I've received four cameras back from the "27 slow word images your city" project.

Soren's box arrived today with some extra goodies tucked inside. Excellent.

None of the participants have asked me what I am going to do with their photographs. This is curious to me.

And it is also just what I was hoping for; the photo-takers have been concentrating on PROCESS rather than the end result.

On today's Core 77, a report on Slow's latest blog: SlowPlanet.

According to my Slow Design-inspired PERT chart (partially shown above), I'm a bit behind on my research.

(The x axis represents class sessions 1 through 33; the y axis represents tasks to complete. I scanned a beautiful image torn from W magazine and then desaturated and tweaked it in Photoshop. Next I printed it onto 11x17 graph paper, designating the x and y axis with a marker. I then printed a color version of the exact same size and hand wove strips of it into the graph paper version. The strips represent the task, woven through small slits I cut across the timeline of the x axis. The image of color strips were an exact match of what they covered of the black and white version. I then mounted the piece onto cardboard and sealed it. The whole process took a long time.) 

Perhaps I need to speed up my slow?

The prototype portion of my research project now has its first contender: today's mail delivered a camera from the über-talented Nora T. Murphy.

True, as Kristina observed earlier, I have asked others to help me with this part of the project (Slow Design is all about the co-lab), but I am filling-up my own camera with images as well.

My observations of this process:

• I really like the big screen view finder on my digital camera
• I also really like the preview and delete buttons on my digital camera
• there is a serious element of "giving in" to the low-tech aspects of shooting on real film with a flimsy disposable (but recyclable) camera...a sense of giving up control
• I feel uneasy about what the images I took will actually look like...I want them to be fantastic, but cannot preview them
• not being able to preview the images also causes me to take more time in setting up my pictures...it SLOWS me down
• I realize that these feelings of unease are probably being experienced by all of those participating...only worse, because they don't know what I am going to do with the images
• thinking about the Slow word which is the theme the pictures also Slows down the process of snapping and causes a more reflective process...the point exactly 

I am very grateful to Nora for her participation. Thank you, thank you.

Casey's survey included some terrific doodles, including one of me (love those black boots).

The last two issues of Metropolis magazine have featured Slow Food, Slow Design's "Good, clean, fair" inspiration.

From March 2008 there is a rather snarky story by Wired magazine blogger Bruce Sterling, "Revenge of the Slow:"

Slow Food began as a jolly clique of leftist academics, entertainers, wine snobs, and pop stars, all friends of Ital­ian journalist and radio personality Carlo Petrini. Their galvanizing moment, which occurred in 1986, was an anti-McDonald’s demonstration at which Petrini and his dining buddies brandished pasta pans while folk-dancing in the streets of Rome.

And in the current issue the always inspiring chef extraordinarie Alice Waters graces the cover. She tells Paul Makovsky:

This is terribly, terribly important. It’s not just about food. We’re indoctrinating a population with values of fast, cheap, easy, and disposable. They’re digesting these values, and it’s affecting entertainment, architecture, and the whole culture...This is one of my obsessions: we’re pretty starved for beauty and meaning in our lives, but we finally have an opening. It’s the reason I want to collaborate with artists, architects, and landscape architects—because we can make something that is greater than the sum of the parts. And when we collaborate—whoa—you better hold onto your hat.

(image of Thorunn Arnadottir's very slow clock from his site)

The research paper portion of this project is just as enjoyable as the prototype part (except for maybe formatting Bibliographies and TOC's).

It solidifies my understanding of the topic and inspires me. I find myself brainstorming about future projects.

I literally get giddy.

Especially when I read declarations like this one from Véronique Vienne in the book she co-edited with Stephen Heller, Citizen Designer:

In the near future, as a matter of course, we will take cradle-to-grave responsibility for the objects we design. Our conscience will demand it, our environment will require it, and--can you believe it--our clients will insist on it...

No longer "durable" goods, the things we design and use should be renamed "timely" goods to celebrate the fact that the best stuff in life is "of the moment," "in-the-now"--in a continuous state of becoming.

When I gave Kristina the paper covered box containing the next phase of my Slow Design project she enjoyed opening it and exploring the contents.

"I know just who my collaborator is going to be," she declared after reading the introduction. And later, when we met up with Ben she invited him to join the fun.

He was in to it.

They spent many moments looking at all the collateral materials and brainstorming about what pictures they would take.

Kristina suddenly laughed said to Ben, "Sacha is so clever. She's having other people do her project for her...And I am too. You can finish it for me!"

It has been such fun to check my mail the last couple of weeks.

Below is another creative (albeit bitter) example of answers to the Slow Design Survey.

The level of participation has been greater than I hoped for. True, not all surveys came back, but those which did were carefully considered (such as Soren's two page, single spaced manifesto) and it is clear that many people had fun with the process. Which is the point.

Thank you for thinking enough of me and my project to join in.

Yesterday four (pretty) boxes were sent out via snail mail and two (also pretty) were delivered by hand containing the next collaborative phase of my Slow Design project. If you too would like to participate, forward your mailing address to me at slow.design@yahoo.com.

(I had to look up largo.)

For the prototype section of my Slow Design research, I've adapted a project by the terrific, inspired designer Prem Krishnamurthy of Project Projects.

I first read about the project in a book I highly recommend: Citizen Designer, edited by Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne.

If you received a survey from me (and read it), you'll already know I've enjoyed this entire book, but especially an essay by David Reinfurt, "I Was Thinking the Other Day about One Possible Scenario for a Collective Future: The Open Source Software Movement."

That's quite a title--and it is quite an essay: very insightful, optimistic and also challenging.

Reinfurt lauds Krishnamurthy's B-E-R-L-I-N (everyday tourism) project:

By relinquishing control over the set of artifacts (contact sheets), the designer has opened up possibilities and dialogs within a clearly prescribed framework...Designers have a rabid interest in the work and details of other designers. The idea of open-source design would be to harness this interest to bring the whole of graphic design to a completely new place. Designers copy each others work all the time anyway. Why not use this for the collective good?

I've created a similar Slow Design-themed project for those enthusiastic survey takers who answered "yes" to question number one...six of you will receive boxes in the mail next week.

...a framework will be clearly defined, but the possibilities are wide open.

How do I solve the Problem and Purpose statements of this final project?

With help from an intrepid member of my Panel of Experts, I have synthesized the product/prototype portion of the project.

In a sense, I've already begun to solve the problem by introducing the topic to my peers and professor in class: they now know what Slow Design is. I continued in this solution by soliciting their participation (along with a group of other designers/artists/chefs that I know) in a survey. 

Simply reading the survey and thinking about the answers introduced the subject. And those who responded were required to think deeper about Slow Design and perhaps begin to use its methodologies. 

In this next step, I will ask those who responded "Yes" to question 1 on the survey to participate in Slow Design inspired project. Unlike the solitary nature of the survey participants will be asked to pass on their contribution to one or more additional people from outside the original knowledge sphere for completion. When finished all of the artifacts will be returned to me.

If you receive (another) package from me I hope you will join the collective. If you don't receive a package but would like to join, email me with your address. I promise not to lurk outside your house or stock you in any way.

This will be an exciting open source project, emphasizing process, well-being, and non proprietary methods of working. Oh so very slow.

There are so many ways to answer ten questions...above is Suzanne's interpretation.

Kristina created a beautiful 11x17 poster for her answers to the survey:

The pdf is a bit blurry... In case you cannot read number 3 on your monitor, Slow Food is:

organic farmers who take naps, consumers who close their eyes when they chew. See Fig.3.

Surveys are trickling in, thanks for your feedback.

Check out Matt's response to question number four:

He's just provided me with my branding...so very non-proprietary and slow of him.

This is the article in the New York Times that spawned the project idea.

"Slow is just a new word to understand old problems," Mr. Honoré said. "It's a re-freshening of ideas that have been here since time immemorial. But there's a new appeal about the word slow. It's pithy, it's countercultural."

There is a built-in irony of this final project: I must follow a rigid methodology and format in my exploration of a nebulous, loosely defined topic.

Proponents of Slow Design use phrases like "the continuous present" and "the emotional and mental art of living."

Hmm. How does one fit this into a Qualitative Research Design?

Sticking to the formality, my Problem and Purpose Statements are as follows:

The purpose statement had these three words at the end: "in my community," but there was confusion among st my peers and professor about what this meant. I was not referring to a geographic community, but rather a loose group of like-minded people.

I'm putting it back in. I'm not trying to solve the problem for ALL designers. I'm trying to solve it for SOME designers. And not an elite SOME-- the project strives to be inclusive, not exclusive. Rather I hope for participation from a group of open-minded, well-being focused artists and designers who are interested in process and experimentation.

A virtue of slow editing is preventing embarrassing typos.

The footnoted text of the survey you received should read: "Consider it your..." not "onsider it your..." How embarrassing.

* The level of effort is up to you, but regard your work as not proprietary. Indeed, you should proactively and unabashedly copy, modify, and adjust other's efforts. Consider it your responsibility to improve upon and add or shift meaning.

I suppose you fixing my typo can be your improvement to my own work.

You've found this site because you received a survey from me.

Your level of participation in the survey is of course up to you.

Trash it, frame it, add it to your stack of things to do...Or, you can fill it out and mail it back to me.

That would be nice. 

All forms of answers are accepted, including email. True, it is not very slow, but so convenient: slow.design@yahoo.com.  

I thank you. Deadlines are looming.

This site will chronicle my final project in school as I pursue a degree in Industrial Design.

But right now, I'm off on Spring Break (hello, New York City).

When I get back I'll populate the site with really pretty pictures of SD projects, links, resources, pdf's of my Mid-Term presentation and survey, etc.

Check Back 4/1