J07 Peer Dialogue 03

I thought David G's letterforms were really good, but what I like about them the most were the descriptions. If you haven't seen them you can find them here:
http://djgdesign200.blogspot.com/2011/05/a04.html

I also thought Shaama's letters were really good and I thought she had a good point when deciding not to identify her letters.
http://shaamasdesign.blogspot.com/2011/05/alphabet-hunt.html

In Mike Freeze's course reflection he talks about education and he makes two good points. The first, "I watched throughout my education as so many of my friends were medicated just so that they would sit down and "learn."  That is learn to think in a way that is against their very patterns of thinking." I grew up in the generation just prior to this and can only think of one person who we knew to be medicated. Back then it was taboo to be on medication for say Attention Deficit Disorder. I don't even think it was called that back then. We referred to it as Hyper activity. In any case one can really draw parallels to the emergence of A.D.D. and the popularity of video games, Internet, DVDs and cell phones. The second point Mike makes that I agree with is, "My mother lives under the paradigm, "do what you love and success will follow." I believe in this too but my problem lies in educational systems telling people that they need to follow a very specific path, and now more than ever (thanks to technlogy) we are expected to do more than ever so we have no time to find what we really love."

Ricardo's letters were really good especially the lowercase "i" check them out here:
http://rar44331-design200.blogspot.com/2011/05/assignment-04-letterform.html
I also agree with Ricardo's course reflection about the guest speakers, I too found their visits to be beneficial to me. check that out here:
http://rar44331-design200.blogspot.com/2011/05/course-reflection-03.html

In Sarah Howard's reading reflection of the intro to Cradle to Cradle she tells about a recent trip to Bolivia and how her experience there reminded her of William McDonough's experiences in Japan. I really like the point she makes when she says, "This really made me think about how careless I was with my time, my resources, and my diet because of the so readily available products always in front of me.  As a society we have used design in a way that has made us in a lot of respects really lazy."
I agree that we as American's take many things for granted including, clean drinking water, readily available food supplies and our time. I think one of the overall themes in Design 200 has been to use design thinking as a way to solve problems. One of the greatest handicaps we have in the states is we are not faced with many of the problems other countries face. Not that we don't have our share of tragedy and a need for good solutions to new problems. It's just a good example of going out and seeing the world and to experience life in someone else shoes. Then we can truly stop taking things for granted.