I really enjoyed the discussion with Tim Owens for “We Are All Artists.” It’s really nice to someone take a major that has such a stereotype for failure in this era and not only make a career out of it, but also inspire others to do the same. I am terrible at actual art, as demonstrated by my many very ugly daily create drawings, but Owens focuses on creativity as something that is different for everyone. Everyone can be creative, just in a different way; it’s a learning experience. The idea of practicing art is really obvious, but at the same time, it is something I took for granted before hearing this. It took a long time for the great artists to be good enough to make the works they are remembered for. I have to practice my writing, which is just one form of creativity, so why cannot everyone practice creativity?
Ds106 does foster creativity for me, as Owens suggests. I never would have done anything I learned to do in this class if I were not in dds106. It is a catalyst and I make new things, or at least think about new, creative ideas, with each assignment for ds106.
Owens brings up some really cool blogs and websites that I followed along with as he spoke about them. The “Breakfast is Overrated” post was pretty funny and I actually find it to hold true. Oftentimes, I wake up early in the morning to do my ds106 work before I get bogged down during the day. This is when I do my best daily creates, in my opinion at any rate, and I just found it an interesting post for an obscure, yet true, idea. I also like Owens’ two ideas of “Take something complex and make it simple” and “Take something new and make it old.” These are ideas I definitely want to use in my Design blitz this week, as well as some of the visual assignments I chose to do this week.
The discussion of popular culture was interesting as well. I don’t know if I personally have used pop culture in my posts, except for the Wire and allusions to things, but technology definitely is being used to push pop culture further. However, the idea of bloggers and other digital storytellers pushing pop culture themselves is a new phenomenon that Owens touches on quite well.
Owens’ discussion on the different sites to use for video and other projects is really helpful and I will probably use some over the span of this course. I liked thenouneproject and the idea of a new language in logos or icons. The kuler color and dafont websites can definitely help me with this class, as well as the newspaper even, as well as the free photos and principles of web design. Behance, Abduzeedo and ffffound seem like new flickr websites of sorts, and the threadless and dribble are outlets for designers to show their work. My favorite site was the book cover one, though, because I love books and seeing peoples’ interpretations from book to cover.
The idea that anyone can be creative is great, and Owens’ discussion can be applied to any sort of creativity, which makes it even more helpful. I’m really glad I listened to this before any of the other assignments for this week, especially the actual design assignments because it pushed me to think more and be more creative with my ds106 work, as well as my work outside of this class.
