Establishing Flow through Design
We have been working on our daily writings with the aim of creating a flow of ‘unthinking’; simply writing what comes to mind, unscripted and unedited. This allows us to become self aware and to reflect and nurture our authenticity and intuition.
Intuition: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
This next assignment is to translate this the same concept through design with simply a paper and black marker/pen and our flow. The aim is to pick a starting point and to create from there, allowing the pen to take a life of it’s own by making shapes, dots, lines and patterns and whatever else comes to mind that has no meaning. There is a continuous flow of ‘doodling’ with no stops or hesitations. No thinking: What looks good’, ‘what comes next?’ …no conscious reasoning.
PART 1 of the assignment was to translate the concept of authenticity through design with simply a paper and black marker/pen and our flow.
If link doesn’t work please find second file attached in canvas.
Part 2 - Reflection on Flow & Intuition. (1-2 page summary)
1-Describe the process of your pieces - from the first pen to paper to the last. Did you have a hard time starting? Was there an ease and flow in your last piece?
I often think that the first line is the hardest line to make, because that line will often determine the form of the rest of the drawing. Because of the importance of this first line, it often takes me a second to think about what I’m doing and how I want to do it. In the essence of this assignment, I chose to create my line with a certain promptness and spontaneity to it. I found my drawings to be greatly influenced by the paper I was using and the provided markings (I do not often use blank paper). At first I was drawing on grid paper, which led to very rigid lines. I eventually went over these lines again and smoothed them out but the base of the image was influenced by a grid. To change this up for the next two drawings I did, I went with a isographic line paper for my second day of drawing and for my last day of drawing I went even more abstract. On the last day I drew over two unit circles , one was in degrees and the other is in radians. This last graph allowed me the most freedom from grid-oriented drawing while also still being able to follow the guidelines and profiles already provided. This kind of sketching is some thing I do often, with no start or end as a drawing appears on the page. I often find it helpful to sketch out ideas for things I have and this is also a useful skill for that. Since I have some previous habits of drawing like this there is less of a noticeable difference between my first and last drawing, but there is a certain amount of ease that came with my last photo that did not come with the earlier drawings. (The last took less time to complete to the same level of detail as the first; my brain was possibly connecting thought to paper faster?)
2- What does intuition mean to you?
Intuition to me is the ability to take in sensory items, and come to a complete and resounding answer based off of limited information. I often like an intuition to a gut, feeling, or a primal urge, that something is a certain way. This gut feeling, or primal urge often don’t need too much basis, but you believe in them fully.
Based on the conversation in class I was asked if I thought that impulse and intuition are the same thing. While I think they are extremely similar I would liken it to impulse being a guess and intuition an estimate. One is mostly baseless, while the other is founded in external data.
3- Trusting your intuition is the ultimate act of trusting yourself. What does that mean to you?
This ties into what I wrote about above. If you trust your gut, feeling, or a primal urge that comes from deep inside with influence from previous actions it is trusting your intuition and your intuition is oneself.
4- What instance from your past can your describe a situation from where you acted on your ‘gut’ and the decision was the right one. No analytics or proof - but mere intuition or gut?
I think this could be shown by WPI. It was the last school I toured, as after touring it I felt that I had seen enough colleges, and that one of them would be the one. Then upon being accepted I toured the school again and I had a feeling that this was the place. I committed to the school later the next day and have enjoyed my time here.
What's funny is a day earlier I had toured Tufts and told myself that I would never go to that campus again as I had a very negative reaction in my body to that whole campus.
5-What place does intuitive thinking have in innovation, development and ethics?
I feel that a lot of entrepreneurs and inventors (that make it) are those that have a keen sense of who they are, and how they feel. I think that in order to create ideas and influence people one needs a keen sense and high intellect.
6-What place does intuitive thinking have in developing your Approach?
I think that trusting my intuition would help my approach to creative thinking. I remember reading about inventors who would deprive themselves of sleep so that they would get the creative ideas that come almost from the subconscious. While I’m not suggesting this method for myself, I do think it is interesting to note that many people do this already to strengthen their creativity. Trusting and giving thought to the ideas that come while my mind wanders is something that I will actively try to seek out now when it happens.
What is my time and space? What do I do to have me time?
Music is my personal favorite escape, and so I will always have a pair of earbuds or some way to consume music handy at any time. I often also find solace while eating. Dinner has always been a social event in my family, but breakfast has been for me a personal time. I like to take an hour to myself every morning to make and enjoy my bagel; one half egg - one half cream cheese. During that time I may read articles, play games, or some other task I find enjoyable. It puts me in a good mindscape to begin my day and is an important time for me to have.
During work this summer I also found my commute really nice. During this commute I could choose to take the T from Seaport to North Station after work, but instead I chose to walk. This 30 minutes really helped me process the work day and transition into my “feierabend”.