Lyotard tailspin

First semester junior year, second semester of being in the design major, I was thrown into an existential and philosophical tailspin (which I didn’t realize that’s what it was until later, though I remember my professor Ben, who was frustrated at my struggle, asking me if I was having an existential crisis) in trying to make an editorial book containing “The Crystal Goblet” (the required text) by Beatrice Warde and “Paradox on the Graphic Artist” (my chosen text) by Jean-François Lyotard. When I struggled before, it was no big deal. I moved on and improved, in bliss of being in design school, but thinking in the back of head, when will I be jaded by all of this?. Pretty soon apparently.

But this struggle was less about skill and more about deep critical thinking about design and my place in it. And because I was not prolifically producing and iterating, the project felt like a failure, even though it was not a bad book. There seems to not be room for theory in undergrad, or I just didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. In any case the thinking was crucial to what was to come, and I regret nothing.

Notes that came from this time: