This quote cuts to the heart of what good design shows–when everything in a space just “clicks” and feels comfortable, it’s really because the design is just reflecting the philosophies and beliefs behind it clearly.

How do we get to that point when redesigning educational spaces?

Most importantly we get there by knowing, as the participants at the recent Reimagine:Ed conference discussed, how people learn.  And in a library, it’s about understanding how people learn in a space like a library, specifically, and how the space can support the learning of students and teachers better.

One thing that the Reimagine:Ed conference organizers  did was collect video interviews of students answering some questions about how they learn, what types of environments make them feel comfortable, how they work, etc.   We taped a few interviews from our students here and it was fascinating to hear them reflecting on their own learning environments.  If you are designing a space, this might be a great way to gather feedback from students and teachers alike about how they learn.

We also have to question things and see what might commonly be overlooked.  We have to re-see, re-envision.  David Jakes evokes this wonderfully, exploring how we can rethink hallways as  usable learning spaces in schools.

Since designing our own library, in my wanderings, I try to notice places and pieces with good design that reflects the principles that I held important when designing our own library:  transparency, playfulness, creativity, comfort, light, collaboration.

Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has it right when he reminds us  about borrowing ideas from everywhere for good  design:

So, here’s a few more pieces I’ve collected lately that reflect the philosophies that our students and staff have shared with me about our library space.  (And reflect my own design aesthetic as well, I must admit).

Playful light fixture from Ikea

Another playful light fixture, also from Ikea–sort of an interesting play on literacy and reading.   It’s also transparent, which fits the theme of our library.

This is a menu stand at Galaxy Cafe, an Austin restaurant.  The menus are hard laminated cards, and are well designed.  That gave me the idea to make cards like this for our library services, bringing in modern graphics and making our services more visible and easy to follow for students.

These signs at the University of Michigan are a clever way to promote the “faces” of the library.   They have several different series of signage similar to these, which inspired me to create something similar for our hallways.

This chalkboard at Galaxy Cafe advertises their new “specials.”  It inspired me to buy this chalkboard easel at IKEA so we could do the same.   We have many students who love to write decorated signage for us, so it allows us to invite them into the process of publicizing new books or other events.

After getting the idea at Galaxy Cafe, I stumbled over this nice and inexpensive combination whiteboard/chalkboard easel in the children’s department of Ikea.  It’s already being put to use in our library.  (and our students like to do the lettering on it, so it becomes quite collaborative.)

Inspiration can come from everywhere–for example,  I noticed that the meeting rooms at the University of Michigan Law school are called “Ponds” and loved that idea.  What a great name for a learning space! (although the signage itself could have certainly been more appealing to the eye!)

To see details like these we just have to look around us with a mindful eye–we have to become like children just learning to read, and see our environment for all its details and take the time to really see.  We have to be willing to be playful and curious.

For more inspiration, check out these  beautifully decorated design quotations.   Then take a camera, and go play.

Today is officially Steve Jobs Day, so in honor of that, I decided to share one of my passions–library design.

We redesigned our library roughly three years ago now, and it was fully gutted and renovated, a process in which I had great partners in the Pfluger and Associates team.   And going through that process really spurred my interest in and attention to the design of spaces, particularly learning environments.

Good design doesn’t “just happen”- it really is a series of decisions and choices based on what you want a space to accomplish.  Steve Jobs knew that, from the fonts he designed, to the products he developed, to the stores he created.  It means keeping your eye on the vision and directing the design towards that, but that involves playtime, and creativity and “what ifs”.

It is vital to have goals for your design–it’s important to get a read on how your “users” use your space and how they learn and work in general.   It’s important to think of your own goals for the space’s functions.   And then every design decision can revolve around that.

It’s also important to observe– observe your patrons in your current space and in the school in general.  But also look around you at malls, coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores, and any sort of spaces where people relax and/or learn.  Tear out photos from magazines, browse around on websites for images you like, look through catalogs, take photos everywhere you go and build a sense of what you like or environments that just seem to work.  Look at everything–the paint colors, the furnishings, the lighting–how does it all fit together?

We are already  in the process of redesigning a small section of our library to host our new Juice Bar, which is our iPad help desk area.   And I realize how going through this design process the first time really lit my passion for design.   In the past, I would have created a space and expected it to stay the same way for a long time.   But now I am more ready to embrace the idea that the space needs to be flexible and ever changing to match the needs of how we are using it.

While rethinking this small area, I’ve been poring through catalogs online and looking at other libraries for ideas and ultimately, it made me want to redo my library all over again with the things I’ve learned.  We have a beautiful and very functional space, but there are so many choices to make, and although I designed our space with flexibility in mind, I see how much more flexible it could have been.

So, to celebrate that passion for good design, (and because I can’t furnish my library in fifteen different styles),  I’m going to celebrate “things I like” in this post, so that perhaps it will provide inspiration for someone else down the road.

First off, I love love love Jenny Luca’s photographs of her library renovation in Australia.

I love her intentional description of each different area of the library and the choices made, and hope to replicate her efforts by sharing some images from our own library soon.

I especially love the large lettering they’ve used on their front desk and this lab which explain clearly the purpose of the space.   And they’ve chosen furniture that is very mobile and flexible as well as comfortable for students to use.

Other things on my “Things I love List” lately:

This whole space from VS products:

I love the flexible panels, both the corrugated cardboard look and the plexiglass look.  In fact,  we’re considering some “locally created versions” but out of plexiglass or board w/whiteboard paint.

I saw some of our own students achieve this themselves with some folding boards like you use for cutting out fabric, actually.

And I  like how this mobile desk furniture could make a lab space so flexible and easy to repurpose.

Another recent “love” are these  ottomans from Steel Case , aptly named Campfire, which are similar to the ones Jenny Luca purchased in Australia from Dare.

I love the pop of color, the portability, the fact that they are large enough to work as a table or as seating for students.

I really like this tall table from VS as well because it’s so multi-functional:

It’s such a great multi-purpose piece–I like the curves; I like that it rolls and it can be raised to different heights.   It could function as a teacher station, a standing desk, a work area for students, and I like the flexible functionalities.

Another item I ran across that I LOVE and  I hope we’ll be getting for our library is this modular seating from Teknion, called DNA.

It looks like perfect seating for students using mobile devices and can be rearranged into different configurations, like couches or chairs like these, all in different colors.

Those are just a few of my latest “loves.”  What are yours?

This window in an Austin storefront says it best (I might add how much I “heart” quotations on transparent glass):

When things feel right, they make a place feel like home, like a campfire, like a place you want to hang out, learn, and live.

That’s what Steve Jobs was a genius at–using design that made us fall in love, no matter how irrational it was, just because it felt right.

Thank you, Steve, for your passion.  May it inspire many others to share theirs with the world.

He spoke up against the way schools “label” and “brand” vocational pursuits over academic pursuits.   And rather than steer students only towards academic interests for their future, he suggested valuing student passions no matter what, because our future ”vibrant communities depend on the multiplicity of what we do.”

His talk reminded me of the importance libraries play in helping students find their passions.  A school cannot offer every course under the sun, nor in the time they are spending teaching content, can teachers always take/have the time to nurture individual interests.  Libraries are a perfect place for students to explore  on their own(like the student I helped yesterday who wanted to build some sort of small robot and wanted a book on bird flight and aerodynamics).

Robinson commented on the linear nature of our current education system, the so-called industrial model that we are all familiar with.

Libraries provide one of the most powerful antidotes to this type of model–because learning in libraries is so serendipitious, even when students are following an assigned topic.  Sources lead them to places they weren’t expecting.  There’s the opportunity and time for exploration–in fact, that’s the point.   And physically, students aren’t ‘ in desks’ ‘in rows’.  In general,  they are encouraged to explore and browse and experiment in a more flexible and collaborative environment than classrooms can sometimes be.

So by providing access to a broad variety of materials and internet access for all, as well as assistance from the library staff, libraries are “passion central”.

Even the structure of our libraries can encourage playfulness and exploration.   Maybe we don’t always consider supporting creativity part of our jobs, but what other spot in the school makes for such an excellent “creativity station”  than the library?

Robinson shared a fascinating and inspiring video from his “ImagineIt!” site about the Blue Man Group founders, who have started their own school for creativity, and watching the film and the vivid environment they have created was inspiring.

Chris Wink comments’ in the video–’We thought we weren’t creative.  But then we realized, what if we really were creative? really got me thinking.

According to Educatednation, “They started their oddball performance group as ‘sort of a support group for people whose creativity had been all but squeezed out of them by education,’ says Wink. ‘At one point, we asked, What if there was a school you didn’t have to recover from, that didn’t make you question the idea of being creative?”

Libraries do so much to support student passion through our daily functions.  But  how else  can we  further support student creativity and passion?

• display student artwork everywhere, all the time
• hold student artwork creating events
• host gaming events
• invite guest speakers in many different fields to the library
• invite students as guest speakers to share their interests
• purchase specialized collections for students in clubs and who have particular interests
• have “play and creativity areas” in the library  (white boards to draw on, touch screens, Ipads mounted on the wall? dedicated design rooms?)
• sponsor “creativity” club or “innovation” club
• share your own passion–librarians are passionate about what they do, but do students even know that about us?  Do we share who we are?

The list could go on.   We have tremendous flexibility and ability as librarians to help our students tap into their passionate interests.  Do we do it as often as we should?  Do we institutionalize our efforts so that it just becomes “part of our library”?

As libraries and library staff are threatened in budget cuts around the country, this speaks to me as one of our prime functions:  supporting the curiosity and creativity of the school.   We need to make sure that mission is clearly reflected in our space, our policies and our materials.   We need to share our passion and support our students’ and teachers’ passions.

At the Educon 2.2 unconference, Bud Hunt, John Pederson and Zac Chase led an excellent discussion on the “Caring Classroom.“   But what we discussed in the session went far beyond the classroom, and could be applied to library spaces as well as an entire campus.

They identified five areas of caring:  Academic, Organizational, Emotive, Physical, and Infrastructure, and the etherpad from the workshop lists thought-provoking questions on each area.

Think about how your library conveys caring:

Academically– This seems somewhat obvious but beyond providing a place to study and study guides, do you help support the “academic schedule?”  Do you do anything special during times of more student stress to support the students and help them destress, or example?

Organizational– This is an area where libraries/schools need to really challenge themselves.  Think about your core mission.  Do your organizational policies really support the students’ needs?  Are your check-out periods unreasonable and unreflective of student use (we extended ours to three weeks to alleviate overdues, for example)?  Are there obstacles for students’ finding things in the library?  (Consider changing Dewey signage to bookstore signage, for example).

Emotive- Are you doing things to let students know you care?  Greeting them, handing out a bookmark with every book, noticing when a student needs help? My assistants keep a variety of fun toys on our front desk that students love to come tinker with–a little touch but students associate the desk with gadgets, toys and an spot where they are welcome. ( I do think this is an area that many libraries are quite strong in–and are one of the most student friendly areas in many schools.)

Physical–The physical space of a library is another way to express care.  Are there comfy areas for students and are they encouraged to use them?  Is there a variety of lighting that creates little cozy spots for students?  Is signage friendly, positive, helpful?  Are there areas delineated for various activities?  Does the overall physical space create a warm atmosphere for students?
(Again, I do think most libraries are tuned into this aspect of care, but there is always room to evaluate).

Infrastructure– Is the infrastructure cared for?  Are things fixed when they are broken?  Is the signage fresh and color coordinated?  Is the paint fresh and carpet clean? Does the library smell good?  Does the entryway look inviting and clean?  What is within your control to fix or change regarding infrastructure?

Spend a little time considering the ways that your library contributes to a caring climate on your campus.   One way to evaluate your space is to survey staff or students and see how they respond to your current space–it’s hard as a staff member to really “get” how your facility is perceived.   Find out what they like, and what obstacles there are for them.  Find out what they ‘would’ like in the space.  And an added benefit is that this sort of survey would express your caring for students and staff.

Thanks to Bud, Zac, and John for a thought-provoking conversation!

Not only is the presentation a clear and concise summary, but Kim’s slides are also beautiful examples of how good design makes a presentation more effective and inspiringly memorable.

It struck me that there is an assignment there for helping students with image design.

As Anne Lamott reminds us, breaking things into short assignments allows them to be tackled more easily.

So I wondered about the idea of having students make ONE powerpoint slide (or image) as “art,”  creating a collage, mixing different textures and fonts, and adhering to principles of good visual design.  Breaking design down to that elemental a level would aid students in transferring it to a larger assignment.

The images could be “traded,” posted in the classroom, judged by outside judges(like the Four Slide Contest)  or analyzed for design effectiveness by the class.  Dan Meyer’s Four Slide contest would be an excellent source of images to talk with students about design choices, originality of voice, and effectiveness, by the way.

And by keeping the assignment small and incremental, it would let students really focus in on the design rather than the content, but also see how design contributes to the effective delivery of content, which is of course, what we really want them to “get.”

By the way, Dan, any hopes of another contest?

   Mitchell Joel’s interesting Six Pixels of Separation blog comments on a fascinating article in the Economist, “The New Oases,” about how people now are much more nomadic in their use of spaces.  (I found Joel’s blog via Garr Reynold’s excellent Presentation Zen blog).

Wi-fi, mobility,  and portability allow people to connect wherever they go, and so people gravitate to both indoor and outdoor spaces where they can conveniently “connect” or gather.

As the architect professor William Mitchell points out:

“The fact that people are no longer tied to specific places for functions such as studying or learning, says Mr Mitchell, means that there is ‘a huge drop in demand for traditional, private, enclosed spaces’ such as offices or classrooms, and simultaneously ‘a huge rise in demand for semi-public spaces that can be informally appropriated to ad-hoc workspaces’. . . . The new architecture, says Mr Mitchell, will ‘make spaces intentionally multifunctional.’

These seem very significant things to be thinking about as we continue to design new libraries and school buildings.   Are they flexible?  Are spaces multi-purpose?  Are there ad-hoc gathering areas?  Separate nooks for individual laptop work?   Wi-fi and open networks?   How are nearby outdoor spaces used? 

School libraries can function as these sort of information commons in schools–providing this sort of flexibility and multi-purposing.

But eventually this sort of design should filter throughout the school–with comfortable learning nooks for students to gather, as the article describes at the new Gehry designed student building at MIT whose “student street”

“ is dotted with nooks and crannies. Cafés and lounges are interspersed with work desks and whiteboards, and there is free Wi-Fi everywhere. Students, teachers and visitors are cramming for exams, flirting, napping, instant-messaging, researching, reading and discussing.”

Sometimes it seems that school building designs are impervious to the changes in the culture outside the building.   But as Mitch Joel points out,

“We have all become Digital Nomads. Able to work wherever we’re feeling most inspired (as long as there is wi-fi). I wonder how the masses will deal with this?”

What I wonder is how schools will deal with this?

I would even posit that good design can encourage us to “do better.”

Continuing my thoughts from previous posts about design, I’m contemplating points that Daniel Pink made in Whole New Mind regarding the significance of it.   He writes about a study at Pittsburg’s Montefiore Hospital that demonstrated that patients in well designed rooms have quicker recovery times, and a study at Georgetown University that enhancing a school’s appearance could even increase test scores.

Design really is about communicating something to the receiver–whether it’s the special lilt of a well-put written phrase, or the feeling of luxuriousness that a fine hotel imparts, or the comic turn of a slapstick movie, or the inspiration that society cares enough to make a beautiful learning space for students.  

On Beyond School, there’s been an ongoing discussion about written versus nonwritten communication.  But somehow I still think this all goes back to the idea of the audience and the issue of design.

Sentences and writing are things that are designed.  Presentations are something that are designed.  Videos are designed.   Maybe students don’t realize they are designing something–but there is an element of choice in every thing we create.   And we should scaffold students in understanding that.

For example, you can have written the most elegant of books, but if the publisher picks a poor cover design, chances are, the book will sit on the library shelves and be rarely read.   If you can write the most eloquent of essays but can’t stand before a class and present your ideas, then your communication with your audience is hampered.    If you memorize every joke in the book, but can’t deliver the joke with panache, then the joke falls flat and the message never is conveyed.

The point is, there is design behind everything we should be teaching students.   Yes, truly, they are sometimes struggling to master the basics, but almost all students can respond to the effective design of a story, of a YouTube video, of a superbowl commercial, of a poem, of a painting.   By illustrating the technique–by having conversations about how things are constructed, we really deepen their understanding of something–but we also are giving them important tools for communicating more effectively themselves.

Showing students two items they could purchase like these air cleaners (pictured below) and asking them which is more appealing to them helps them flesh out those ideas about what important intangibles design communicates. (I of course got this idea from Daniel Pink’s discussion of toilet brushes–but these two designs just were begging for me to compare them in the store).

Which one would you want in your bedroom or kitchen?

So, let students see one another’s projects in progress and see if that inspires them to better work themselves.    Share good presentations with them, good writing with them, good video work with them, good advertising with them–and see what it inspires.  

As one student on David Truss’s blog commented about a wiki project he did with students,

“I thought this was a great project because it was always fun, and when you needed inspiration, it was easy to just click on someone else’s page, and see all the neat stuff that they’ve done, and then it makes you want to make your page just as good (or, it did for me).”

Interesting and good design inspires students to reach farther, to stretch themselves.

Daniel Pink shares some excellent ideas in Whole New Mind for encouraging students to think about how things are designed –like keeping a design notebook, asking students to redesign a product they dislike, looking at magazine layouts, writing about an object they love because of its design, etc.

If writing or making a video or anything our students do is about conveying who they are, then what is really important?   The grammar details will come, the spelling can be fixed, the lingo can work, but if they know what they want to say, and how they want to convey it, their message will come through clearly and with impact.

Daniel Pink shared a quote which summarizes it well: 

“Aesthetics matter.  Attractive things work better.”  (Don Norman, author)

Shouldn’t this be a significant part of Language Arts and information literacy curricula?

Are we challenging our students enough when it comes to design?   A recent article in Library Media Collection by Joyce Valenza, led me to consider how we need to take more leadership to help students improve their presentation skills.   

With great thanks to Joyce–whose links led me to other links( in the random, yet not so random way that happens online)–I’m sharing some hints and tools that can help students be more innovative and effective presenters.

Dean Shareski’s helpful “Powerpoint Extreme Makeover” presentation is one that could be easily shared with teachers and they can watch it on their own or it could be used in a presentation.  He taps into the frustrations that probably many teachers are aware of with using the tool and offers some helpful suggestions.   I think a fun take off of this would be to have STUDENTS design a presentation on how to improve powerpoint presentations (as I am sure they have also sat through many poor ones!)

By following some links to Garr Reynold’s Presentation Zen’s website, I found a wealth of ideas (of course–love his site) about different methods for teaching presentation design to students.  For example, Reynolds shares:

–Guy Kawasaki’s method of presenting 10 simple slides each with one key point.  Reynolds explains that “His talks usually evolve around ten key points, no matter the topic. His visuals, then, will consist of ten slides each with one key message spelled out. That’s it. Simple. The visuals keep Guy on track and help him tell his story and give a strong feeling of organization to the tone of the talk.”

Imagine scaffolding this for students. Assign them ten slides.  Each with one key message.  How would that change their approach to their presentation?

Reynolds also shared:

–The Takahashi Method–Masayoshi Takahashi created a style of presenting slides with only text–but the difference is that he uses GIANT text, and tries to simplify by having a few key words(in Japanese) on each slide.  According to Reynolds this style has become so popular in Japan that it has been named the Takahashi method.  Lawrence Lessig has similarly pioneered the use of just text, black and white, to convey ideas simply and at a very rapid presentation pace.

Again, imagine the student assignment.   ”Your presentation can only be done with one GIANT word per slide, but must convey the key ideas.  You do the talking.  The slides convey what’s important.”

I found more presentation links via this site which  led me to an excellent presentation by Dick Hardt, CEO of Sxip.  (Click on one of the versions of his presentation to see its simplicity combined with his clever delivery.)

One thing that Guy Kawasaki points out, according to Reynolds, is that for a presentation to be really good, if you are using just images or simple text, you really have to be prepared.  You have to “know” the information.  How often do we have students begin with the design and the content is just the add-on, rather than the design growing out of the content, or the content being the real focus?    If we don’t want students to just read off of the screen, they have to have been focused on the content and also the presentation of that content.

The Challenge

Another really playful use of powerpoint I discovered was musician’s David Byrne’s artful attempt to play havoc with powerpoint, as he explains here.  Why don’t we ask our students to stand the software on end and play with its boundaries?   Challenge them to shake it up a little?  And to venture outside the templates, and design art to appear on their own slides.

Seth Godin talks about the idea of an “idea virus” which spreads rapidly by word of mouth.  So maybe what we need to do is unleash an idea virus that student presentations can be dazzling, and continue as Joyce Valenza and Dean Shareski have done so well to share with teachers and students the creative approaches they can take to these tools, and then watch it spread by example and word of mouth?

We need to throw the gauntlet down, and part of that is expecting more from our students.  We should ask them to dazzle us.   Challenge them to step out of their powerpoint rut, and show us what visuals mean.  

How can we help students convey their messages better, and “make them stick”?