Changing the world one week at a time.
This Spring, join your fellow students and Project M founder John Bielenberg for a weeklong project in Belfast, ME, March 11–21st.

John Bielenberg founded Project M. This is what people say about John and Project M.
What is Project M? Project M is “Thinking Wrong”, and “Doing Right.”
Project M made these things. PieLab Alabamboo Bikes

What is a Project M Blitz?
A Project M BLITZ is a crazy, chaotic, energizing, rapid and satisfying project that uses design thinking for the greater good. Comprised of a small, dedicated team of designers, or other creative collaborators, the BLITZ team is challenged to produce a completed project in a week’s worth of time.

Several components are required for a successful BLITZ.
1. A location that is removed from the team’s normal environment.
2. Willingness to “think wrong” and challenge the status quo.
3. Belief is the potential of creativity and design to have a influence on shaping the future in a positive way.
4. One week of dedicated time.
5. A healthy supply of Atomic Fireballs (no substitutions of Hot Wads or Mars Hot Breakers).

Project M Blitz 2010, Greensboro, AL. Bikes, Pie, and Community. This is a sample of what students made during last year’s trip, courtesy of senior Kailie Parrish. Deadline: $100 deposit due February 1st, 2011.  For more information, and to Think Wrong with us, please visit us.

Contributed by Irem Cetinor

Ji Lee, artist and designer is a brilliant mind. His humorous, incisive and street art influenced approach makes his work very approachable and successful. Just what we need as graphic designers! Born in Korea, Ji first moved to Brazil when he was 10, after moving to NYC for school, he got his BFA in Communication Design from Parson’s School of Design. His motto is clear and simple: please enjoy. A public art piece, a google project, and a typeface.

Irem Cetinor is a sophomore graphic design student from Turkey.

MICA AIGA presents:

Clever Claver
a series of workshops for-students, by-students highlighting unique perspectives in design.
Select Thursdays at 3:30pm Brown 303.

Featuring:
Feb 03: Bryan Connor, Data Visualization
Feb 10: Greg Gazdowicz, Design for the Greater Good
Feb 17: Hannah Hinds, The Dark and Mysterious in Graphic Design
Feb 24: Zoe Keller, Thoughtful and Responsible Design Practice
March 10: Chris Muccioli, Show Posters
March 24: Charde Fuller, Fashion Graphics
March 31: Nathan Tavel, Sign Painting
April 07: Ryan LeCluyse, AmeriCorps Design experience
April 14: Emily Burtner, Alternative Publishing
April 21: Tara Dahabsu, Handletters
May 5: Derek Torsani, Humor in Graphic Design

Two lovely installations are up, created by seniors!

Check out AFFCTN, a body of work by Meghann Harris, on view in the Meyerhoff Piano Gallery until Feb 3 and the MultiSensory Room, installed on the first floor of Bunting, by senior Sarah Machicado.

contributed by Irem Cetinor

I am proud to share this artist with you not only because he is Turkish but because he is a brilliant creative mind. As a person who wasn’t interested in motion graphics before, I was in awe. I couldn’t imagine how much time and effort must have went in this one minute of a video. Onur Senturk studied traditional painting and figure drawing and later got a degree in animation. His talent blew peoples minds all over the world and is continuing to do so. Triangle, was the winner of the 2010 vimeo awards. It was chosen to be the best motion graphics. It was unbelievable for me to watch and see how shapes evolve in this way. Seeing typography incorporated in it, was very exciting. He also chooses the best people to work with when it comes to sound! I personally like his other work Nokta—which means DOT in Turkish—better than this, so I’m going to share that too. Hope they will draw you in as much as they did me.

Nothing more to say, watch and enjoy.

Irem Cetinor is a sophomore graphic design major from, you guessed it, Turkey.

contributed by Michelle Fleming

Swedish people were always asking me, with genuine curiosity, why I had come to Sweden to study. It’s true that winter was cold and long with only a few hours of daylight, but the end of summer and the month of autumn were lovely. Leaves changed color overnight, turning a brilliant yellow on October 1st, as if on cue. Nearly everything in the country from the highly effective public transportation to the simple but lovely store-brand food packaging has been designed with evident consideration. My motivations to study in Sweden weren’t entirely based on education (I’m not sure there’s a term for it but I’m like an anglophile except I’m obsessed with Sweden instead of England) but it is a country with no doubts regarding the designer’s role. Sweden’s Social Democrat party came to power in 1920 and maintained a majority in parliament for 80 years. They treated design as an ally in reforming the country.

I made a lot of assumptions about what it would be like to study abroad. I had been at MICA for 2 years and I thought I could apply my understanding of how things were done to my exchange school, Högskolan för Design och Konsthantverk (hdk.gu.se). I was wrong. At HDK the courses are assigned to you based on your major, with one course, taught by 3 teachers, at a time. The lectures were excellent and there were critiques with professionals from design houses around Gothenburg. Critique felt more like a formal presentation and there was less space for feedback from students. I had to get over being shy about approaching people who were working in the studio (oh the glory of having your own desk in a studio! accessible 24/7!) and asking them to talk about my project with me. HDK’s design program is interdisciplinary; there is one class for product, industrial and graphic design students. Most people had one or two things that really interested in them but we were free to explore an assignment in whatever direction we felt was appropriate.?I’m happy to be completing my BFA at MICA, it better suits my educational needs. But I don’t regret going. It was hard to learn to create a project schedule for myself without weekly critiques. It was hard to formulate my own projects, the assignments were much more open so format and content were almost entirely up to me. It was hard to live somewhere for 5 months only seeing my friends on a screen. However, everything that made it hard was also what made me grow, what made it important for me to go abroad.

Michelle Fleming is a junior graphic design major from Houston.

Image from Isaac Salazar

Contributed by Brian Metcalf

As a design student, it’s important to have a source of inspiration and awe, as well as one of current trends and developments. Naturally, high-content blogging sites fulfill this need well. My Google Reader floods daily with posts from the following sites.

NOTCOT, described as “the studio bulletin board gone digital,” hosts a myriad of links that would interest any creative. Manystuff and The New Graphic provide updates relating to a specific movement in design, while Brand New and For Print Only have a larger approach. Both Brand New and For Print Only are divisions of Under Consideration, and have well informed posts once a day; Brand New has a focus on identity design, while FPO deals with anything printed. Lastly, there’s Original Linkage and designworklife, both showcasing anything design, but both have connections to student work.

Andy Mangold, a current Senior at MICA, was recently featured on Original Linkage for a numerical set (also on I Love Typography). Designworklife has multiple student showcases throughout the month, with personal submissions available on their site.

Brian Metcalf is a sophomore graphic design student from Illinois.