why, what, and who: an introduction to my newsletter on design

Welcome to "Making meaning from feelings", a philosophical and practical exploration of the creation process from a design perspective.

It’s daunting to be at the beginning of a journey. The experience ahead is unknown and nondeterministic. Each step spawns multiple options and each option promises different outcomes and meanings. This letter is the beginning, and this is me embracing the beginning.

Why this Substack

I’ve been contemplating doing a Masters or a PhD, but I haven’t identified the burning questions I want to answer. I have an idea of the area of inquiry, but this idea needs exploration, incubation, and more of a shape. That’s what this Substack is for. I will be talking to people, reading research, synthesizing what I learn, and sharing my reflections here.

What this Substack is

Making meaning from feelings is a philosophical and practical exploration of the creation process from a design perspective. We will be embracing the ambiguity of creation and relishing the process of discovery and solutioning. It’s not about what you design, it’s how. 

Making meaning from feelings is me developing a vocabulary for designers to expand our thinking into new, complex but important territories, so that we can more fully participate in and enable strategic conversations pertaining to society and its governance, both online and offline.

Making meaning from feelings is a pedagogical pathway for design thinkers who wish to design in the wicked problem space. We as a community have so much to offer, but in order to do so we need to be able to speak the language of sociology, politics, economics, ethics, and philosophy. We don’t need to be experts in these domains, but we need enough fluency for cross-domain collaboration.

Who this Substack is for

Other designers and product folks, creatives more broadly, activists in the tech space, and anyone interested in creation, design, and technology.