What are your expectations for the trip and design appointments?

Above all, I look forward to exposure to the professional design world to observe the culture and conflict between organization and creativity, how creativity is produced and commoditized in this type of environment. I’m not sure where I fit in in the professional design world and perhaps exposure to the personalities and culture will give me a better idea.
I also look forward to getting to know more people; I know about . . . 2 people in this class

What company or companies are you most excited to visit? / • How do your interests or skills fit with the firms that we are visiting?

A little bit about my background and interests: I’ve been a lifelong visual artist and study systems engineering, and I’ve created visual work for everything from digital painting to print to website design, to game design and storyboarding, and business system design. The type of design I want to pursue would be a marriage of engineering and artistry for the level of creative problem solving and design consultancy exhibited by IDEO and Stanford Design School. I am also interested in design-led social entrepreneurship, the ultimate creative application of design to create solutions for our world.

That said, the firms I am most interested in are those that provide comprehensive creative problem solving through design on a big-picture level, involving business development and marketing. Such firms would be: Landor, Baseline Design and C & G Partners. Due to the comprehensive nature of these firms’ design work, I would like to see how media is created and designed to influence (and perhaps even to control) consumers. I am also interested to see how media and design work in tandem with business development.

Now for the generic answer: all forms of design can teach us a lesson in how to create flow.

How would you define “West Coast” design? How does it defer from “East Coast” design?

Honestly I don’t really know about the essence of design for either coast. I do think I see some trends though. The west coast has much more of a tech-centered design focus- interactive, web, and film production, whereas the east coast has more established “traditional” design firms. The west coast design culture seems to be much more dispersed; there are more agencies hiring contractors and independent designers here as opposed to a culture of established companies. I would say the East Coast is a more condensed financial power-hub, so the design firms go more hand-in-hand with the corporations there. A lot of design here is influenced by street art, I’d imagine it has more of an impact here than on the EC but then again I haven’t been exposed to street art culture on the EC.