Timeless Storytelling: HOW Conference Adventure #2

I’m taking a risk and dating myself here, but it’s been about 15 years since I was an undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University attending my first design conference. It was then that I was exposed to what it takes to be considered a ‘great’ designer by some of the most famous creatives in the world. While at the HOW Conference this month, I had the opportunity to attend a repeat performance from AGIA Medalist and Pentagram Partner, Kit Kinrichs, whom I recall being so impressed with 15 years prior. His presentation, although different than before, was still just as engaging and the content just as timeless.

Now when I was in undergraduate school, we had to walk seven blocks in the ice, wind and snow with all of our heavy supplies to get to class. I had developed bone spurs on my hands from carrying all my heavy supplies. And parking?! There was no parking! And if you did happen to have a car and drove to class, you were lucky to find parking on the street. And if you did find parking on the street, you had to leave in the middle of class to re-park your car after the two hour time limit or face a fine! Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Well, you’re a dinosaur!” and “People don’t have to do things like that today!”. But you’re wrong. That campus is just the same and so is the parking situation. This story qualifies (really, by default) as one that, in a sense, can be considered timeless.

A not so timeless story would be one more like how the computers were so slow back then that if you made a change to your file, it would take 10 minutes for the computer to render the change. That was for a file that was under 2MB, because it had to fit on a floppy disk. There were no undos back then, so in order to go back a step, you had to open another file that you had saved a version of. All schools had a lab, but that was because students couldn’t even consider the $15,000 to $25,000 it would cost to have their own Mac with the graphics software needed. The problems with the labs were there were never enough computers for everyone, so students had to sign up for two-hour time blocks to use them.

Returning to earth, because you all know how I like to digress, Hinrichs’ topic at this year’s HOW Conference was on “Using Storytelling in Design”. The information and advice given was timeless in the sense it could have easily been told 15 years prior and still be relevant today. In a nutshell, he says, “Every story needs to be shaped by the ideas to be expressed, the audience to which it is directed, and the medium used.” Coincidentally, Dave Werner, another speaker at the conference advises on the importance of storytelling when presenting your portfolio to help the messages become engaging and personal. (btw, we definitely need to get Dave Werner down to Orlando to give us his ideas on self promotion and portfolios of the digital age!)

Although neither of them mentioned it, there is often a need for the message to be timeless as well. Trends are cool, but be careful not to put yourself in a situation where a story or technique (the way the story is told) dates itself within a year. You might end up telling a story (like the one above about the computers) that is so old and irrelevant that no one cares to hear it. Think flourishes here, you all!

So, all of the digressing I had done about the “good ol’ days” while Kit was speaking got me to thinking about needing a laptop computer upgrade. Not the type you might be thinking of. This isn’t the type of upgrade that comes with a warranty that will expire in a year. Really, my machine runs just fine. I’m thinking more of the type of upgrade you do to your house. I’m thinking resale here. So to make up for the depreciation in the value of my laptop I had Kit autograph it with the brown Sharpie that no one wanted to steal (now the Sharpie story will just have to wait for another time!).