ultimate survival is in our hands!
A healing center concept. Mood board shown.
Proposal:
Background
It is historically evident that ancient man was solidly aware of the beneficial effects of pyramid energy as early as 6000 years ago. The ancient Egyptians are thought to have used pyramids to preserve their dead and heal the body through a process that channels the natural electromagnetic energy of the earth and the cosmos. Around the same time, the Mayans of the Yucatan used the pyramid for religious and healing ceremonies. The Vedas have references to pyramid geometry and its sacredness. Even temples and church steeples were designed in the shape of a pyramid. But why the pyramid? Scientists have focussed attention on this issue for the past century. It was intriguing how flowers grew better and faster, how fruits and food products improved in taste and how dead animals did not decay for weeks within the chambers of a pyramid. It was found that all life forms and all matter when placed within the pyramid structure, improved in performance, behavior and appearance. Pyramid energy has, from then on, been successfully applied in healing, as well as in relieving fatigue and tension. There is something present in the structure of a pyramid as it aligns with the earth’s magnetic poles that allows the generation of an energy so natural, free, and powerful that it is capable of healing on both physical and mental levels.
Project Summary
As the intent of the concept is in essence the prosperity of all humanity, the Psychedelic Pyramid will be architectural gathering and healing centers that will channel the natural pyramid-geometry energy of the earth. The centers will offer in-depth seminars and workshops on healing practices and classes in breathwork, meditation, yoga, and sound healing. The ultimate goal of the project is to open centers around the world to provide education on the ultimate knowledge and healing power of the pyramid technology. This will in turn provide a means of solace and inner peace for individuals all across the globe who are are finding life all too stressful in these trying social and economic times. This concept is aimed at helping individuals to fully embody who they are in order to take charge of themselves – physically, emotionally and mentally.
Perception & Tone
The pyramids will provide a calming and meditational environment oriented toward the most minimal and appropriate design. The mood and aesthetic will draw on influences from contemporary, new-age culture in conjunction with the styles of the egyptians, mayans, buddhists and the like, all with a psychedelic undertone (particularly with colors and patterns). Branding and marketing will appropriated in ethical, logical, and appropriate ways, reflecting the brand’s image of wholeness, righteousness, and synchronicity and using the aforementioned aesthetic styles.
Single-Minded Message
Empower humanity!
Promotional posters for a Lady Gaga concert sponsored by the American Rifle Association. The aim of the project was to combine two conflicting positions (musician and non-profit organization) in typographic compositions.
Poster designs promoting an Ed Fella lecture at the University of Southern California.
This project is comprised of visual compositions corresponding to the Death Valley experience. The final deliverable is a softcover process book.
This project involves various elements of branding for the fictional One by One Global Summit.
Objectified is a study of the design process and the visual representation/symbolism of a given object. The final project includes a process book that contains designs and imagery on the visual study of the masquerade mask. This project was created for a class on the study of image, its importance, and various symbology.
An installation in response to the connotations of “disseminate.”
Artist Statement:
Following the theme of disseminate, this piece comments on emotions commonly associated with certain destinations throughout the world. Exodus also dispels the unwarranted use of air travel and the “dissemination” of people. The connection between the two themes is essentially one that reveals the associated feelings of a certain place as a result of human expansion/dispersion, the ability of travel to affect the diversity of a place as a whole or at a given time, and the emotional correlation that is assumed as a result.
A colored pushpin and a placard revealing the emotion and its parallel airport code represent each destination. Revealing the airport code alone leaves the correlating up to the observer’s imagination. Through familiarity, connections between code and emotion can easily be made. An unfamiliar code leaves the emotion up for association by the observer and allows he or she to make their own connection/s. The destinations and connections are arranged in a way only to comment on the anarchic and chaotic nature of air travel and human dispersion.
The piece draws inspiration from the air traffic studies and art of Aaron Koblin.
-Jordan Nowaskie, April 27, 2010.
These posters were created in response to the sensations and feelings received in the downtown Indianapolis environment.
These posters were created in response to the sensations and feelings received in the downtown Indianapolis environment.
A selection of composition from a Visual Communications course, 2010.
A selection of composition from a Visual Communications course, 2010.
Logo design for Leap for Heat, A Butler University green energy initiative.
This project is comprised of a collection of compositions revealing methodologies of wayfinding in New York City without the use of modern technology.
Artist Statement:
With the dawn of the iPhone and Global Positioning Systems, the process of natural
and conventional human navigation has long been overlooked. People, especially
those in metro areas such as New York City, take their access to technology for
granted to the point that they would simply be lost or terribly inconvenienced if they
had to survive a day without modern technology. In NYC for example, so many
commuters rely on their iPhone’s that AT&T’s network simply cannot function
properly during peak times. What would result if New Yorkers took a day off from
their phones, and attempted to navigate their environment blind of any and all
technology or even conventional maps for that matter? Someone traveling from
Manhattan Island to Brooklyn for the first time would probably end up in Jersey.
Fortunately, a simple understanding of the plethora of navigational information
offered by our environment that has been used for centuries can help any observant,
wayward traveler tame unfamiliar territory.
This video is from a larger installation. The piece is a response to the connotations of the verb “collect.”
Artist Statement:
Following the theme of collect, this piece provides commentary on the neurological collection of memories as well as emphasizing the collection of memories via electronic media, photography, and videography. The piece, rendered in the form of an installation, exploits a combination of materials to achieve its affect. The primary emphasis of the work is on the video, which is to be viewed or displayed at or near eye level via projection to emphasize a connection with the observer. The video contains a variety of imagery including still photos and 8mm video footage from an array of sources, including some from my childhood as well as from the childhoods of my parents and grandparents. Other photos are obtained from mixed sources. The footage is easily relatable to the memories of the viewers to further instill a connection and relationship with the piece.
The assemblage of the video intends to overwhelm the viewer with its rapid transitioning between clips and stills, commenting symbolically on the brain’s overwhelming and emotional collection of memories that are gathered, stored, treasured, and discarded over time. Moreover, the video’s composition comments on the focalization of these memories in the human mind and the difficulty of re-obtaining specific memories from the mass of memories committed to the mind’s memory bank. Appropriately, the sound within the video comments on the theme of overwhelming memory consolidation through loud, soft, and shuffled voices or conversations. To capture the observer’s awareness the video begins slowly and provides distinguishable imagery and audio and ultimately transitions in to the aforementioned rapid effect, emphasizing again the burden of storing such a vast amount of information.
Further, the work includes a personal and impersonal collection of photographs scattered around the video screen as well as on the floor beneath, which are accessible to the observer to thumb through and redistribute among the installation. These photographs provide a tactile and more literal representation of memory collection. A connection is therefore made between the messages implied by the video and the photographs. The photographs essentially represent a release for the brain in memory consolidation by proving a trigger for memory recollection. Additionally, a collection of cameras is also present among the piece to emulate another method for how memories are captured, making yet another connection, this time to the relationship between the camera and the brain’s memory storage function.
Ultimately, the installation attempts to dispel the overwhelming and emotional collection, storage, value, adoration, focalization, and suppression of memories via a variety of sources while commenting on the connection between neurological, electronic, and photographic memory collection.
-Jordan Nowaskie, February 5, 2010.
A video response to my interpretation of “Carpe Diem,” revealing that gardening is one way in which the day can be seized.
A video response to my interpretation of “Carpe Diem” or “Seize the Day.”
Over the weekend, I had a sudden realization. After thinking back on the
“Carpe Diem” assignment and re-watching the video footage I captured while
I was away, I began to realize what the true meaning of the phrase was to
me. Always being caught up in the urgency of the responsibility of becoming
an adult, juggling work and school, and the lack of personal time that
accompanies the urgency of our generation, I’ve realized how easy it is to lose
sight of the things I truly hold dear to me: my friends, family, and especially
the exploration of opportunity outside of the little bubble known as life. By
being given the chance to step back and observe these things, I’ve concluded
that I must spend more time appreciating the things I hold close, and worry
less about the urgency that is so demanding of our era. Life is truly to short to
let those things slip to the wayside, because those are the aspects of our lives
that keep us moving and allow us to take some time to reflect and appreciate
what our world truly has to offer. This type of reflection is key in a generation
that is classified by selfishness and lack of empathy for others, which ties
into the themes and ultimate goals of the Massive Change Network. By
approaching life with a more optimistic outlook, appreciating the finer and
more important aspects of lives, and recognizing and appreciating that there
are roughly 7 billion people aside from ourselves on this planet, we can truly
better ourselves and the world around us, educate those around us of this way
of thinking, and ultimately seize each and every day.
Jordan Nowaskie, 3.1.2011
This project involved developing and compiling creative imagery to strongly evoke the many sensations one receives in a given location.
This project involved developing and compiling creative imagery to strongly evoke the many sensations one receives in a given location.
This project involved developing and compiling creative imagery to strongly evoke the many sensations one receives in a given location.
