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Week no. 1: Intro. Monday.

Design 101, iversity.

Greetings from Berlin, having a pic-nic in the garden of the

Neue Nationalgalerie.
Here we are, back to where everything
started. Are you ready to start our
Design 101 introduction week?
Together, well test everything out and
check if you like our moods, attitudes,
and things we want to share with you...

By the way, this Neue Nationalgalerie,

where we are, is a really impressive
space (well, of course it is,
Mies van der Rohe designed it...).
If you happen to go to Berlin,
check it out for yourself!

About our introduction week...

As you know, Design 101 is organized in weekly chapters.
The way it works is rather simple and it repeats itself week
after week.
Monday: you get an overall picture of the week. You know what
you will do (and what you will need) for the next days. Also,
youll have to go through the weekly quiz.
Tuesday: exercise day. You should watch our video-postcard,
read the letter and get to work. After completing the exercise,
you upload a picture of it on the iversity platform. In the
unit of the day, there will be a section specifically for this
below the letter.
Wednesday: same as the day before
Thursday: same as the day before

Friday: same as the day before.

Saturday: time to update your
personal notebook. What you
have done during the week,
notes, sketches, and images.
There is no homework.
If you are behind, this is when
you can catch up.
Sunday: you get a special lecture. There is no homework.
If you are behind, this is when you can catch up.
Its rather simple and we hope you like it.
Basically, every day from Tuesday to Friday, you receive a
brief with something to do.
Always something simple to do, in less than one hour.
Then, its up to you. You can either work day by day, or
process the various briefs during the week-end.
To us, its the same.
By the way, lots of people asked us about the quiz.
Here are our thoughts on the matter:
In a normal course, the quiz is at the end of the learning
period. In this course, we flipped things around and have it
at the beginning (much more interesting).

Question of the day:

Design, how does it start?
Todays question is the typical designers question.
It is so typical that it has a given typical answer,
Get to work! Now!
(Remember, all good designers are hard-working people.)

What do we do today? /
Homework n.1
Today, it is very simple.
First, go through the quiz and answer the questions in order to
understand more about yourself and Design 101.
Then, prepare yourself for the week. We will follow this
schedule:

on Tuesday: a friend of yours will

take a photo portrait of you and
then you will take one of yourself
(have the friend and camera ready).

on Wednesday: you will be a bird

and represent yourself in a three
dimensional object (prepare some
nice paper).

on Thursday: you will cook the

food you like the most (have some
ingredients ready).

on Friday: you will make two

masks (get some cardboard,
glue, tape, colors etc.).

on Saturday: you will update

your personal notebook
(if you havent done this
throughout the week).

on Sunday: you will relax and

watch some special things we
made for you.

Each exercise will take you no more than one hour. Not too
short, not too long. In the middle.
By the way, apart from your notebook,
we assume you have a digital camera (or
smartphone) connected to your computer
and then to the Internet.
Thats it.
We know you have a lot of questions but
please be patient for our following
letters...

What will you learn?

If you prepare the whole week now,
you will organize yourself and
your time (in respect to Design
101). One hour per day.
Reasonable and viable.
Learn to organize your time.

Why do we do this?
We do this, because we want you to complete the whole week.
If you start nicely and quit after a couple of days, we will
all have failed.
Controlling time is the best way to reach Sunday fine and
dandy.
Design can be understood as organizing our
time in the best way possible. Good designers
can design space and things. Amazing designers
design time, starting with their own.
Heres a nice reference for you:
the Quipu necklace/calendar, a fantastic device
to count and keep control of time + much more.

Something to remember:
Design is organizing
time and things.
Further inspiration...
Today, we could check Enzo Maris perpetual calendar.
Isnt it nice?
Lots of designers applied their
skills to time-related devices.
Here you have a nice one.
What are the ones you use?
Do you like them?
Have you ever thought about these
tools as design things?

Heres another quote:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with
a single step, said Lao Tzu.
Although he was not a designer,
his thinking is extremely precious and
relevant to us (quite impressive that he
lived some 2.500 years ago).

One last thing? Ok.

Here you have David Bowies Absolute Beginners.
Find the lyrics and enjoy your day!

P.S.
Watch out!
When we say that you should do every exercise in no more than
one hour, we mean it. Of course, we cannot check if you spend
one hour or 10 hours on it. But if you reserve no more than one
hour per day for Design 101, its great!
If you overwork, there will be a moment when youll drop the
course (and we really dont want that to happen).

Regarding the course

This appendix is to remind you some general things.
What you are reading now is one of the seven letters belonging
to the so-called Introduction Chapter. We made this unit to
test the whole thing before the course is fully underway.
We will test a number of things, you test if you like our mood
and attitudes.
The course will work in a very easy way.
Every day from October 28, 2013, to January 24, 2014, we will
send out a digital postcard and a letter. One shipment per day.
We will work on a weekly system. Each week is a new chapter
made of seven postcards and letters.
You will receive a postcard a day with a visual description
of where we are (remember? Design 101 is a journey into
contemporary design).
Once the postcard flips to its back side, you will find the
days brief.
Then, in the letter, we go broad in terms of content,
explanations, this and that, lalala.
Following our input, you start working.

Then, of course, there is the discussions section.

Questions and answers. Doubts and ideas.
Whatever comes to mind.
You will be able to post your questions and reply to other
peoples. This section is the backbone of Design 101. It is a
perfect place to get entangled into conversations and become a
true actor within the community.

One more thing!

If you are of the curious kind, we set up a special document
where you find all the people, places, things mentioned
throughout the course. We consider it our mini-encyclopedia.
Design is foremost a language.
A language shared by designers all over the world.
Things, people, places we all know about.
Once we have a shared language, things become nice, fun, and
meaningful. Conversations start up quickly and flow nicely.
Of course, like any other language, design is in constant
change. Hence, to try mapping it for good is an impossible
task. This is why we like to share our current map / miniencyclopedia. Lots of things are missing, other people would
have chosen different entries. It is a start for your own
collection of references.

Follow us:
Enrol (if you havent done it yet)
Check out the videos we have been making.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
If all of this is not enough, you can follow Stefano Mirti on
his personal Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts (there
you get the real daily feed), as well as Anne-Sophie Gauvin, on
Facebook, and Instagram...

Todays postcard
Berlin, Germany

Neue Nationalgalerie

Us
(straight out of Fellinis 8)
Aldous Huxley

Swiss Army knife