At Designtist, we believe that everything is working exactly how it was designed to work. Sure, unplanned stuff happens. But as Mike Monteiro says, designers are the gatekeepers for what they put out into the world, and they should be responsible for the impact of their design on the world.
The products we design are having a bigger impact on our day to day lives. The design of our phones mediate how we communicate with the world. Our diets are being re-engineered. Even the way we pay attention has been designed so that portions of it can be sold to the highest bidder. And while design is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives, it is often invisible. Good design usually hides itself. This is why we make videos about design at Designtist. We want to ask the question of, where are we designing to?
Youtube Intro Animation
Reels and TikTok
When we were starting out, we used Instagram Reels and TikTok to test out some video formats and develop an efficient production process. We now have a fairly replicable production process for putting out regular videos.
We're now moving to YouTube because it allows us to go into more depth on topics that interest us, rather than trying to cram an idea into a minute.
Should you care about type on social media?
Design X Science
B.F. Skinner put a pigeon inside a box, and he gave the pigeon a treat each time it pressed a button. He found that the pigeon got more addicted to pressing the button when the reward was intermittent. When we scroll on social media, we act in pretty much the same way as pigeons in boxes. The reward (the videos that you like or make you laugh) are kind of random, and it is designed to be like that. That’s what keeps you scrolling, or pressing a button like a pigeon in a box, and seeing more ads in-between.
This is design blending itself with science. In this case UX design is fusing itself with a branch of the life sciences, (behavioural psychology). Somehow, a 1930s scientist studying pigeons managed to discover a pattern of behaviour that now mediates my every interaction with apps like Instagram or TikTok. At Designtist we like to think of this as the science in design.
Designtist makes weekly videos about the science in design. As we're just starting out, we're looking to build our team and we're open to collaboration. We also are available for hire.
We're basically pigeons in boxes
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