Jon Kolko: Career Advice for Young Design Professionals

In Chapter 21 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "How Can Young Design Professionals Better Prepare for Problem Solving Careers?"  Kolko notes how younger design professionals should first focus on finding subject matter you are passionate about in your work.  Second, he notes the importance of crafting a design process to create the work, honing it over time by reflecting on your work. 

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of the Austin School for Design.  He has authored multiple books on design, including "Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving."  Previously he has held senior roles at venture accelerator Thinktiv and frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).  Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How can young design professionals better prepare for problem solving careers?

Jon Kolko: Design professionals are already prepared for it. Just by calling yourself a designer and doing design process, design methods, you're solving problems. You could hone all of that. 

And so, I think one of my best suggestions for younger designers is first to find topic areas that you're passionate about. And so, typically design education doesn’t focus on content. Design is not about content explicitly. It's a very malleable discipline but to young designers, I say find content that you're passionate about so that you can gain some kind of depth of impact and breadth of impact at once. And so, if you're passionate about sports equipment, great, good for you. If you're passionate about the homeless, great, good for you. But find some content subject matter that you're passionate about. But then, I would start to really craft a process. 

For me and for my students, it's the use of center design process, it's about design with rather than design for, and it's about immersing ethnography, insights, ideation, and launching companies. That’s the process that works for us. It doesn’t have to be the process that works for everybody but knowing what that process is is critical. And a lot of designers really sort of have a -- have it like throw it at the wall and see what sticks and that’s their process. 

And it comes to back to reflection and we spoke a little bit about that prior. It comes back to this idea of reflecting on your work and then going out of your way to improve method, improve the way that you approach things, and being able to articulate that process to other people. Again, knowledge through sharing, describing what your process is to people in a way that they get it.

How Childhood Passions Lead to Design and Technology Career - Jon Kolko

In Chapter 3 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, designer and educator Jon Kolko shares the stories behind his childhood interests in art and technology. Early studio art ceramics work pushes Kolko to be creative. As a child, Kolko plays with early Internet computers to call pirate bulletin boards and hack RIT password files. Collectively, these shape Kolko's education, leading him to Carnegie Mellon University and catapulting him into his career. Kolko is the executive director of design strategy at venture accelerator, Thinktiv (www.thinktiv.com). He is the founder and director of the Austin School for Design (www.ac4d.com). Previously, he worked at frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He has authored multiple books on design. Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen:  Where did your passions for technology and art originate?

Jon Kolko:  My passion for art originated through a ceramics – ceramics mentor of mine named Alec Haislip.  He’s one of the premier potters in Upstate New York. He studied with a number of the folks that were responsible for Bauhaus and things like that and – so I studied wheel thrown ceramics for as long as I can remember. 

I think I started when I was 5 or 6 and that was like a thing to do and then it became a release and then it became – now, it is a, ‘Wow!  I wish I had more time on Saturdays to spend in my studio.’  Very much art driven.  It’s functional ceramics but it’s also, let’s make it the way I want to make it.  There’s no constraints.  There’s no clients.  There’s no deadlines. 

On the technology side I’ve spent a great deal of time playing with the early foundations of the internet and I was using dial out remote BBSes on remote voxes at RIT when I was 7 or 8 years old to call you know pirate bulletin boards and stuff like that.  Like, we got a cease and desist, my dad actually still has this letter, we have cease and desist from one of RIT’s heads of technology ‘cause we’ve – we’ve hacked their password file back then.  It was like you run crackerjack overnight and it brute force hits it with anything, what I am gonna do with a bunch of accounts to RIT’s vox but I do remember you know getting my first Magnavox 28612 and going to town on it, also the Apple 2c and all that good stuff so I know both of those – were – were pretty prevalent in my life growing up and then it sounds like it was well designed but it was in fact very arbitrary that I ended up going to Carnegie Mellon. 

I remember I got a brochure to attend pre-college there for design, I thought it was cool.  I went - I went to undergrad there, I continued to do my Masters there and years later, you do some research and you’re like, ‘Wow!  That’s like the epicenter of everything technology leading up into what is now normal culture.’  So, you know I think I got super lucky with all of those things, sort of leading to what is now my – my job, my career, and my passions.

How College Interdisciplinary Studies Shape Design Career - Jon Kolko

In Chapter 4 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, designer and educator Jon Kolko learns problem solving in a Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) interdisciplinary studies program. Studying Human Computer Interaction, or HCI, Kolko majors in computer science, cognitive psychology, and statistics. These problem solving skills prepare Kolko for his design career. Kolko is the executive director of design strategy at venture accelerator, Thinktiv (www.thinktiv.com). He is the founder and director of the Austin School for Design (www.ac4d.com). Previously, he worked at frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He has authored multiple books on design. Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen:  How did your interdisciplinary studies at Carnegie Mellon impact your career trajectory?

Jon Kolko:  Directly.  I got a Masters in Human Computer Interaction or HCI which traditionally has been a convergence of cognizant psychology, computer science, design and statistics and that – so fundamentally that career is interdisciplinary, that career path and then if you combine that with sort of an under – underlying approach on just in design like with a big D or however you want to frame it. 

I’ve always approached problem solving with those different lenses on, albeit be not nearly as equally weighted.  I always tended toward the computer science design side of things and away from the cognitive psychology and statistics point of view.  It’s only recently that I’ve actually started embracing both of those two. 

Arguably, they are harder for my small little creative brain to understand because those are like real science elements as opposed to these design disciplines.  I say that completely tongue in cheek so – and so I learned an interdisciplinary approach but I don’t think it ever occurred to me that that’s was what it was because it just seems like how else would you approach solving a complex human problem and then – then from multiple perspectives.  That idea of empathy of being able to view it from a different – a different point of view, I think is pretty fundamental to solving any problem.