Urban Technology at University of Michigan week -27
What is urban technology at UM animation + 3 questions for Craighton Berman
After dropping lots of little hints in the This Week section that’s at the bottom of each newsletter, we’re finally done with an animation that introduces urban technology and our new degree at University of Michigan. Here it is! Please share with folks who will enjoy.
Can you spot the buildings in the first scene that were designed by Taubman College alums? Hint hint. The music also has a UM connection: It’s a track from the Michigan band KILN on the label Ghostly, which was started at UM. Oh, and the voice over by Eman Haggag, an educator who just happens to have also lived in Michigan previously? That was an accidental discovery but proves that Michigan is the Kevin Bacon of US states—everyone has a Michigan connection eventually.
It’s just 89 seconds of video, but this is the result of many, many people working together to shape and refine the script, translate written words into visuals, and then animate and produce it all with just the right vibes. Keep reading for an interview below with Craighton Berman, the animator.
Hello! I’m Bryan Boyer, Director of the Urban Technology degree at University of Michigan that will welcome its first students in the 2021-2022 academic year. While we launch the program, we’re using this venue to explore themes and ideas related to our studies. Thanks for reading. Have questions about any of this? Hit reply and let me know.
✍️ 3 Questions for Craighton Berman
Craighton is a 21st century jack of many trades. He was one of the first designers to launch a product on Kickstarter, designs and sells a line of homewares with a focus on slowness and calm, runs design strategy workshops, and makes illustrations and animations for the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and UM. Craighton uses his many talents to be an amazing communicator, which is a skill that’s of the utmost importance when working in a transdisciplinary setting like students will when they study and work in urban technology.
Q. What’s your favorite city and why?
My favorite city is the next city. I get a lot of joy from dropping into a new city (on vacation or—more often—for work) and trying to get a sense of what daily life must feel like in a place. Even in a “post-place” era where people can theoretically live and work anywhere, I love how “place” uniquely influences local culture and still creates strange, quirky, and lovely specificities. That said, Chicago is also my favorite city because it’s the one I have called home for almost 20 years. As much as I love Copenhagen, NYC, New Orleans, London, and Tokyo—Chicago is where I have chosen to lay roots. I’m raising a family in the city, started businesses here, teach at the universities, ran farmer’s markets and maintained storefronts. In an age of an unmoored professional class that flirts with city after city, I really value staying in one place and tending to deep roots that can only grow with time.
Q. Among the many things you draw are a series of ideas “no commercial value.” What’s that all about?
A few years ago I created an Instagram account called @no_commercial_value where I explore ideas of, well, no commercial value. I wanted a creative outlet for absurd ideas, and to bring my observations on consumer culture and speculations about the future to life as a quick sketch.
I wanted a daily practice—a ritual that required little time commitment, but forced me to keep moving forward and adding to a body of work. I try to start each day with a drawing, picked from a running list of ideas in my Notes app, and I try to complete it within 20-30 minutes. At first I was constraining my ideas to notecards and a pen, to force myself to keep the ideation fast, simple, and stream-of-consciousness.
I also wanted to make the case for absurd ideas being important. Any type of innovation hinges on having a good idea—and the best way to do that is to generate a lot of ideas. Quantity gives you more ideas to choose from, but it also forces lateral thinking, making your mind work all the way around a range of possibilities—not just going directly to the most obvious solution. Playing with absurd ideas keeps your ideation abilities nimble and prolific for when you need to use them in a practical way.
Finally I wanted to explore speculative design as a medium. As a designer who has spent a lot of time working in the “innovation” space, I have seen the power of design applied to “non-design” problems. With No Commercial Value I have enjoyed using the quintessential designer skill—the sketch—to represent ideas that are not usually not things designers have a platform for expressing.
Q. As a designer, what’s your superpower?
I tend to resist the idea of “superpowers.” I think most people have the ability to do many things well—their strengths tend to come from the mix of things they are exposed to, are attracted to, and others (the market) values. More interesting to me are the values that drive my work. My practice spans from client-based storytelling work to more entrepreneurial product development and brand building with my housewares brand Manual, but throughout it all I value “independence,” and for me that comes to life through a series of ideas:
DIY attitude: A self-reliant work ethic one might have called “punk rock” in the most progressive sense of the word. Ian MacKaye of Fugazi once said: “I like doing the work. That’s actually the point. People say ‘Oh you make your living from music’—that’s not exactly true, I make my living from my work. And I work hard, so I can play music.”
Control: Of course the classic designer control-issues, but also working with a lack of control, as in improvisation.
Curiosity: Everything, everyone, every place is interesting in some way—its up to you to seek it.
Clarity: Not expressions of clarity like simplicity or minimalism, but the clear expression of an idea.
Balance: From balancing many projects and ideas all at once that all inform each other, to balancing work and life, to balancing a the small & singular with the large & impactful.
Community: Real communities allow for collisions of ideas and making new connections that create new ideas. I love maintaining and being active in my communities, from professional circles to the places I have my home and business.
Links
🚘 Indiana and the Toyota Mobility Foundation will work together to create a Future Mobility district. Details are light but might include multi-modal operations (connecting busses and trains and bikes and such), last mile connectivity (how do you get from the bus stop to your front door?), and trip chaining (the added complexity of planning a day’s movement with multiple stops and needs along the way). Toyota also announced a significant district-scale project earlier this year.
🛻 Speaking of Toyota, look at the change in size of the Toyota Tacoma pickup truck over the past 25 years. Pedestrian safety 📉 Carbon footprint 📈 = 😭
🚄 Mayor Pete Buttigieg will be Secretary of Transportation and opinions are mixed but I’m happy that he understands transit and sustainability as inextricably linked! “If anybody says we shouldn’t subsidize trains — think about just how many ways we subsidize driving which is among the most carbon intensive things we could be doing.”
🛴 Will Mayor Pete take micromobility seriously? Hope so! “City transportation ecosystems are suddenly getting more diverse, creating an opportunity to (finally) rethink the car,” says Wired.
📕 A tweetstormed pocket history of UX—user experience design—from the author of How Design Makes The World, which is a new book about the consequences of design decisions. And yup, think about the endless UX questions in something like “rethinking the car.” Almost like a degree that mixes cities, code, and design might be useful…
This week: Animation is done and looks great sitting next to the illustration from a few weeks ago. Finally getting to past due correspondence. Preparing to go offline for a couple weeks and will be back in 2021. That means lining up interviews for future newsletters and let me say there are some delights awaiting you! Have a healthy and safe solar New Year! 🏃♂️