Breaking & Mentoring →
In August I started participating in the /mentoring project. It took me a while to figure out exactly what I could offer, but I’m getting the hang of it. The most fruitful conversations have been with designers working at their first startup, where process is up for grabs, relationships are constantly changing, and goals are being reset every few months.
I believe that more and more designers will end up in this situation, so today I’m starting a new blog, Breaking and Mentoring, where I share the output of my mentoring work. From the introductory post:
Bringing my fuzzy, subconscious process into focus has given me a new sense of clarity about my work. Breaking & Mentoring is the public-facing component of those conversations, a mix of links, thoughts, and references. In many ways, this is the blog that I wish existed when I was starting out.
In the first real article, I write about getting feedback on your work:
When I was starting out I would just toss my work up on the screen and say, “What do you think?” But if your team doesn’t know what kind of feedback you’re asking for (which is to say, why they’re even at this meeting), they’ll just start giving their opinion about anything visible.
I doubt I’ll be covering new ground, and experienced designers won’t get much out of this, but that’s okay. Much smarter people than I are tackling the tough stuff. This is for the small handful of folks I mentor: they pick the topics and I try to point them in the right direction. Hopefully it will help others in similar situations.
Picaro: Say Hello to Picaro →
yo-picaro:
I’m really excited to tell you about our new project: Picaro.
Picaro is a way to make and play small adventure games. They play a bit like interactive fiction with the control scheme of an old Sierra/LucasArts adventure game. If that was gibberish: the games are completely text-driven, but…
This is one of the projects I’ve been putting a lot of work into during my time off. It encapsulates a lot of what I’ve thought about for the last few years:
- How to make game design accessible
- How to make compelling, generative multiplayer experiences in mobile gaming
- What authoring tools can learn from games
- The failure of games to be short and meaningful
- How I can collaborate with Joe, Casey, and Rob
Do check it out, I can’t wait to show you more.
My foray into the world of LEGO was covered by the NYTimes today. It’s all very dizzying and makes me feel a bunch of different feelings about a bunch of different things.
One of the weirdest aspects is that I’m barely getting started in this medium. There are so many talented folks working with LEGO out there, why interview me? I don’t come from the AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) community but I’m starting to learn who they are and what they do and it’s lightyears ahead of my work. So, I feel a bit awkward being profiled when these guys are putting out stunning pieces only possible with years of dedication and craft. I am, comparatively, a rube.
I know some people find the taxidermy kits compelling out of a detached irony. I’ve had people ask me about them from this perspective. For myself, I was working more out of an interest in animal forms, and how they render in this geometric style. It’s not new territory for me, and I certainly admit influence from Charley Harper and Always With Honor. LEGO has a tradition of enthusiasm, and modeling kits on real subjects comes out of a genuine love for those subjects. I aspire to convey a similar enthusiasm in my work, and it stings a bit when people read it as the LEGO equivalent of putting a bird on it.
I’m not here to complain, or humblebrag, just trying to process all of this transparently. Really: this has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. It started because I wanted to experiment in selling a physical object (interactive designers tend to be jealous of print folk, in this respect). What I didn’t expect was how connected I would feel to the people who purchase kits from me. I love getting their letters — the majority of the Christmas shipments were going out to the Midwest and the South, often to women purchasing them for their hunter husbands and sons. I don’t know how sustainable it will be for me to have an apartment filled with plastic toys and packing materials, but it may be my full time gig for the next few weeks.
Onto happier things: to coincide with this piece, I’ve brought back the deer for sale and added two new kits to the shop: a bear mount, and a standing fox. I’m not sure where things are headed from here, but it’s been pretty wild.
✳ lego
My job at Disrupto ended last week, on the day my son arrived. It’s quite sincerely been the best job I’ve ever had. I already miss the team deeply.
Right now I’m taking some time off from being employed so that I can be home with the baby. I’m excited to let you know where I’m headed after but that won’t be for a few months. Before that, I have to make it through December and January. And so: I turn to you.
I’m looking for a design gig for the month of January.
I love working in concentrated sprints, and it’d be great to find a company that’s interested in 4-5 focused weeks of my time. If you are, or if you know, a company, project, startup, whatever that you think might be a good fit for me, do let me know: hello@davidcole.me
Most of my background is in product & UI, though I’m honestly up for anything that may come my way. You can read more about the type of work I do here and here.
