L&G was lucky to be invited to give a talk/presentation about our work at the Western Industrial Design department in Bellingham,WA couple weeks ago!
As flattered & honored as we felt...both Dylan & I got really stressed about it...
The last time I had to put together a presentation was 7 freakin' years ago when we were students!
We didn't want the entire 45 minute talk to be a show-and-tell of our work and wanted to share more about our process and how we think and work. But going with this route, meant that we totally had to dig deep into our brains and souls about what we're about...why we do what we do....what defines us...and what drives us and keeps us going.
Of course...this always inevitably leads to us to ask even bigger questions like "why do we exist?" and "what is the meaning of life?!" and "what's the point of it all!!"
But instead of asking questions that lead to nowhere and us feeling more lost...we ended up looking for for common threads that's been consistent in how we work and operate in general.
We realized it was the simple concept of being HANDS-ON that is a really valuable process in how we design, think, explore, and engage in the physical world around us.
For both of us, we found that being hands-on is been best way to get the most out of any experience....which probably explains why I don't ever like to read instructions and tend to just jump in and start doing and would rather figure things out by trial and error.
There's really nothin that can compare to physically experiencing something and engage all our senses which actually creates muscle memories beyond our brains. It's about physically exploring and manipulating..seeing and touching...which all that enhances our memory in how we think, create, and operate.
I made this little wire hand as a little visual for the theme of the presentation.
We talked about...
how travelling really engages our sense by getting us out of our comfort zone to see & do thing differently.
how we have the tendencies to collect materials, natural or vintage findings as a way to play with physical things and figure out what to do with it.
how we use our live/work set up as a place to test our ideas and how 90% of our shelves/walls are our 3 dimensional inspirational board while trying to not make it look like we're just hoarders!
how we collaborate with people to get hands-on experiences that connect us in a different way and learn and gain new perspectives.
how our lifestyle is about using all our hands-on experiences to gather inspirations, design and make things, and figure out what works or doesn't work for us.....all through physical trial and error.
To add to the fun and to engage the students beyond just listening, we gave everyone a piece of 12" wire and ask that they play with it as if they're doodling with their hands while we give our talk.
...and secretly, it was my distraction tactic and I have to say this was the best idea ever! It took the pressure off a bit knowing they're less focused on us, but mostly I just loved all the delightful things the students end up making!
Going up to Bellingham to do the talk was a great exercise and experience for us that really forced us to get to know ourselves better. As painful as the process was... it was totally worth it to get a better understanding about what our strengths & weakness are....and embrace it all! :D
Thanks to the kids at Western for being such a good sport and listening to our nonsense!
