On this episode, we talk with Diane Lee, an Assistant Professor at San Jose State University in California. Lee is a multi-disciplinary designer who explores work in print, video, writing, sound, code, and physical space. Lee talks about her research in personal archives, the temporality of digital mediums, how the loss of personal data can be an act of identity formation, and how she encourages her students to scratch the itch of curiosity.

---

Jp:

Diane Lee, thank you for joining us on This is Design School. We greatly appreciate having you here.

Diane:

It’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jp:

So, we’d like to just get started by hearing a little bit about your design journey, and how did you get to be Diane Lee?

Diane:

Oh, you make it sound so important!

Jp:

The Diane Lee.

Diane:

Well, my journey started, I would say in high school. There were hints before that, I think, as I reflect back on my childhood and upbringing and things that I was interested in then. But, I got it in my head at some point in high school, and I’m not sure how or why, that I wanted to study fashion design. And so then, I went to visit the University of Cincinnati, which was the nearest design school to where I was living, at the time, in Henderson, Kentucky. And, had a tour of the design building. And, when I got to speak with the advisor, or the person giving the tour, I realized that, in fact, what I would be more excited about, and what would be more aligned with my interests, and what I was already doing would be graphic design. And, I think I was also particularly charmed because someone told me a story about a student getting an internship in the Alps in France. And so, I was like, “Okay, whatever I need to do to do that. That’s what I want.”

And, the other attractive thing about going to school for design in Cincinnati was this cooperative education program. So, I was committing to a five year bachelor’s program, but also with the promise that I would be able to travel, and work, and do other things while I was a student there.

And, the program is pretty intense. So, you find out pretty quickly if you want to be a designer or not. Because you have to really want it if you’re going to put up with the late hours, the intense critiques, the revisions, the working and reworking and reworking. And so, I just fell in love. Like hook, line and sinker—I was into it. And, it became really clear to me that I could be happy doing that kind of work for a long time. And, I made really good friends, not just in the graphic design department but in other disciplines as well because of the foundations program. And yeah, I kind of felt like I hit the ground running.

In my second year, I took an internship in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a company called ThoughtForm Design. And, I loved the experience I had there. And so, I just kept on going. Five years later, when I graduated, I was able to take a job where I had previous been an intern. So, I started my career working at Apple already sort of knowing the people there because I’d done an internship there already.

And then, it took me a little while. It took probably a good three or four years before I started to question, “Okay, what will I do and where will I go next?” I had spent about a year at Apple after graduation. And then, I transitioned to another company where I had been an intern, called Vanderbyl Design, which is a really small studio. And again, I loved the work and I was really happy working there. But, I didn’t really see a path forward in terms of what’s next.

Chad:

What did you feel was missing?

Diane:

I’m not sure if anything was missing, but there was a lot of repetition.

So, I really enjoyed the dynamic of a small studio working with clients. Getting to know their hopes and dreams and desires for their product, or their business or, you know, whatever the case may be. I really enjoyed that dynamic. But, after a certain point, you kind of learn the industry that you’re working in. And, you see the same kinds of clients if not the same one year after year. And, I really wanted some kind of change—just a change of scenery, a change of pace. And, the options that I saw where there was a potential for growth—and you know, being situated in San Francisco as I was—it seemed like I needed to make a decision about which tech company would I join?

Chad:

(laughs)

Diane:

And, that’s really what the decision felt like to me. I know it’s much more complicated and there are many more options than that.

Chad:

Yeah.

Diane:

But, at the time I felt, “Okay, well I’ve had this wonderful experience working on brands for small companies and having this amazing opportunity to work, most of the time, directly with the, you know, head of marketing or direct, like CEO of the company, where it felt pretty straightforward, actually. You know, they’d come to us, there wasn’t a huge, like, hierarchy that we would need to get through. And, it was a pretty good model for how, you know, a design studio can and could run.

Chad:

Yeah, it’s like almost describing the ideal client-studio relationship.

Diane:

Yes.

Chad:

Right.

Diane:

Yes.

Chad:

You don’t have all the levels of hierarchy to go through. You’re just dealing with the top.

Diane:

Yeah. And, you know, it was such an amazing thing because Michael Vanderbyl, my boss, had worked for 40 years or something, developing those rules. So, I had the benefit of all of the trust that he had built up with these clients, and the institutional knowledge that he had. And so, it was a really, really amazing way to work in that capacity.

I always thought that I’d probably like to go to school again, because I like school a lot. And so, when I was starting to think about grad school, it really felt like either I would find another job to help me continue progressing, to keep learning, or I would use it as an opportunity to go to graduate school. And, I was about 27 at the time that I started applications and thinking about it seriously.

And, I made a very small selection of schools that I was interested in. And, I thought, “Either I do this, or I don’t. I want to go somewhere that I’m going to be really excited about and really invested in.” And so, I applied to RISD, and it wasn’t really top of my list—my short list. But, it wasn’t really at the top. But, a couple of my mentors from undergrad, Kristin Cullen and Dennis Puhalla, who were teachers, professors at the University of Cincinnati, had said to me either in passing, or very seriously, that I should consider RISD. And so, I did.

And, when I visited, I knew I have to go here. I have to do everything I can to be a student at RISD. It was so different from any other environment that I had been in before. And, it did not seem to me like RISD, or the graphic design program, or the graduate program had any agenda for what I needed to do to be a graduate student at RISD, or a set of criteria that I needed to fulfill. But, they didn’t really have a box…

Chad:

Right.

Diane:

…for me to fit in. And, that felt so inviting, and so warm, and so generous, and really the kind of place that I was looking for. Because for all that University of Cincinnati did for me—and it did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was get me from being a nobody high school student with no skills in design to somebody who could enter the field at a high level—it really did have kind of a prescription for what I should be able to do, and the kinds of companies that I should aim to work for, that I was happy to adopt. But, I was looking for a way to learn a little bit more about myself, instead of what somebody else had in mind for what I should be or who I should become. And, that was really exciting to me.

Listen on

Chad:

Yeah, it’s like almost a path to exploring your own voice in design.

Diane:

Absolutely.

Diane:

Yeah.

Diane:

Yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly how I felt about it. And, I had no idea what would come of it.

Chad:

Mm hmm.

Diane:

Which was scary, and also very liberating. And yeah… So, that’s how I ended up at RISD.

Not too long after graduation, I had a conversation with John Caserta, who’s the department head, was the department head. And, he asked if I would be willing to step in and teach a few adjunct classes. And, it was such a gift because it gave me the opportunity to really see if teaching would be a path forward for me without going into it whole hog. And, it was also a way for me to keep thinking about some of the ideas that came up in graduate school about, you know, “What kind of work do I want to be making?” And, “How can I provide space for other people to do you know, personal exploration, but also build skills at the same time?” The courses that I taught at RISD were team taught classes. So, I also had the opportunity to teach alongside more experienced practitioners and educators than myself. So, that was another education.

Jp:

What an awesome experience. Because I think, one thing that we don’t do very well, in a graduate level, is give that opportunity for young designers to have an experience of being mentored by a seasoned professor about here’s how it works. Here’s the magic of it all. And, to have that opportunity to to be paired with someone… Oh, yeah.

Diane:

It was really special because you’ve also… When you’re teaching, and now I’m teaching full time, I don’t really get to see what happens in other people’s classes. I sit in for reviewing others, but to really understand how courses work, that was a great way of doing it; to be responsible for a class with three other colleagues, and to be able to see how they engage, and the different outcomes that they get from their sections. And, yeah. That was really special.

Chad:

In graduate school, were there any particular areas of research that you explored that you feel like impacted, maybe, some of the work you do now, or some of your interests in teaching now, or your perspectives?

Diane:

One thing, I would say, is where some graduate programs are less class oriented and you are offered just, kind of, open studio space and time where faculty drop, in RISD’s graphic design program at the graduate level is structured around classes where, you know, sit in a space and respond to prompts with other people, doing similar work as you are responding to the same prompts. And, the questions were really open ended. Most of the prompts began with a question, or a word, or a statement, which allowed for a jumping off point that would take people into radically different spaces. And, you would have to make these decisions pretty quickly about, “Okay, how do I use this prompt as friction to take me somewhere that I actually want to go?” And, I didn’t really have a research agenda when I got there. So, I was often surprised by the kind of work that I made. But, I became really interested in the relationship between physical archives, libraries, private archives, personal archives, family histories, and our relationship with technology, and how the ephemera and the material of our lives, correspondence, images, reflections even, they’re migrating online into these archives that have the potential to disappear.

So, to give you an example, one project that I made while at RISD, it was kind of a reclaiming of my chat history. So, it was taking text from Google Chat, which was the chat client I was using at the time, and rendering it back into legible form. Because there is a program you can use called Google Takeout to reclaim some of your data. But, it’s made for machines, right? So you can download it, but the file that’s given to you is not legible. And so, I was pretty excited about, and moved by, that because suddenly what might have disappeared is this, you know, flowing conversation over a couple of years, was rendered into a 600-page book.

Chad:

Wow.

Diane:

And, it started to help me understand how much information is out there. You know? And, I would really like to have access to that, you know? It’s one thing to put it out there, but it’s another thing to be able to reclaim it, and to use that material to help understand who you are as a human being and where you’ve been.

And, part of this research was also visiting an archive related to my grandfather, who was a radio broadcaster in the 1930s through the 60s in Victoria, British Columbia. And, it was really interesting to find that these recordings still existed somewhere. Because, I think this… I would not have been able to learn about him or his life or his work, had it not been for an institutional archive that cared about the stewardship of this information. And, who would kept it safe, since it was donated to the collection in the 80s. So, it makes me question how we’ll learn about ourselves moving forward. And, what the responsibility of these data companies is to us as users in terms of being able to read, and use, and benefit from our own data.

Chad:

It’s interesting hearing you talk about some of the work you did in school because some of it topically, it actually very aligns with my own graduate thesis work, that was just centered in a different way. So, I was very much interested in this idea of access to data. Instead of chat messages, I did that through music listening data. And so, the idea of something that used to be very physical in our homes and easily accessible to people, kind of, passively looking at it, and giving a sense of identity and who we were. And, that used to be, kind of, a center point of connection between people. All of a sudden this became a very private activity. But also, we don’t have access to the data of listening to that, or seeing what we’re listening to and really understanding it. And so, I ended up figuring out a way through iTunes to track that data over time and got a group of participants that I followed over the course of the month, and then visualized that data, and then used it as a reflection back to them, and used it as a tool for reflection upon what was going on in their life and what that meant to them, and then created these annotated books that, kind of, became these self portraits. It was it was kind of looking at it at a similar lens of, this is something that we generate, that we used to, kind of have, that we no longer easily have access to. And, if we did have access to that data that is ours, what can we do with it to improve our lives? But, I was mainly curious, similar to you like that point of reflection, which is very interesting.

Jp:

I guess collection of memory is something that is inherent in all of us. Is it that we want to be remembered or how we will be immortalized by looking at what it is out there that we have done, or that has been collected in the past, and tried to reflect upon that as what will be remembered about us?

Chad:

Well, I think but it comes back to kind of where you started this, which is the idea of archives, in that we used to have ownership of our own personal archives in the form of very physical artifacts. And now, so much of our lives is archived away on servers that don’t belong to us. And, we don’t know how long that information will last for. And, it could disappear overnight.

Diane:

Right? I’m curious about that loss of data and what’s kept, because…

I’ll use an analog parallel. My parents just moved from Ontario to British Columbia. And so, I had to clean out some boxes. And, it was all the physical material of my high school years, you know? And, what I had the opportunity to do was also decide what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to shred and never think about again. (chuckles) And, that’s a moment of identity formation where I get to be in control of what I have to encounter the next time my parents asked me to whittle away at my boxes.

Jp:

Yeah. As well as historian.

Diane:

Right.

Jp:

You are now omitting or rewriting the history of who you are. Yeah.

For the longest time now, I’ve been trying to read the biography of John Adams. And, he was a copious writer of details, of happenings, of journals that he wrote. And, sometimes it was just a matter of like, “Went to dinner with Mr. Jefferson.” Like, that was it. But, sometimes he would have a lot of details in his writing. And, I think about some of the things that he did not right. Or, for instance, there are moments in time in which like the Treaty of Paris, and his journal mentions nothing about the signing, but there’s all these other documents and other journals that were written about what he said then, or whatever it was. There are things that we omit from our history that I think the digital
age is getting harder to hide away from.

Diane:

Right.

Chad:

Well, and in the same way, his personal journal was just as curated as sometimes we criticize our curation of our own online lives.

Jp:

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

Chad:

But, just with a different sense of consciousness, obviously.

Jp:

Yeah.

Diane:

Yeah, absolutely.

Chad:

Where, where along the way? Did you pick up the idea of writing alongside design? Because, I mean, that’s not super uncommon. I mean, but it’s also not common.

Diane:

Yeah. That’s an interesting question. It absolutely happened at RISD. I love writing. And, one of the things that I decided to do while I was a grad student was to get a job working at the Writing Center, at RISD—which is now called the Center for Arts and Languages—and it proposed that writing could be a part of the artistic or design process. And, I was really, really influenced by that. I adopted that as my, kind of, mode of being. And it’s… I see it as another way in to understanding why we’re doing the things we’re doing, and what we care about.

And, I think about writing in a really open way. And another connection from RISD is Lucy Hitchcock who taught this class called Shaping Language. And, it was about making writing and designing one in the same, you know? That it wouldn’t be seen as two separate processes. And so, I was really influenced by that. One of the people who I met while working at the Writing Center, and also through the graphic design graduate program is an amazing person called Anne West. And, she is a graduate mentor writing supporter. And, she works with students across disciplines at RISD on writing their graduate thesis. And, her approach to structuring prompts and creating space for people to engage at a deeper level was so moving, and has deeply, deeply influenced the way I think, and the way that I write, and the way that I teach. And so, I am indebted to her forever for the kind of space that she provided for me. And yeah. So, that has really informed what I think writing can do or be for designers.

Chad:

So, I’m curious about what happened after graduate school. What was that process? I know now you’re teaching? What was that experience of deciding that you wanted to teach and that that was something you wanted to pursue? And then, the process of going about doing it and some of the work you’re doing now?

Diane:

Being in the classroom, and understanding the classroom as a space to explore things that I’m interested in, by way of prompts and thinking of students as thought partners. Really, really got me excited. Because, I think that it all feels like unfinished work to me, you know? All of this thinking about archives and data, and what is our relationship to our personal histories? And, what is the material of that? I’ve reached no conclusions about that. And so, going into the classroom has really been an exciting space to continue those conversations, even if it’s in really small ways. Because, I don’t want students to feel like I’m pushing an agenda on them. And, the other thing that’s been really exciting about teaching is to think about how I might also start to create spaces for students to have the opportunity to do their own exploration into what really makes them tick.

Chad:

It’s interesting, because I feel like I’ve had several friends who were either in my cohort of graduate school, or kind of the year before, like in that general timeframe, who, now that we’re a few years out, are saying very similar things of, “Okay, I went to grad school. I’ve now been practicing, and something doesn’t feel right.” And, a lot of it centers around, kind of, the speed of the work in industry right now, and just the relationship that is involved. And, I feel like you’re articulating some of what I hear, and sometimes also experience, of what’s missing. And, that’s kind of this deeper meaning in the work, but also this thought partnership of what can we create together to keep going further? And, it’s really interesting to see and hear you exploring that in the academic sense with your students, as well as outside, you know, in tandem.

Diane:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really important. Because, the students that I’ve worked with are brilliant, and they teach me so much. And so, anything that I can do to help them know their own brilliance, and understand that, the better the experience is for everyone. I find myself often simply giving permission to students to do whatever it is they want to do anyway. Do you have this experience when you’re teaching? Do people come to you and say, “Can I do this thing?” It’s like, “Of course you can.”

Jp:

Yeah. All the time. Yeah, it’s very surreal to be the one that has the authority or the perception of the authority, that I can free you from the shackle of, “I cannot do this, because it’s not within the scope of the work.” Or, “Because it’s not graded.” And, to say to them, “You should be doing this.” Or, “You should work on that project that is going to go into the portfolio. And, you’re going to be able to talk about it much more than any other project because this is something that you are passionate about, or this is something that your focus is in right now.”

Diane:

Absolutely.

Chad:

And, in a lot of ways that exploration outside of what you would expect from the initial prompt, is what makes your work interesting, and what establishes you differently as a designer, and pushes your thinking, rather than keeping you in the box? (laughs)

Diane:

Right, right. Yeah.

And, I think that’s also—in terms of thinking about how we prepare our students to enter professional practice—I also think it’s important to welcome that kind of experimentation, and welcome the possibility that the student may not make a project that’s a perfect outcome. But, this is actually a perfect place for them to try something and totally fail at it. Both for the experience of trying and failing, but also to scratch that itch of curiosity. Just like, “This is your space to do that creative work. Yes, you may!” Like, “I don’t want you to need to ask for my permission. Because I want you to be able to trust yourself, and trust your curiosity, and trust your instinct; that it’s going to lead you to an interesting place.”

Jp:

While we’re almost out of time, with you, Diane, and I’m wondering if we could end the show with some recommendations from you. So, the first one that I usually like to ask, because we’re in San Francisco this season, what would be something that we should see while we’re in San Francisco?

Diane:

I would wholeheartedly recommend a visit to the Letterform Archive. It’s a very special place with tons of printed matter, spanning time and space, and… It’s a really, really fun place to go. So, I would encourage you to spend the time and visit.

Chad:

I’m always curious abou—speaking of writing—what people are reading. Is there a book or an article, or an audio book if you’re a listener, that you’ve read recently that you felt made an impact on you, doesn’t have to be design related or anything like that, but made an impact on you and your thinking that you feel deserves more attention.

Diane:

Well, I’m currently reading a book called Chasing the Perfect by Natalia Ilyin, who’s also in Seattle, I think. And, I’ve really, really enjoyed reading this book. It’s a bit of a reflection on the lasting impacts of Modernism. And, I would have loved to encounter this book in 2012 and/or 13. But, it’s… She’s a beautiful writer and it’s such a pleasant and easy read, while taking on very big topics. So, I’d highly recommend that book.

I think there’s also something exciting and interesting in books unread, you know? So, it’s like what I hope to read, but haven’t read yet because every time I pick it up just feels too heavy. (laughs)

Jp:

That’s my John Adams book, right there.

Diane:

(laughs) Yes.

So, at the beginning of the summer, I bought the Dark Age? The New Dark Age? I should know the title, but I haven’t read it yet! It’s a book by James Bridle about our relationship to the tech that surrounds us, and data, and the infrastructure that supports it. But, it’s a heavy one. So, I haven’t… I’ve read the first chapter like three times. (laughs)

Jp:

Yeah. My second recommendation would be… I’m interested in getting my students to do these types of writing prompts. What would you recommend? How would you recommend I start? Maybe a good writing prompt to start with?

Diane:

Hmm.

Well, this one I learned from a colleague at San Jose State, who teaches in the English Department. And, I think she calls it “writing for full presence.” And, I may have misinterpreted, but the way I use this prompt in my classes is to just set aside five minutes when students arrive in your class, just to write whatever it is that’s on their mind in that moment. Sometimes it’s list making, you know? Sometimes… Oh, because I also participate in this, because I want to arrive with the same presence that I’m asking of my students. So often I’m coming from a faculty meeting or whatever the case may be, an advising appointment… And, until I sit and write a couple of things down, I’m still occupying whatever that space was that I’ve just left. So, I invite students to share what they’ve written if they feel comfortable. But, often they don’t. And, every now and then I’ll share what I’ve written so they have an idea of what’s going on with me. And, sometimes I don’t. But, worst case scenario, it’s five minutes at the beginning of class just to, like, breathe before we dive into the next thing. And, it’s one that I really like. It’s really easy to implement.

Jp:

That’s a great idea. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I’m really gonna do that. I am.

Diane:

Yeah, let me know how it goes.

Jp:

I will. Yeah.

Chad:

My last one, which I may not have hinted at before, but maybe through my thesis work. I love music. So, I’m always curious about what people are listening to these days.

Diane:

I always laugh because there’s the conscientious listening, and then the listening that happens because that’s just what I really need.

Chad:

Yep.

Diane:

And so, what I’ve been listening to mostly lately, conscientiously is the most recent Bon Iver album.

Chad:

Oh yeah! You and me both.

Diane:

But, what I’m listening to, you know, for just the pleasure of it is a playlist I’ve been working on with songs from the 70s, mostly female singer/songwriters. So, there’s a lot of Carole King and Joni Mitchell on there.

Jp:

Do you plan on publishing it through? I don’t know if you use Spotify, or…

Diane:

it’s on Spotify if you care to have a look. Yeah.

Jp:

Well Diane, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate your time and… What a fascinating conversation, and some very helpful tips, especially as we go into the next academic year. So, thank you so much.

Diane:

Thank you so much. I enjoyed the conversation, too.

Chad:

Yeah, thank you.