Category Archives: Learning and Development

Beer and Napkins Meetup at Universal Joint: What is a Maker?

Beer and Napkins Meetup at Universal Joint: What is a Maker?

We’ve heard the term Maker and Maker Culture but what does that mean. Local Innovator and Maker Joey Loman will be sharing his insights on the Maker Culture. What does it mean to be aMaker and how you can get started. Sign up  here  http://www.meetup.com/Greenville-Beer-and-Napkins-Community-of-Growth/events/217485212/

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If you like off-the-wall ideas, you should talk to Joey Loman because he’s full of them. As a somewhat reclusive Renaissance man from Kansas City, Missouri, he’s a television producer by day and an entrepreneur-inventor by night. He’s an avid musician and serves on the board of the Greenville music venue, The Channel. His most recent adventure is hatching the Upstate Makers Guild, an eclectic assembly of artists, engineers, and hobbyists who love making things. Joey Loman is a serial entrepreneur and has been an investor, founder, or partner in at least 14 small business startups. In his spare time he tends a small gourd garden with the dream of creating calabash gourd smoking pipes. He also likes grapes, solid and liquid derivatives of grapes, distillations of grape fluids, and grape flavored food products.

This is a precursor to his talk in December 9th.

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Refer questions to  Tony Miller or me  at [email protected] or [email protected]

November 11, 2014 Meetup: How Can We Use Art to Convey Ideas

One of Beer and Napkin’s purposes is to provide learning opportunities to expand our understanding of “visual literacy.”  At the November 11, 2014 Meetup Bridget Kirkland, Designer at Kirkland Designs and Instructor at USC Upstate and Designer Russell Tripp facilitated thought-provoking dialogue on How We can use Art to convey Ideas. Thanks to Russell for outlining some of the thoughts below from the session. Also, thanks to B&N advisor Paul Hebert for sharing his thoughts and sketchbook from the session.

The conversation started with Bridget sharing a number of personal visual and creative resources:

  1. Here is a list of Bridget’s book suggestions in case anyone missed them (Bridget, please correct/add if any are wrong or missing, thanks.):
  • Ways of Seeing by John Berger
  • The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
  • Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
  • The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
  •  Drawing From Life: The Journal As Art by Jennifer New

In addition, Russell mentioned the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. This is an excellent book for people who think they can’t draw. Anyone who can learn any other skill can learn to draw as well.

2. Set a regular schedule to practice, grab a journal and start sketching regularly

3. Be vulnerable and share your work with others. Learn from others on techniques, style, and general approach.

4. Act like you are 5! Bridget shared her experience being hypnotized by an artist into thinking she was actually 5 years old. She said the spirit in which she drew an image without inhibitions was the best ever!

5. There is no truly “universal” imagery or visual language beyond the most fundamental geometric shapes and primary colors (see Piet Mondrian). To create imagery that is readable (understood to mean the message you are trying to convey) to a particular audience, you must first understand that audience and their “lens”. That audience can be expanded by finding some, perhaps not immediately obvious, common ground within the diverse group you are trying to communicate with.

6. Understanding of your visual message can often be enhanced by simplifying the images used. Less unnecessary data means less chance of personal differences in interpretation.

7. Visual literacy incorporates a set of skills that can be trained just like any others, and which, combined with an analytic mindset, determine our level of visual literacy. Russell’s personal recommendation for improving visual literacy is to learn the fundamental elements and principles of design – there really aren’t that many – (http://goo.gl/1EcUK) and use that knowledge to analyze what you see and when you’re discussing it with other people. One way to have the opportunity to do both (and learn a surprising amount about human history and human nature) is to study art history (http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/).

8. When creating a visual that we wish to convey a clear message, the onus is on us as the sender/creator of the message to be sure the visual message is understandable to the audience. Audience matters – design your visuals in terms of the recipient not the creator.

9. When developing any sort of visual message, sketch/try/work out lots of ideas before deciding on what to use. Get the obvious ideas out of the way first. You might come back to them, but give yourself options to choose from to find what’s right for your audience.

10. Remember that everyone projects their own emotions, experience, and understanding onto visual imagery when interpreting it. This can be valuable knowledge in designing specific visual messages when you understand your audience and simplify the design to allow this kind of projection.

Sample of Paul Hebert’s Sketchbook notes from the evening

BandN Nov 11 page 1BandN Nov 11 page 2BandN Nov11 page 3

Phil McCreight’s Sketchnotes

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Weekly Challenge: Despina Yeargin- Live In Your Dreams: A Few Simple Steps

Got dreams? Take action. Oh, but where to begin?

We’re all familiar with the quotes about taking action, but how do we move
beyond the dreaming stage of an idea to the action stage? How do we get that
seed to geminate; how do we transform that dream to a living thing in which we
live, so that (technically speaking) we are living in our dream?

  1. Review the idea and turn it into a story—your story.
  2. Learn the story. Dream it in your bed at night.
  3. Wake up and write your story—pen to paper. No typing on a computer.
    Hold that pen in your hand and move it on the paper. Give it life!
  4. Read your story. Read it. Read it out loud and rejoice in it!
  5. Smile. You are halfway there.
  6. Look around you. Reach out to a few trusted friends. Tell them your story
    and ask them to join you; to help and support you.
  7. Smile. You are very lucky to have such friends. Give them a hug.
  8. Write down the first 10 steps that you need to take. Make them simple and
    make them real. Make them affordable. Make them sustainable.
  9. Put one foot in front of the other. Take that first step. Woo-HOOO!
  10. Smile. You are there. You have entered your dream. Really!
  11. Don’t stop walking.

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Way too simple, right? Yes. Exactly! Keep it simple and you will begin—you will take that first step and you will make things happen. Keep a child-like desire TO DO, instead of the learned habit of waiting for everything to be perfect before you begin. The people who don’t wait for that perfection are too busy making things happen. Join them. I will, too.

Despina Yeargin

Despina develops and maintains social media profiles for individuals and the heroes of small business. She also coach them on how to manage their social media presence and put their best foot forward.

Despina writes. She particularly enjoys the challenge of writing for others. I write copy for websites, marketing materials, and you-name-it. I also offer ghost-writing and editing services, as long as we can spend time and get to know each other, so I can represent you and your work appropriately.

2014, Despina Panagakos Yeargin, a.k.a. @DespiDoodle Find me at: http://despidoodle.tumblr.com/

 

 

Jeremy Boeh shares a preview of his storytelling talk.