Ten things they never taught in design school, and one thing they did

I recently read a post by Michael McDonough called the “Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School”, and previous post by McDonough called “Graphic Design and the New Certainties”, as well as its follow-up comments.

In his most recent posting, he seems to be looking back on his education, and pointing out the real-world lessons that are lacking in design school, and in the previous posting he speculates about secret cravings of designers, and their definitions of design. In the follow-up to that posting, a set of questions are posted by a certain Michael B., who wonders why designers spend so much time scratching out their purpose in life, and while they are doing that, not productively designing.

I think that kind of philosophy is one thing we DID learn in design school, or if not, at least innately carry around with us. But then again, it’s all just part of our career, and the type of people we are. To pick up on one responder to Michael’s comment, Rick Poyner states, that “Design's professional uncertainties are unusual, though. Do dentists agonise about their calling like this? Do hotel managers? Do bus drivers? One essential difference with design is that it's a form of public communication, and that takes us into questions of identity, representation, the public good and, yes, even politics.”

Designers come in all sorts, some are much more business focused, and some are very creative, but I think many designers still tend to look in at themselves and question the jobs we do just to make sure that we uphold our values. We have the ability, in fact it is our job to communicate, and even though we just design someone else’s product, and then leave, we become as much an owner of the product as the client, because we have invested our aesthetic abilities and our best efforts into the work. A dentist’s questions might include the tools, techniques, and methods for carrying out root canals. A designer’s questions are usually deeper, and more personal than that, regarding our own identities and roles in the communication of information. But relative to our respective fields of work, the questions are the same.

It is a question asked of all design students, some from art backgrounds, and some even “muggle-born” designers before entering the real world. We were asked to define design and our role in it to ourselves and to the world. For students, it’s a way of aligning ourselves with the personalities who we will be working with for the rest of our lives, especially if we work in studios. It’s not something that is tested or questioned officially in any course, although it acts as the first opportunity for us to put to words what we have learned over the last four years and create a mission statement of sorts, a set of goals and values that we can look back on in five years and either correct according to reality, find we need to re-align ourselves with, or satisfactorily find that we have lived out thus far.

I think that for a profession comprised of so many creative, value centred individuals, this set of questions is not a bad set of tools to carry around in our back pockets, along with our USB keys and graphite pencils, useful especially when starting a new project, or faced with communicating new, and possibly controversial set of issues to design of in our career.

For further reading, here are the things we weren’t taught in design school!

Crowning studs and party walls

Tidbit Break
Crowning a stud. To crown a stud, you sight along the length of it, and if it curves along the length of the board, you want it to “frown” when using it in a frame, so that the act of nailing it into the frame will attempt to straighten the board. A crown itself is the upward bow, curve or rise along the length of a board.

Today we put up a party wall on the third floor, and I discovered that there’s always room for improvement in my math skills! I was building again with Lorraine today (I love her energy and bubbly personality!) and just like last week with the bay window project, Lorraine and I were both taking the initiative to try to figure out what the procedure to the project was, so today we both knew we were building a party wall; we were in the middle of the project, and after lunch we still both went up and tried to measure out the length for the party wall and act as though we were going to build it on our own.

We talked through how many pieces of wood we would need based on a frame built with studs 12” on centre. To do both sides of the party wall, we concluded we would need 26 studs; 13 on each frame. However, when Roger came back up and we were discussing things with him, I said we would need 26 studs for the one side. Lorraine agreed with me. That didn’t sound right to Roger, and so he was measuring things, and we were remeasuring things, and he came up with the number 13! Well of course it’s 13, Roger, I was just trying to see if you were paying attention! We wouldn’t want you to miscount anything now, would we!? (oops!)

I learned a lot that day though. It was probably my most productive framing day ever. It started off with finishing putting the OSB on another bay window, and putting that window into place. I wanted to help lift the window, but Bruce made me Level Girl, so I had to run around with the level and tell people where to put the window and when we could put in the brace.

Then I moved on to putting up a party wall. That project involved building four frames, each about 156” long, spaced at least ¾” apart to accommodate for the drywall that will go in between the walls. We had to crown the studs first. Building the frame itself is fairly simple, so it was a very rewarding project, because you can put most of your effort into the strategy of the project, and the actual process is fairly repetitive, and in that way, almost calming.

I also made use of this opportunity to really cut down on the time it took me to drive a nail. Speaking of hammers … there was this one kid there today who had the most awesome hammer I have ever seen; the only thing you need to have is impeccable aim, and it does the rest of the work – it’s even a “self setting” hammer! I need one of those for framing! It has a nail-shaped indent along the top, and a magnet to hold the nail in place while you set it with one strike, then you can drive it in with about three more strikes. Bloody awesome!

Lunch that day was also nice – it was just warm enough to not need coats at lunch time, and C+ was taking a nap, while Lorraine, Corey and I talked, with C+ joining in occasionally. We talked about everything from carpenter’s unions, to working in Vancouver to stickers on your hard hat / helmet and whether or not they were allowed. It was just a very relaxing lunch; one of those times when I felt just comfortable to be there, and like that was where I belonged.

Framing a Bay Window

Wow am I ever behind on my blogs! It is July 7th today and I am just doing this blog now! This was the day we put up the bay window frame. I was working with Lorraine and Jim to do this, as well as Mike, Bruce, maybe Roger, etc. The most entertaining part of today by far was when I was hammering in part of the frame and Jim makes a comment about the intensity of my concentration … something connected with PMS … ? Well, I ignored that comment, but Gerhard was there and pipes up “what is PMS?” I couldn’t resist. Laughing, I looked straight at Jim and said “Okay go ahead; explain it!” He has never made a comment like that again. Thank you Gerhard!
That made him very aware of what he had just said, and that he would have to take ownership of his comment. He got cold feet, and couldn’t explain himself!

But I digress. At this point in time, I am still un-orange-shirted. Today, I will teach the world how to build a Bay Window in 6 easy steps! Try this at home - go ahead ... it won't work, but you can try it anyway!
1. To build a bay window, you start the same as you would with any section of frame; you toe-nail in your baseplate to the edge of the wall, making sure you are 3.5” in from the edge. (I vaguely remember something about Tyvek and PL Acoustiseal before you do that, but as I said, I am writing this July 7th for March 23rd, so the brain’s a little foggy on the details!)
2. You mark out your studs, jacks and cripples and build your frame. I believe the bay window we were building was 60”-h by 85”-w.
3. After you build your first frame you attach a 12” piece to each of the outside corners of the window, and start to build your next frame around those extensions. This frame is much smaller though, so it’s like that baby’s toy with all the coloured rings on the white pylon, each one smaller than the previous. Think of that toy in square form.
4. Once we got the second level of the bay window frame constructed, we covered the entire outer surface of the frame with OSB.
5. once that was on, we were able to erect that frame, all 700lbs of it (or at least it felt that way!)
6. Once it is up, you make sure it’s level, put your braces in place, and tada! Bay window!

Post-secondary Financial Advice

I am no financial guru, but I do have a bank account, and my own experiences financially. I am also in a very tricky situation at the moment. But rather than let my current financial experiences go to waste, I would like to share them with those post-secondary blog readers out there who may benefit from my experiences.

Let me introduce myself. I would like a credit card. I have no credit history, and since I have just graduated from University last year I have also started my own business. Since the end of last year, I have been self-employed. However, within the fiscal year of 2006, I have been employed for 11 out of 12 months. For the past 7-8 years I have been part-time employed and a full-time student, who has never taken out OSAP, not because of “Mommy and Daddy” paying for me, but because I have earned enough money to pay for my own education, and not spent a penny of it recklessly; always keeping education goals in mind. My one mistake (I will reveal the official “a-ha” moment later) was that I ignored the credit card pitches lining the halls of my University's retail area. I had done this with the goal of wise spending in mind, and doggedly avoiding the overspending and credit-card carry-overs that so often ensue such plastic ownership. I am chiding myself now for such false wisdom, lack of trust in myself, and ignorance.

Since November or December last year I began to approach banks for their services as a post-secondary graduate. As a sign of their understanding, compassionate nature, they do not acknowledge the existence of people between graduation and their first full year of work as eligible for loans or credit cards, especially those with no credit history. Graduation, by the way, is usually in the summer months of the year (so June or July), which would give you 6 months of job search time. Heaven forbid you choose to open your own business, because anyone who is self-employed and does not have a credit card is also not considered “secure enough” financial to receive one. To re-iterate that last statement, people who are self-disciplined enough to work on their own time, willing to risk failure in business, manage their own money, and manage their very own financial department are not considered feasible investments. On the other hand, banks support hundreds of customers who have gone into overdraft at the bank, had their card previously revoked, and simply make enough money, despite their proven inability to manage their finances.
Think about that.

Banks will not accept anything but current employment in their current credit policy. But what do they define as "current" as on their form, the "current employment" section is defined as the 2006 fiscal year. So I have been employed for 11 months of the current fiscal (tax?) year, and have made a fair deal from those earnings, but once I go solo, the banks are no longer interested.

Because I have not been out of school for a full year, and have not earned my first $35,000 of Bank-acknowledged, officially employed salary, I have found it difficult to put my annual earnings down on any credit-card application. I have tried at my own bank. I have now tried at one other bank – which will remain un-named – and was turned down, and just today at a third bank; the most hopeful and helpful one I have encountered yet.

Today’s account manager was willing to listen to me, acknowledge my choices, no credit card so far, and work with me to gather the information she needed to create a credit card account for me. She suggested solutions to me that showed evidence of thinking outside the box, such as the Secured Visa, based on a term deposit: should you ever carry a balance, they will dip into your term deposit to pay it, and should you be clean, you will build up a credit history AND have your shiny term deposit to prove you really were a good girl all along! To re-iterate that statement, she put effort into learning about me, she showed interest in my case, and she approached me as if I was her only client, and that my situation meant something to her, that she would work for me, and try to solve my problems. Even if she is not able to do that, I will not fault her for trying. It is her obvious effort and interest that would inspire me to work with her, and has given me the energy to work with renewed energy at getting a credit card. It was when she asked why I hadn’t taken one of those deals that was offered to me in the halls of my post-secondary institution that my mistake hit home. She was willing to work with me, and for once I wanted to have something I could present to her to give her a foot-hold (wow, someone inspired to Help their banker in a fuzzy kind of way!) but because I had refused these offers, I had nothing to give.

Contrast that with my stubborn willingness to hold on to my current decisions that my own bank’s account manager inspired in me through her cold-hearted aloofness, coated with fake happiness and helpfulness. The account manager there has refused me a loan because I have no credit history, then, as opposed to recognizing that I have been a customer for a decade and trying to help me, she suggested I try to get a retail card, like Sears. She also failed to suggest to me services that her bank might provide that would act as a work-around for me; something that would be beneficial both to me and to them. However, she has accepted her own version of a brain-washed attitude that seems to forgo any creative thought, any customer-focused problem solving, and any positive attitude.

Well, I tried Pier One, and they refused me for the same reason my own account manager has - in my 6 months after graduation, I have not made enough money. I can understand that situation with a bank or retail enterprise that does not know me, but to receive such ignorance and narrow-mindedness from my own bank is inexcusable. So, watching my account build for a decade means nothing to you, woman? At another bank I am greeted by someone willing to hear all my information and work with me to put together my case receive a secured line of credit, and you just dismissively say to me “try Sears and come back to us in six months honey”. This is my banks’ customer service. Bugger that.


So my lesson that I hope I can impart on anyone reading this is that banks are very peculiar. Even though they have clients who cost them hundreds of thousands every year in credit card balances and debt, they can take NO risks. So if you are in post-secondary, and you are given the opportunity to get a credit card - TAKE IT. Even if you have only four months before you graduate, four months of credit history makes a mountainous difference over none at all. You will now be recognized by a credit bureau. They will have an account on you. I am almost willing to go back to school simply to receive a credit card, because at least as a student, the banks can once again see me.

My search for a credit card and a bank who is willing to work with me (because saying who will love me is too much to ask for) continues, and maybe tomorrow I will be told that I have been given a credit card, and that my exceptional case has been accepted by the bank. That they are willing to meet me half-way, if I agree to a term deposit, and that they will give me the chance to get a credit history.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

Tidbit break!
Toenailing is when you drive a nail on an angle through one piece of wood and into a second perpendicular piece. In framing, this is useful to secure the bottom plate of a frame in place temporarily while you build the length of the frame and the top plate around it. When the piece of frame is complete you can still lift it into place, what will happen is that since the nails holding the bottom plate in place were driven in at such an angle, the weight of the frame has increased, and the force needed to left the frame is great enough, the nails will just lift right out.

March 16th
This week’s tasks came on a gray, windy day during the highschooler’s March break, where we had a bunch of them drop by to put in some of their volunteering hours. I began my day by bugging Bruce about crew leading. His response was somewhere along the lines of: So you want to be a crew leader, you’ve got the urge to be a crew leader, you’ve got the nerve to be a crew leader – so go ahead and be a crew leader. Take these kids, and put nails into these pieces of wood.
No problem, right? Wrong. That was the worst crew leading experience I ever had, and the end result – I was fired from being a crew leader that day, and sent off to work with Mike, to put up a frame that would be a door, and essentially learn how to properly drive in a nail. Ouch. This re-assignment came after a ‘general’ lesson that Bruce gave to everyone, all the while looking right at me, almost chiding me for my nailing skills. He ended it with “lesson learned”. You’re not kidding! It’s a lesson I will never forget!
So, off to build a piece of frame with Mike, to learn about how to drive in a nail, what K, J, and X/C meant (thank you Brian later on for your addition of Q to the mix … Quota? Queen? Haha, very funny, we think we are SO SMART, don’t we?)
Later on that day I learned another lesson. When building a frame, make sure you get your measurement for the bottom plate right first thing, and then toenail the bottom plate to the floor. This will prevent you from realizing later on that you cut your bottom plate about 6” short of the mark, and need to build an extra 6” of frame. Oh, that was NOT fun, either. But at least I learned the basics of framing and nailing!

Tidbit break!
My signatures: that day Caroline was quite insistent that I sign somewhere onsite, even though I told her I didn’t really want to, so I scrawled my initials; VMK on the wall. Caroline mad a big stink about the illegibility of that bit of chicken wire, so I drew it all nice and pretty for her, and explained what it stood for. Then I put the date mm over dd over yy to create a Braille cell arrangement of numbers beside my initials. Since then, I have evolved a tradition out of what Caroline MADE ME do, writing a descriptive sentence under each one. It would almost be a game now to try to find them all, but some are buried under things, like the bottom plate of a bay window frame on the second floor.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

Tidbit break!
Making fun of each other seems to come as part of the rapport between regulars (people who volunteer on a regular basis) on-site, to the point where putting up with, and participating in this is almost a pre-requisite to becoming part of the team. Bruce’s most recent remarks to me, as a new crew leader, seem to indicate the fact that I do not know enough vocabulary. When I have been talking to him of late, if I don’t know the term (or at least the term he uses) I will either use a term I used from my days at RONA, or just say ‘thingy’ – the universal technical term. So lately, he has been helping me out. When I am stalling for words, drawing diagrams to him in the air, or just describing what I am doing when I don’t know the actual tool I am using, he helps me out by filling me in with the universal term. I usually leave it at that, satisfied that he knows exactly what thingy I am talking about, and we continue happily along with our conversation, the both of us arguing about terms all along the way!

March 9th
SIP Panels on 2nd floor: This day I DO remember. I learned about using the heat-knife thingy to melt off a layer of Styrofoam from the middle of the SIPs, which is the process that produces an interesting smell, and a lot of ‘snow’. The rest of the snow comes from cutting the pieces down. I wasn’t able to learn the whole process from one day, but I did experience some of it. Think of a SIP as a giant ice cream sandwich, consisting of two pieces of particle board (the 4’x8’ panel that looks like it’s made out of a bunch of wood chips compressed together, which, in fact, it is), that surround a Styrofoam centre.
1. First off, you need to know what size to cut these 4’x8’ panels down to, so that they fit according to the floor plan, like where a window or door would go.
2. The first step is again laying down plates, which only involves a 2x4 this time, (with the required Acoustiseal) as the flooring provides a perfectly straight and smooth surface.
3. When putting the first piece of SIP in (I’m thinking moving out from the concrete wall that splits the townhouses in half, where I was working that day) you also need to make sure that there is a piece of 2x4 bolted directly to the concrete.
4. Once you are ready to put the SIP up, (yes, I skipped steps in here, insert flurries of snow, checking measurements, and checking to your sketch of the floorplan) you align the SIP on either side of the plates, and sledgehammer it down.
5. I am a little fuzzy on this bit, but I remember it being quite an issue to Caroline that the SIP be level. Hmm, that wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the SIP was the initial wall and structure the next level would be built on, would it? So we set up a brace, and when we were sure that the SIP was level, we would secure the brace in place.
6. Putting up the next SIP required that we affix a piece of 2x4 between the boards on the open end of the panel we just put up, securing the connection with nails, using expanding foam to fill in the gaps between the Styrofoam and the piece of wood. This 2x4 would extend out from between the edges of the SIP by about an inch, creating the Duplo block effect that Caroline used as an example to explain how the pieces would fit together. (LOL, I didn’t get that explanation myself until just now as I am trying to envision the process to write it down! I guess while I was in the middle of things there was just too much snow in my brain!
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5, traveling around the back and unit 10 side of the entire block of houses.
8. Ta-da! There you have it. SIPs in a nutshell. Now come on, Caroline, that wasn’t so hard, was it? ;-P
N.B. That day marked the realization (and ensuing embarrassment) with the fact that I couldn’t hammer in a nail for my life. Trying to nail down a brace that day took me 36 hits, and yes, pretty much every single stroke was a hit, to put in one nail. By the time I got to my second nail, the whole crew had left, and Caroline took over either in impatience, or in an attempt to spare me any last shred of dignity I had left!

Putting up the SIPs involved over a month of work, and so it’s understandable that Caroline wanted to take on the job, and train a hand-picked crew to do the work, so that she would not have to re-train the people every time. I think in the end I am glad I was not one of them, as her crew came out of every single day thoroughly snowed on, even though they learned everything there was to know about putting up SIPs, and picked up some other useful skills besides, like the ability to sink a nail in 6 hits. I was also able to build up my knowledge and round out my skills by not doing the same thing every time I was there, and I think that helped me in being able to get my orange shirt in the end.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

Tidbit break!
Flooring panels have black lines drawn on one side, and usually tongue-and-groove edges. These differentiate them from “wall panels” OSB (?) which have their gridlines inked on in green, and have green edging. One of their other key differences; the wall panels are thinner.

March 2nd
Flooring: what a day! I was helping Caroline hang(?) TGI beams from joist hangers (does the verb I’m using make sense?) in the morning, until circumstances changed, and there wasn’t quite room for me in that group any more. So I moved up to the second floor, and bugged Bruce and Roger until they got me helping to lay down the floor panels. (BTW, it’s still 3+ layer and coat weather out). The highlight of the day came when, in his efforts to get the tongue and groove matching on one the floor panels and the corresponding panel it fit into, Bruce was instructing us to turn it this way and that, flip it, etc. When we finally put it down, put the sealant on (was it Lumber Lock?) and nailed it down, we stepped back to inspect our work on that panel. “Uh, Bruce? Should I be able to read the words that say ‘this side down’? Tell me again why we flipped this panel over?”

The Human Machine

This particular entry is one that I have taken the time to copy straight from a book I love; The Human Machine, by George B. Bridgeman. It was originally published in 1932, and it is a brilliant little book using 200+ illustrations to explain the musculo-skeletal marvel that is the
human body. His illustration style is absolutely beautiful, and presents the human form in its ideal. I use this book as an inspiration for my art (my sketches, when I draw!) and also for my own personal fitness, as his description of the human system allows me to focus perfectly on the muscle I am currently working, what effect that particular exercise is achieving, and how the muscle itself operates in relation to the tendons and bones. It works with any muscle from those tiny ones in your fingers, all the way up to the difficult to work (in my opinion) obliques at your core. Without any further ado, here is the exerpt:

IT APPEARS to be a fixed law that the contraction of a muscle shall
be towards its centre, therefore, the subject for mechanism on each
occasion is so to modify the figure, and adjust the position of the
muscle as to produce the motion required agreeably with this law.
This can only be done by giving to different muscles a diversity of
configuration suited to their several offices and to their situation with
respect to the work which they have to perform. On which account
we find them under a multiplicity of forms and altitudes; sometimes
sometimes with one tendon to several muscles; at other times with
muscle to several tendons. The shape of the organ is susceptible
of an incalculable variety, while the original property of the muscle.
The law and line of its contraction remains the same and is simple.
Herein the muscular system may be said to bear a perfect resemblance
to our woks of art. An artist does not alter the native quality of his
materials or their laws of action. He takes these as he finds them.
His skill and ingenuity are employed in turning them such as they
are, to his account by giving to the parts of his machine a form and
relation in which these unalterable properties may operate to the
production of the effects intended.