With Spring around the corner (or at least, that’s what I like to think, but living in Norway snow melting is not necessarily warm-time yet) I have been feeling enthusiastic about my MA final project, and the whole journey that this Master’s has meant for me professionally and personally. I have neglected blogging for quite some months, and I want to pick it up again, as part of my process and as a way to share the ideas that I’ve been having bubbling inside my head for these past few months. Another reason to share my journey is because I am convinced that, whatever our profession, it is important to use the tools we have at hand to fully develop our ideas and our potential. This rings particularly true for design, and when faced with new tools, new technology, it is important to become a participant of the changes that are shaping our profession and our lives.
I have been learning how to execute my ideas and go beyond the demo or the sketch: actually make them happen. And to do that I’ve used analog and digital tools, and a very powerful tool that I have been developing is learning how to code.
There is this fear or this idea of shutting out programming from the design curriculum. “You are a designer, an artist, not a computer scientist”, I’ve heard so many times. But what I have gone through, and what I have discovered is that coding is not an exclusive tool for a certain profession, but rather, a way to think. It is to be a creator, to be creative and to understand how the media we use to portray our ideas is structured; how stuff works. To make this leap from sketch (pen and paper) to a sketch in coding, and to communicate the importance of code as a new literacy for design (and in general) is something that with a little effort, is within reach for artists and designers. I want to share what I’ve discovered, so that maybe other designers and artists will want to take this leap too.
