First Reading Assignment (The Design Process - Cover - XVIII)

First off, I would have to say that getting my textbook for my Art 220 class was such a headache. I ordered my book from textbooks.com and decided to pay extra for shipping so that I would receive my book in time to do my homework assignment. The time that was projected for delivery was on Friday 4/1/11. I had the book shipped to my husband’s work because I knew that his office gets daily deliveries from UPS and therefore the package would not get lost. On Friday, when my husband’s UPS delivery arrived at his work, my package was not there. I checked the tracking on my phone and it said, “The receiver is on a holiday. Delivery will be attempted when the receiver returns. / Package will be delivered next business day.” That to me was just unacceptable and very upsetting because my husband’s work was not closed for a holiday that day. Because of this, I was afraid I wouldn’t receive my book on time to do my assignment. Since I was in a hurry to get to campus to see a guest speaker, I asked my husband to call UPS and find out what was going on with my package. He said he put in a claim and tried to have them redeliver it back to his office since it was a time sensitive package. Unfortunately they were unable to do so. The representative at UPS said he could pick up the package from their location in Cerritos on Saturday. My husband, the great man that he is, spent his Saturday morning driving to Cerritos to pick up my book. I was very grateful for him in doing that for me.  

The textbook for my class is Karl Aspelund’s The Design Process (second edition). Karl Aspelund is a professor at the University of Rhode Island in the Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design.  He has been teaching for about 13 years. Just by reading the preface and acknowledgments in his book already intrigues me to read on. I had to look at my syllabus a couple of times to make sure that these were the only sections I needed to read. It seemed awfully short for a reading assignment. In the preface, Karl Aspelund goes into some detail on how his book is organized into seven stages. But what really caught my attention was his statement, “in 14 years, I have not found a single book that walks student designers through the process of design from inspiration to production.” (Aspelund xiii). This to me is very interesting because this is what I believe my class is all about. Professor Moss is preparing us to be successful designers by creating our own unique process. Our unique process will help us as designers to critically think about ideas we have for projects and the steps that need to be taken in order to complete them. Once we have our own process and continue to use it in the same way over and over again, it should give us the same result each time, making our process very efficient and successful. Karl Aspelund has over 20 years of experience in design and it seems that his book was thoroughly put together with help from family, coworkers, clients, and even students of his. I am looking forward to learning about his seven stages and how they will contribute to my success as a designer.

Aspelund, Karl. The Design Process. Second Edition. New York: Fairchild Books, 2010. xiii. Print.