What Is This About?

In the interview process, we were discussing what I was ultimately hoping the audience would take away from my talk. While I wished I was a media theorist but wasn’t, or a great artist doing amazing visual works which I’m not, the talk had elements of both things in common ways. In the back and forth with the TEDx Omaha team, when pressed, I landed on “I want people to question more what they see online, to not just blindly accept what’s put in front of them.” Using my progressively minded images would be the messengers for a message about critical thinking. If you align philosophically with the images, great, if not, that works too. And if you happen to have a problem with the images, fine, then do your own talk.

Design Notes

This is, basically, the third version of the talk. The first idea took more of an unveiling approach. The second, more combative, where the core idea was of images fighting back. The final version I presented, in my mind, is a very middle-of-the-road approach. The showing of my graphic design work while I, the maker, tell you, the viewer, the basic brief behind the images and the context they exist within. These images don’t simply emerge out of thin air. There’s a reason for everything — what I’m trying to say, why I’m saying it, and to whom I’m saying it to, as well as, where the image is meant to end up and the action I want a particular audience to take.

Why you should watch my TEDx

An incomplete list:

  • Because I have a clicker

  • Hand gestures (including jazz hands)

  • Help spread disinformation about cows

  • Learn how to say GIF

  • “Both Sides” will join as one

  • Learn how to draw a person

  • Learn how to stop a pandemic

  • Who doesn’t love a good aspect ratio?

  • Racist Map

  • Like it on Facebook

  • Ask yourself, “what am I supposed to do now?”

  • Negative Space

  • Get stuck in the middle with me

TEDx Omaha: Videos 2022

It really is all about timing

Years back, I got really into TED Talks. And I certainly thought I could maybe do one at some point. Especially when the TEDx events started up. I had friends suggest I apply. But when I thought about it for just a little bit, it never seemed quite right. The talk would have to be about my view of graphic design, in some way, and I never felt any kind of certainty about how to go about doing it. I never applied.

The work I did didn’t warrant this kind of talk. I didn’t do anything all that noteworthy for this kind of talk. This kind of talk was well above me. Time went on. I stopped being really into TED Talks.

But this summer I got a text that led to a meeting with the TEDx Omaha executive producer. We had a chat over coffee. I heard all about this year’s theme Currents & Collisions. I also said my piece about how I don’t think graphic design talks mesh well with TED.

I thought more about my view of design. It did sort of seem to go well with the theme. And I do like being sought out. So it was settled. I submitted my application, had some additional interviews, and was selected.

The statement for my talk:

Graphic design to collide with this current American moment.