As the Wise Man once said..."Cmere I've a Story for ya"....

Week 4 provided us with a very broad topic “Storytelling for Design”. My first thought was this is going to lead into a big debate within the class. I already had my own opinion on the topic before this lecture, but I went into the lecture open minded as if I were discovering this topic for the first time as a designer.

Stephen Sagmeister, an Austrian designer, showcased his opinion on the topic in a video Muireann showed us. To me, he came across a bit obnoxious if I am being quite honest. He completely disregarded the statement as if it were irrelevant to the design world. He strongly disagreed with the idea that everyone has a story to tell. Personally, I beg to differ, for example, people who are not involved with design. Everyone we meet outside of our studio and our design life has a story to tell. It might not be very detailed or entertaining but its still a story and its being communicated to us and it is left up to everyone how to interpret it. As designer’s, storytelling is a key element of our work. Even at ideation stage we are trying to communicate how a certain sketch works or what it does. We are trying to communicate a story. I believe Storytelling is highly involved in the design world and in everyday life also. Just take social media for example. Snapchat, Facebook, or Instagram, they are all littered with people’s pictures which communicate the stories of that person’s life.

I find it very fascinating how each of our projects or assignments are kind of in the layout of a story. The brief is like our introduction , ideation is like the early parts of the story where we are getting a taste of what the main ideas will revolve around and the development is your main plot and climax where your main idea is beginning to take shape. Like in a story the protagonist rises above the rest like your main idea flourishes while others fade into the background. Your final design is your ending of the story. It is a combination of all previous steps which gives a clear indication of how your story has come full circle.

After a while we broke up into different groups to try produce our own stories. There were 3 different methods involved in this task. We could develop our stories from the threads of experience, we could only write 7 words and let our teammate continue form there and lastly we were given Rory’s Story’s cubes. I found the cubes the most effective method because it really tested your ability to produce something on the spot. I think the whole class really enjoyed this weeks lecture as it was very interactive and again it pushed some people, including myself, out of my comfort zone which is very good for any designer.