Our Department Chair Curtis Larsen has posted information pertaining to a new scholarship opportunity. If you are interested in any way, shape, or form, please have a look here.

AND…

…don’t forget to get on over to Shari’s this week for some friendly academic advisement.

We spoke this week about natural design limitations (can you name all four?) that are part of any project we will work on. Ted over at North Temple sums up some great design truths after dealing with the Tooth Fairy and a four year old. Specifically, he talks about the subtleties of working within the client specifications.

She had been wiggling her first loose tooth for a few days, and it finally came out last night. When telling my wife what she expected under her pillow in return for her tooth, she said in fine alliterative fashion, “I want dollars and diamonds. Cause I’m a girl.” The interaction design lesson? Know your audience and what they want and expect.

Please read the whole article and be familiar with Ted’s conclusions about client specs. Be prepared to discuss his point and your opinion thereon at the beginning of class on Wednesday.

Here’s a great read that can/should have bearing on your careers as designers. Seth Godin discusses how to be remarkable. Some items of note:

• Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me.
• Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.
• Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn’t always matter which edge, more that you’re at (or beyond) the edge.

This class is about learning the rules of design and living in them. The time to break the rules comes only after you fully understand them and understand why you need to break them. That said, I don’t believe these two concepts (living within the confines of the rules and being remarkable) are mutually exclusive. You can do both.

So do it.

Read all ten items on Seth’s list here.