Hello and good evening, everyone.
Or good afternoon. Good morning wherever you are in
the world. Welcome, my name is Li Xian
zhuang. I am director of design content
and learning here at aiga, the professional association for
design. I am joined today by our very
special. Guest designer author, educator
eonline, mm, who is tuning in from Tokyo, Japan.
So we have a truly International transcontinental program
tonight. Ian is going to be talking About
his book, The impossibility of Silence, which is a book for
artists designers, photographers, and other
creative practitioners interested in approaching
writing about our vocation and culture a little bit more about
Ian. And then I'll hand it over to
him. He's prepared a presentation.
And then we'll take your questions in the Q&A at the end
of this. As I already mentioned, Ian is a
designer. He works at the intersection of
graphic, design design education and designed research, he's
faculty at Temple University, Japan.
And as well as Vermont College of the Arts and is also a
visiting critic at the California Institute of the Arts
calarts and he runs a studio in Tokyo called the end line of
designs. You can check him out online.
And then a bit about the book before you hear it from in
himself, he wrote in the forward to the book.
I thought I'd highlight something and just read it off.
But he described this book as and I quote from him, this is a
book with for reality at its core.
As I feel That it is the heart of writing and to paraphrase.
Somebody else writing is a word for the meeting place of the
private and the public, the internal and the external.
So I thought that was just a really powerful way to open the
book and as somebody, who's often a tortured writer myself,
I really got a lot out of the book.
Just learning more about Ian, how he wove in Memoir with some
philosophical musings about the Of writing and so, without
further Ado, I'll turn it over to Ian.
Thank you. That was really nice.
Here we go. This is the thing.
Hopefully, you all can see this. So, this is the book that I'm
talking about today. It's called, as we can see the
impossibility of Silence writing for designers artists and
photographers. It came out around a year ago
and it's been doing great. Thankfully, it's a book about
writing and how to write it started out as an extension of
another thing that I wrote. So this is azim that came out in
2016 called start somewhere, a handbook of dubious exercises,
tips, and rants about becoming a designer who writes.
So I came up with this idea of randomly for the Z and I thought
it'd be fun. So we wrote it designed it.
So that seventy six pages and I ran off 25 copies at the school
where I teach Temple University Japan, I folded them, they
stapled them. Then I posted about the Z in
online and on social media and I was really surprised it did so
well, that I had very, very quickly make an offset printed
version of this IAM because they sold at a good clip.
I had no clue that this Zine about writing for designers, we
have legs or would get any kind of traction, but it did.
So, during the very, very, very start of the pandemic, I was
reading a book about how to write, which is the book of bird
by Bird by Anne lamott. It was given to me by my friend
Kelsey gray designer and teacher who lives in Austin Texas.
And I was in the state's lecturing and I came back to
Tokyo and I was reading Bird by bird and it's a really good kind
of like how to book. Now I've read a lot of these
kinds of books. See, my dad is a writer too and
he's got a whole book case full of these kind of books.
So whenever I And then my mom, I read a handful of these books
actually speed read them and that kind of note the best ideas
within. But of course, most of the best
ideas about writing come from this book.
The Elements of Style by Strunk and white, but there are other
ones which are goes, but as far as writing for designers goes,
there was only one good book on the market, which is writing for
the design Mind by Natalya Ilene.
So Natalia has a colleague of mine, which each Other at
Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA and graphic design
program and she's a dear dear, dear friend Natalia is someone
who's really good at structural writing.
So we see an example of this on the left.
Basically, you create a metaphorical architectural
structure out of your ideas and you construct a piece of writing
methodically, ensuring that your entire piece of writing, as
architecture is sound, My Approach is rather different.
I have to figure out a thesis for piece of writing and then I
kind of right around it, until it becomes more whole.
And then I approach structure later for folks that are more
for folks who are more analytical.
And rational Natalya's approach is great for folks that are more
heuristic and inclined to the poetic or emotional, my Approach
might work actually right in the structural way that Natalia
proposes when I'm writing design history or academic criticism,
but I have my own way when I'm writing pretty much Else.
So as Azores Eames or this book that I'm talking about and I
talked about this process within, I should mention that I
wrote this book during the first wave of the global pandemic.
So as I mentioned, they returned to Tokyo from lecturing before
Japan closed its borders and right at the beginning of my
month, long break before summer semester at Temple University,
Japan. I got the idea that maybe I
could write a Zine about writing basically a follow-up to start
somewhere. So I thought this thing was
going to be a Zine and not a book, which really speaks to the
power of under scoping. A project ziens are relatively
short but a short book like mine isn't that much longer.
So as you can see here it's more than triple the amount of pages
and words and if you think about it like, you know, kind of basic
essays between 1,000 and 3,000 words.
So that's a good way to gauge the amount of writing that goes
into a z-score a book. So, I have my idea a piece of
writing about writing for designers, but I wanted to
include some other stuff I thought about other books, that
I think are great for different reasons.
What I call totems AKA conceptual and stylistic tent
poles for a project, Leonard Koren wrote this book, wabi-sabi
for artists designers poets and philosophers, which is a really
short book about embracing imperfection and mr.
Corn has sold a lot of these books and I really liked his
idea of targeting multiple audiences just within the title
alone. So that was the inspiration for
the subtitle of my book, being for Creative folks.
Other than just designers, The substance of Style by a
Virginia, pastoral is one of the most important books of the
early 2000s. It is both a really Breezy book
about style, but it also has some pretty important critical
edges to it, but it also has its kind of real beach reading.
Kind of feel to it. So I wanted some of that in
there. I really love Carl Wilson's
book. Let's talk about love.
It's a bitingly acerbic book about the evaluation of taste as
viewed through the musical output of Celine Dion and I
really love how we set up the thesis of that book, it's both
super personal and really philosophical.
So it was really, it's really like micro macro.
So I wanted a bit of that in there.
Plus, I love this book, I wear the black hat by Chuck
Klosterman, which is an analysis of good evil, and the role of
the villain in contemporary Society.
Be so close been really weaves it.
Like a mix of like pop music, philosophy, history, and some
sports together in his writing and by looking at these books,
again, I got a sense of what kind of thing this record is
what turned into this book. Might be.
I also started thinking about Joseph Campbell's notion of the
monomyth often called the hero's journey.
So here we see an example of the hero's journey.
This is the kind of narrative Sure that underlies.
A lot of, you know, epic writing.
So for example, the Lord of the Rings, So basically you have a
hero they go on an adventure, there's some form of death and
rebirth and basically they returned home changed and it's a
really great idea for fiction. But it doesn't really work super
well for most design-oriented writing, because the Practical
and pragmatic nature of a lot of Art and Design, writing, doesn't
mold itself to an epic Saga, per se However, there are characters
and objects in Campbell's model, which are really helpful for
writing about Art and Design. So here we have some archetypes.
So we've got a mentor, there's a helper.
There's a foil someone who acts like an enemy and comes across
like an enemy, but isn't an enemy, you know, people.
Most people want to have mentors.
That's a big thing. Then there are also metaphorical
objects such as on the left here, the gift Talk to myself,
perhaps. I might explode.
This idea, architect archetypes and objects in my analysis and
how to write. Because I always place people
and objects at the center of my writing.
So what might some other archetypes and objects be.
So, I really kind of cast this cosmology of archetypes.
Some are pulled from Campbell's ideas, but most are from my own
experience as a writer, think about the difference between,
for example, the writer and the narrator And our actual selves.
Like, those are usually quite different and then there's the
audience intended for a project, the actual audience plus some of
the really scary stuff about writing such as the blank page.
Then there are other archetypes, that came up One is on the
Penguin and I'm going to I'm going to read you a little piece
of the book about penguins. So I was talking to my wife
about this book and showed her this cosmology of archetype said
to be feature, she insisted that there be a penguin in there and
a scarf, but they're really great ideas.
Especially the penguins penguins are small off, an ungainly
incredibly aloof, and often unless you're a polar bear in
looking for a midday snack, unnecessary.
Penguins are obsessively detail-oriented in all the wrong
ways. They talk about themselves too
much. They're fashionable to a fault.
Especially when they were trendy scarves to try and compensate
for their stature. They constantly try to
compensate for their stature, which is something they cannot
fix. It is best to avoid penguins in
your writing, okay? So I obviously wasn't writing
about actual Penguins. There, it was encouraging
writers to not be to self-important and it was just
you know, it's kind of fun too. Come up with all, you know, who
are these different characters? That might inform the Journey of
writing something. So, in this way, I was able to
create a whole little universe that might fill up a book in a
way that is Meaningful. So, here we see some of the
archetypes and I'd like to read you another passage from the
book about the archetype of the plumber.
So here we go. I suggest that you put the
notion of being a famous writer or artist designer photographer.
Architect or philosopher away famous stupid.
It is navel-gazing and dumb. And if you obtained it, you'd be
hunted by Paparazzi and your life would turn into something
gated and terrible. Same is elusive, narcissistic
idiotic and most of all relative being quote, unquote, famous in
most creative Fields, has all the accolades pomp, circumstance
and importance. Remunerative value of being a
well-regarded plumber. Instant emptily the most noble
of all the occasions, just be a plumber.
Do your work with Karen Craft crafts?
May be dead in theory, but craft is not when you feel
self-important, remember that in reality, no one else really
cares. So reading all this stuff and I
was listening to a lot of music which is something I do pretty
obsessively. And I kept coming across all
these great little quotes that I might use for the book.
So, here's a quote, from a song that I really like that.
I used right after the intro. So it goes, quote, come on,
sweet girl. Let's find you a notion that
goes with your eyes, unquote. So that's from the singer Neko
Case. So use this quote, right up
through the intro, because I was trying to ease folks into the
idea that they can write and to try to dispel reader self-doubt
and quotes are really good for things like that.
So that kind of turned into a little strategy.
I was As I was writing, I was like, maybe, you know, basically
for the beginning of each chapter include a little quote,
from a song that I really love, that's relevant to the content
of that chapter. It was around this time that I
started making these fake information Graphics of all the
terrible things that we associate with the pandemic.
So like here this is, I put together this like goofy
drawing. I just like drew it with
Sharpie, you know. It's called the ecosystem of the
lockdown, just showing the relationship between microbes
and physical contact, and horniness, and the cloud, and
the Resurgence of ex-partners and Amazon and aging parents and
lost. It's an alcohol and dead pets
and screen time, and I was just goofing around, just like, I
don't know. Just drawing things that
basically look like fake information graphics and I
thought, you know, like I was doing this and I was like, oh
what have I took some of these ideas that I'm writing about
kind of do the same thing. What happens if I like place
them, you know, in juxtaposition with each other.
So that's what I want up doing, you know?
I thought about these different relationships between these, you
know, argh. Types and metaphorical symbols,
and how they might take form in terms of spatial relationships.
So, here are like, I was thinking about margins and both
a literal and metaphorical way. We all need space in our design
work, or art work writing, and in our lives.
So, I made a goofy graphic about how margins bring elements
together as much as keep them apart.
Any kind of got crazy like this like this was like about telling
the story the wrong way of like what happens if you really make
a narrative nonlinear. So I came up with this idea of
using like portals, which might allow a reader to hop from one
section of this book idea to another, which is kind of a cool
hypertextual idea, but it doesn't work at all in a book
and I was just kind of riffing and doing like a phone hybrid of
writing and drawing and mapping and through this process.
Yes, I was actually able to get my head around the idea as a lot
more and create a dorky little ecosystem of how the ideas work
together. It was helpful too.
Because like, through thinking, about all these relationships, I
was able to think about and write down the important stuff
that's not about archetypes or metaphors or objects and how one
might structure a piece of meaningful writing using content
style and form the importance of practice, the points of editing
and then multiple forms of conclusions.
So really, you know, just like the idea of like sifting through
these ideas in ways that were Both Visual and textual was, it
was really, really useful. I also started explaining how
one might retroactively apply a structure to a body of writing.
This is something that I do as a master's degree thesis advisor
at various schools and the base of this is this thing that I
called a Triad. The Triad is basically a
triangular structure? That is the basis for most Visa
Theses. In postgraduate settings.
Basically, there are three points, you cannot avoid one, is
you You one is what you do AKA your vocation or the sector of
cultural production that you work in.
And then the other part is what you're interested in.
And I pulled this idea out of, you know, my thesis is advising
but also out of workshops that I do at other schools.
And at conventions, I do these workshops called Doof Doof.
So the term Doof Doof, if you're unfamiliar is the Australian
word for techno music because do To this Workshop, has nothing to
do with techno music. I just love the sound of that
term Doof Doof, and it's a new word.
It's a neologism, it's a made-up term.
These workshops are largely about overcoming participants
fear of writing through embracing visual language and
examining discursive structure in the workshops we assess.
Structural approaches to writing like that Triad.
Also, how to flavor writing and how to enhance writing by
including one's personal perspective and you know, folks
it Participate in these workshops are able to assess
their own vulnerabilities, their goals, as designers and writers.
And really learn how to be designers who lightcraft
appealing writing during the workshops.
We employed, we explore Counterpoint authenticity
ornament Kitsch people's interests and influences plus a
ton more. All using intellectual emotional
rational dead serious and comedic approaches to writing as
well. So, in this book, I'm pulling a
lot of my ideas about how to come to structure from these
workshops that I've now done. Like Glue a couple hundred
people which is really great and that's all in the book as well.
So I'm doing all this stuff thinking about it, the pen down,
it keeps happening. And my wife is working at this
shop and the boss starts being a jerk.
And about, you know, making people come to work in person
and just very uncool. So I was like, why don't you
quit? And she's like, it sounds good.
So she quit her job. So she was, you know, around the
house, a lot of the time which is great, was super happy for
her but I need a lot of space to write.
Can't be around other people. I'm not one of those people that
can write in Starbucks or something, and I think that's
one thing that's really important is to write where you
feel comfortable. So, what I did is, I took the
proverbial show on the road. I like to write outside,
especially in parks in Tokyo. Tokyo is one of the safest
cities in the world and you can just basically Sprout out a
sheet with my laptop and a jug of iced coffee and bang out a
couple of thousand words a day. And the thing is, you know,
that's like the importance of practice.
Like after a couple weeks of doing this incessantly I
realized that I was writing a book, not a Zine.
And I was having a lot of fun working on it and it was just
kind of writing itself at this point.
So I started thinking about like, huh, how am I going to
publish it? You know, I have my own small
imprint called word shape, which is also a type Foundry but I
usually only sell like between 500 to 1000 copies of any Go
title. I'd done a book with another
publisher or slanted the year before, where I made a bit of
money and the book got a fair amount of distribution.
So it's like, all right, that's cool.
But like maybe I should approach another publisher just kind of
like spread the love around a little bit.
So the Dutch publishing imprint on the matzah pay publishes this
journal modes of criticism, which is a journal that I've
been writing for regularly over the years.
And I don't know if they seem to have Have this same kind of,
very independent, minded approach to publishing.
So I wrote to them and ask them, ask them if they were interested
in potentially publishing this thing and I sent them the draft
manuscript, and because some to my surprise, they were
interested. So I was like, oh, I gotta get
jamming on this. So, I asked my friend and
colleague at Temple University, Japan, Toto, Nettleton.
One of the preeminent art critics in Asia, if he'd be
interested in editing the book. Was and he did and I was really,
really, really rad. So so this speaks to editors
like you usually, if you're writing a thing you need a
Content editor and a copy editor editor, the content editor
helps, you sort out your ideas in written form and the copy
editor helps kind of dial in the details grammar and spelling and
syntax. Sometimes though you meet a
magical unicorn like Toto who can do both simultaneously so
that was really great. So this is a Thing, like I was
talking to a publisher. I've got an editor.
So I just jammed on jammed on the thing and I got it done.
And I sent the final draft manuscript over to Todd.
Oh, and Taro edited it like pretty immediately, which also
takes some time. So I had to step back, take a
break. And at this point like after you
write the draft of a book, you're so emotional that you
need to give yourself a bit of a reprieve, plus the editor needs
time and space actually edit. So stepping back is a good
thing. So while that's happening, I
started collecting imagery for the book.
I had ideas for the chapter starts, so I put that stuff
together and I had those the quotes from songs and I
collected the imagery that I definitely wanted to have in the
book, you know, contacting artists and designers and
Architects and making sure that everything was like, you know,
the correct resolution and color mode and whatnot.
I was largely aggregating imagery for the book which is a
contemporary mode of image making and actually haven't seen
One right about critically, in terms of you know design Theory
and criticism. So I thought we would perhaps
take a short interlude to look at how folks use image
aggregation. So here we have a specimen of
ornaments from the tsukiji type Foundry, which is Japan's very,
very first commercial type Foundry.
This is a collection of ornaments and borders from 1898
collected into a booklet. We know about specimens from
type specimens. Here, we have a types mess of
Ben from the American type, Founders and the 1920s of the
legendary typeface Cooper block. And there are contemporary
designers working in this mode to like designer and educator
Paul Elliman and designer and educator Carl Martin's.
And American designer showing terauchi seen crap Hound, which
Aggregates illustrations and clip art from history and two
volumes of compositions, we can, which can be reused by
designers, but there are also models of specimens and image.
Aggregation that are both contemporary and historical.
So just tattoo flash, the designs that one sees on the
walls of tattoo shops, basically designs that one can pick off
the wall and have pounded into one skin.
And the fascinating thing is that people do actually do this
and people Bodies often look like volumetric sheets of tattoo
flash. I think that's like really
fascinating. So, I don't know.
That's just like a trend in contemporary culture.
That's really like re-emerged over the past 15 years.
I would say in terms of Art and Design and popular culture and
meeting folks, don't think about it so much.
I don't write about that in the book.
It was kind of how I was thinking about collecting images
for the book and that's how the images that are in the book,
wound up in there. So, the edits came back and they
were solid and jump back in and I pour it over everything and I
edited it some more. And then I started designing it
which always involves a bit more editing.
So I still messed up some stuff, but as we all should know and
not worry about so much, nothing is ever perfect?
Because humans are not perfect humans, don't conform to
implications of perfection. So encourage you not to worry
about mistakes so much because we all make them.
I'm A Believer and seeing people's real selves, not their
quote unquote best selves and I hope other folks want the same
with me. So a few months later, the book
came out, I got global distribution but the rollout was
pretty slow because of the pandemic and that's okay.
You know it's been gaining momentum steadily which makes me
really happy in regard to imperfection you know like with
this book I wrote some stuff that's maybe way too personal in
there. Maybe I shouldn't have done that
but that's alright it's real or just as real as lies that are in
there but that's what writing is, its attenuated reality so
that my friends was a Patient. Thank you so much for that
presentation in that moment of realizing that this wasn't a
Zine. This is in fact a book How how
did you know that or like do you start knowing like what the
final form of something will be? Or do you just kind of let it
reveal itself to you with your other projects Beyond this book?
It's kind of like um I don't outline per se, I like ex post
facto outline. So it's like basically I'll, you
know, make a document in pages and I'll just start coming down
all the ideas and all right, little bits of stuff.
And then I just certain point, I'll just kind of review and
retroactively outline stuff in the sea.
You know, how much stuff I had. And I was like, whoa, there's
like way too much stuff here and like I felt strongly about With
the content. So I think that's the whole
thing. Like, you know, the opposite of
less is more like more is more. And when you realize that you
just have a lot. That's, that's the moment.
Yeah, so you mentioned like Pages, you said, and you also
writing out doors. Can you tell us about the kind
of physical tools and stuff that you use?
Like, are you a laptop writer or you like a sort of notebook,
kind of writer or what are the sort of ways that you organize
your You're writing as it's coming together.
So, a couple different tools, so basically, you know, a phone
with dictation. So, I basically, you know, the
pages out syncs, across, laptop and phone.
So I do a lot of dictation for basic ideas because, of course,
Siri garbles everything. But at least you can like, you
know, you can make a first pass on some stuff and then bounce
that to the laptop, you know. Like like usually, yeah, I'm not
a person who Who writes by hand for say, I mean, I'll make notes
in a notebook. That's one thing I encourage
folks to do, like, I have, literally in my back pocket, a
small notebook. If you keep a notebook on you at
all times when you're not naked, it's great.
So you always have a tool and then like yeah, I mean like just
use the tool that's appropriate for you.
I mean for me, you know it's a laptop Right now, you know,
we're going into spring and Tokyo so I'm very excited.
So I'm able to go back outside and right?
So in terms of tools, a bicycle to get to a park and a hopefully
charged laptop and the jug of coffee and a plastic sheet, and
we're good to go snow awesome, that sounds great.
So pulling out a few other things from the book, you are in
Japan. And you've mentioned this aspect
of Japanese culture, this notion of ma of experience of time and
space. What you see here.
Integral to one another as they collapse within structures.
Can you tell us about how MA like figures into your writing
practice or your consumption of how you structure your writing?
Mmm, I'm not sure I do because it's just, like, I mean,
experiencing time and space is just kind of There are kind of
other aspects of Japanese culture, which I think are more
integral, especially writing about design.
Like there's a term mono. No owari.
Which means basically an empathy for things or objects.
So that's something that feels pretty integral and like, my is
kind of a part of that. So Mom has the experience of
time and space but the thing is like it's integral to feeling
and empathy for objects because You have to spend time with
something to love it. Usually, right.
So yeah I think yeah that's probably the closest answer
record time too. Well that's really helpful and
you've also mentioned in your book that you're sort of anti
irony. Can you tell us a little bit
about that position that like that position actually largely
comes from Natalia alien through personal conversation and she
wrote this really excellent essay called The Man in the The
irony mask just it's a conversation a years.
I've been teaching a VCF a for a decade now and ever since I
first met Natalia, we've talked about how, you know, it's really
important to avoid irony in writing because irony we have
different perspectives on it. My perspective is that irony
doesn't translate well in writing because the thing is
like, it's something that is often.
Credibly personal and people can't read it.
A lot of the time in terms of the intended tone, it's not a
universal feeling and it's also just really cynical.
I mean, it's pervasive culturally through, you know,
and socially, you know, but I don't know it's like If you
think about all the folks that read English in the world, most
of them are non-native readers and speakers.
So the thing is like in terms of cultural context, irony is not
going to be read properly, it doesn't translate well and also
it's just cynical like why not be hopeful?
So yeah, yeah, yeah I think that also reminds me of what you were
writing about in your book, how in your teaching practice,
you're teaching these Blended classrooms or what you have,
Like native speakers of Japanese and English speakers in the same
classroom. And so the way that you choose
your language not necessarily to be neutral, but to kind of be a
bridge, both in your classroom, and in your writing, could you
tell us about how you find that register?
So like you know, teaching and Tokyo there are a lot of folks
who are native English speakers, a lot of folks who are native
Japanese speakers and a lot of folks who are native other
language speakers speakers of other languages natively.
And the thing is like, we're in this weird school in Japan,
where the curriculum is in English yet, like Japan is on a
place where English is very prevalent, so, It's really
important. That students learn Japanese
terminology for design. So, so whole thing is just kind
of, like, mixing it up, you know, like, you know, what is
the word for like? I don't know, like so the word
for Crop Marks in Japanese is tumble, so which is like the
same sound as dragonfly and like, I don't know, just like
playing without yeah, with that stuff like in terms of like
homonyms, even though, you know, the characters are different for
those terms. Like, but like homonyms can be
really fun and it's just like being playful with language and
that's something we like try to do a lot in classroom.
Yeah. I feel like what you were saying
there with being playful with language.
Also like dfangs some of the scariness of writing I think for
for myself, just speaking for myself but I'm sure with other
designers and creative people as well.
Like there's like we often put writing on such a pedestal
that's that's such a scary thing and like no one approached it,
but the way that you talk about the play, Honest with language
it feel like is a way to kind of defang that yeah it can be super
fun. Like, have you ever heard of the
writer and teacher an artist Trini Dalton?
No, I haven't. So she's like, she's based in
Southern California. She wrote this really great book
of baby Geisha and I was like reading it and like there's a
section of the book that like didn't it, like kind of didn't
make any sense like they were these really nonsensical kind of
anti stories and like there were like five or six stories and
then like I got to the end of that second.
I was like what the hell was that?
And then training also teaches writing then she described it.
This was basically a project that she works on the students,
it's called word salad Basically make a list of 10 words that
people like and then you try to write a story or an anti story
together and this like really fun.
That's something that we do like a teach design history.
I don't use it in that class but like in like regular graphic
design classes but also I teach like general education classes
that are focused on the Arts and like, that's like a fun thing to
get folks writing. It's just like, we all make a
list of, you know, if there are 12 people in the class, 12
words, And then writing something together that makes
writing feel less scary. It's a great place to start,
that's great. Thanks for that specific
example. I think the other final thing
that I wanted to tease out from her book.
Is this passage where you talk about I'll quote you writing is
kind of like that you are performing yourself, especially
when you're writing about your profession outside of history or
criticism. And I that really resonated with
me of like again thinking about ways to defang writing is
something kind of scary and intimidating of light. it's I
mean, I'm performing now in a way, writing this interview but
that the writer me, if I'm doing this is like, In some ways it's
an extension of my real self and my professional suppan by like
making it like a character in a way, I didn't like my writers
self as a performance in some ways, it makes it less scary for
me, I don't know. Yeah, yeah like I think like the
musician Nick Cave like he's a person like in his real life he
doesn't believe in God, or the devil, but in his writing, you
know, this Very Old Testament. God, exists.
And there are many, many devils and demons.
And, you know, things both literally and metaphorically,
and I think that's like, one of the really fun things about
writing, you know, again, not just casting a cosmology of
archetypes, but a cosmology of characters and how you might
shift yourself in that, like, Yeah, just like, you know, you
can when you're writing you can say things that you would never
say in real life and you can do things that you would never do
per se and like, that's really fun.
So yeah, there's the Fantastical parts of writing.
That's awesome. Yeah.
I feel like your book like reading your book, it feels like
we're just kind of hanging out, you know, we've only talked
online or the way that it's written for the folks in the
audience, who haven't checked it out yet.
It feels like you're hanging out with Ian, like, in his studio,
right? He's like quoting new cave or
playing you Snippets of songs recording different authors,
like it has that quality to it and while it's sort of
philosophical, it doesn't, it's not like intimidating or to woo
in that sort of way. It just feels like, oh, this is
a creative person, sharing a little bit about his process and
like, inspires me to want to write more Thank you.
Thank you. Ian, looks like we don't have
any audience questions today, so I'll just turn it back to you
and I see. Do you have any final thoughts
for our audience tonight? And then we'll wrap it up from
there not really, I don't know. I mean like I just you know if
folks are interested in writing I just encourage them to try.
I think that's a big thing. I think culturally folks are
often afraid of it. Especially Especially designers
because designers have this issue.
It's a form of schizophrenia. Basically designers tend to so
graphic design is content container synthesis.
And a lot of designers are afraid of making the actual
content because the usually hired to create the container
and the sent to synthesize things but to actually kind of
get in there and make their own stuff.
Is something that a lot of folks are afraid.
Because their bosses, haven't allowed them to do it and then
if your boss doesn't let you do it, then you yourself start to
create mental and emotional blocks.
And yeah, I just, you know, I encourage folks to make their
own stuff. And I think, you know, it's a
beautiful thing right now because there are more people
writing about design than ever before.
And yeah, just encourage folks to do it as well.
And hopefully do it in a way that is not boring because must
design writing is really bored. That's great advice, go out and
make stuff right stuff. Don't be boring and line them
joining us from Tokyo Japan, author of The impossibility of
Silence. I've got it on my iPad that you
should get the physical book there.
Thanks everybody for tuning in. We'll post a link to Ians book,
in the chat, and in the show notes, you can check out this
recording out, AIG a design wherever you get podcasts or
videos all of the platforms and I believe Sean.
Hello, again. We'll see you next week for our
next live stream, and check out Gee, that'll work to stay in
touch. All right, have a good evening
or day, everyone. Bye.
Thank you.