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Field Study

An Unedited view of design and thought process:

work, experimental and otherwise by Keenan Cummings

Don’t Be Wise. Be Relentless.

This article has been floating around under the guise of “wisdom”. It attempts to answer the question “should I start my own studio right out of design school.” 

“First of all let me just say how much I admire the gumption and the confidence of wanting to start your own studio right out of the gate. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.

Now here comes the hammer: this is a terrible idea. There’s only one idea that would be worse, by the way. And that would be going to work at a startup right out of school.”

First off, I should provide some context. I’m a creative director at a start up, but spent 4 years working in reputable agencies before that. I credit that time I spent there to affording me the opportunities I have now. I don’t regret a minute of it. Okay — got that out of the way.

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10th Sep 2012 | 54 notes | Comments

The most successful founders work on ideas that few beside them realize are good.

—PG

(Source: brycedotvc)

31st Aug 2012 | 1,058 notes | Comments
Going to be posting more process work. Was doing some little icon-style illustrations for a printed piece. That’s right — printed with ink on paper to be held and sniffed and cherished and hopefully not trashed. 

Going to be posting more process work. Was doing some little icon-style illustrations for a printed piece. That’s right — printed with ink on paper to be held and sniffed and cherished and hopefully not trashed. 

30th Aug 2012 | 34 notes | Comments
reworking some old stuff for some new stuff (#workinprogress)

reworking some old stuff for some new stuff (#workinprogress)

25th Aug 2012 | 37 notes | Comments

A history and future of formats: mind ➡ voice ➡ tablet ➡ scroll ➡ book ➡ scroll ➡ tablet ➡ voice ➡ mind

—Started a discussion here on Branch ➡

15th Aug 2012 | 43 notes | Comments

Build Brands, Not Apps : SXSW Interactive / ‘13

The medium is disappearing.

—

I wasn’t around for the invention of the book, the newspaper, radio, television, or film, but grew up watching the internet take shape. The story of a new medium starts with the technology, and moves to the content. We no longer talk about what is inside our TVs, but what is being played on them.

The internet is at that moment. We’ve been long fascinated by the technology layer behind all the liking, linking, streaming, and sharing. But a wave of new users is taking the tech for granted and interacting with pure content and communities.

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17th Jul 2012 | 62 notes | Comments

I promised a daily post this week. Here it is, moments before midnight.

Nine months ago I abruptly walked off the edge of a familiar landscape and into a new one. 

My career so far has spanned several landscapes: I started doing advertising design work out of a two man shop; then moved in-house to join a massive corporate creative team; then strategy and design work for a brand consultancy; and now product, UX, and UI work for a company I co-founded.

Each landscape brings with it a new set of tools for navigation. When we first enter, the path is covered in a fog of war. But over time we master the tools, and it opens up new territory. We no longer stick to the comfortable and known paths. We take courage, explore, follow tangents, uncover unseen opportunities. We are free to chase the rabbit into the woods.

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17th Jul 2012 | 58 notes | Comments

Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars

—/via imaginary foundation

(Source: pieratt)

16th Jul 2012 | 101 notes | Comments
There is a woman in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam that sells broth-based soups out of a narrow canoe in the busy river markets. She has been doing it for 40+ years — long enough to earn her legendary status.A good Vietnamese broth is rich and complex, but also light. They say you can judge a broth by how clear it is. It looked almost watery but smacks your mouth with intense flavors. It is a difficult thing to master. Her path to master brothsman started with regular tastings of the fresh ingredients being sold in the market each day. She worked without a recipe, going off a bit of precedent and maybe some traditional broth best practices. From there, the process was her own. She experimented with quantities and methods. Sales were *a* guiding metric, but not *the* guiding metric. The development of her legendary broth was led by an innate sense of taste. Over and over, always slightly forward, off on occasional tangents, new flavors, adjusting the levels, balancing, getting it right. It was her own experience and sense that she trusted to perfect the final product. Now her broth is a legend. But she still hustles, rowing her tiny flat bottomed boat through the traffic of the river markets singing her offer. And despite the quality of her product, some days she merely breaks even. On a good day she might make $10. She has earned praise for perfecting her craft. And she enjoys the ultimate reward: enough people, everyday, enjoying her labor, and in return affording her the ability to return to the market, fill her pot, try something new, better her craft, and continue to make what she loves.

There is a woman in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam that sells broth-based soups out of a narrow canoe in the busy river markets. She has been doing it for 40+ years — long enough to earn her legendary status.

A good Vietnamese broth is rich and complex, but also light. They say you can judge a broth by how clear it is. It looked almost watery but smacks your mouth with intense flavors. It is a difficult thing to master. 

Her path to master brothsman started with regular tastings of the fresh ingredients being sold in the market each day. She worked without a recipe, going off a bit of precedent and maybe some traditional broth best practices. From there, the process was her own. She experimented with quantities and methods. Sales were *a* guiding metric, but not *the* guiding metric. The development of her legendary broth was led by an innate sense of taste. Over and over, always slightly forward, off on occasional tangents, new flavors, adjusting the levels, balancing, getting it right. It was her own experience and sense that she trusted to perfect the final product. 

Now her broth is a legend. But she still hustles, rowing her tiny flat bottomed boat through the traffic of the river markets singing her offer. And despite the quality of her product, some days she merely breaks even. On a good day she might make $10. 

She has earned praise for perfecting her craft. And she enjoys the ultimate reward: enough people, everyday, enjoying her labor, and in return affording her the ability to return to the market, fill her pot, try something new, better her craft, and continue to make what she loves.

11th Jun 2012 | 12 notes | Comments

The big secret my dad always reminded us about was that adventure was an everyday thing.

— My dad, via his dad. 

6th Jun 2012 | 16 notes | Comments
Islands of places…

Islands of places…

29th May 2012 | 3 notes | Comments
Wander Week No. 3 is live! (with this flier tribute to Richard Serra)  Where does everybody know your name?  Go To Wander Week 3

Wander Week No. 3 is live! (with this flier tribute to Richard Serra) 

Where does everybody know your name? 

Go To Wander Week 3

23rd May 2012 | 2 notes | Comments

Kuvva Interview: Maintainers & Builders

This interview appeared on the Kuvva Blog. Many thanks to team and their support for what we are trying to build with Wander.

This week we’re celebrating creativity with Wander! They’ve provided Kuvva with the wonderful and inspiring wallpapers. We did a quick Q&A with no other than the Creative Director of Wander, Keenan Cummings, to ask him about Wander as well as about his background. If you’ve been enticed by this week’s wallpapers, you might want to know that there’s much more to it!

Hi Keenan! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Wander
Keenan Justin Daniel Cummings (yup, two middle names!); Age 28; born and raised in Los Angles; last three years in New York; obsessed with finding new obsessions (music then language learning then code then my scooter then architecture then food then Friday Night Lights and on and on and on).

A quick Google search on you shows us that you have a background in designing. What made you decide to pursue a career in design?
I didn’t grow up as an art kid. To fill my art requirement in high school I took an electrical engineering course (not much of an art form the way they taught it in public school) and joined the school choir for year (don’t ask). But I was always drawing to keep myself busy in class, and that lead into several small ventures.

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22nd May 2012 | 10 notes | Comments
Wander is looking for a Front End Developer to join the team.  Apply if you: appreciate and even dabble in design/ux; cause HTML/CSS/Javascript to bow to you in humble submission; care about the future of the internet; have been outside the continental US; have awesome and sharable playlists on RDIO.   Bonus points if you: have designed and built something awesome; have worked in a Rails, Mongo, and/or MVC framework environment; regularly publish your thoughts about the future of the internet; have lived outside the continental US, have an embarrassing playlist on RDIO you will share proudly and publicly.  We are a funded, early stage company in the current class of TechStars NYC. We are weeks away from launch and have been building the Wander community through the Wander Postcard Project, the Wandeer T-Shirts, and the Wander Weeks countdown.  Apply Here

Wander is looking for a Front End Developer to join the team. 

Apply if you: appreciate and even dabble in design/ux; cause HTML/CSS/Javascript to bow to you in humble submission; care about the future of the internet; have been outside the continental US; have awesome and sharable playlists on RDIO.  

Bonus points if you: have designed and built something awesome; have worked in a Rails, Mongo, and/or MVC framework environment; regularly publish your thoughts about the future of the internet; have lived outside the continental US, have an embarrassing playlist on RDIO you will share proudly and publicly. 

We are a funded, early stage company in the current class of TechStars NYC. We are weeks away from launch and have been building the Wander community through the Wander Postcard Project, the Wandeer T-Shirts, and the Wander Weeks countdown. 

Apply Here

22nd May 2012 | 45 notes | Comments
That time in *Yosemite Park* when we spent the whole summer at the river. Share a memory from a place you’ve been.

That time in *Yosemite Park* when we spent the whole summer at the river. Share a memory from a place you’ve been.