Design + Travel.

It's been awhile since I've traveled overseas. One of the most memorable things about Europe to me when I studied abroad the fall of 2006 was Switzerland's minimal yet highly functional design. A part of me wanted to scream and dislike everything about design there for its repetitive use of Helvetica, but after walking around the city enough and experiencing their world as a whole.... it all really made a lot of sense.

I guess that's why part of me will be changed forever in my journey to love and appreciate design/art. My experiences overseas pushed me to see things differently and gives more meaning to everything i do not only in design but in my life. Living in Europe changed me. I spent a lot more time getting in touch with my spiritual life. I picked up St. Augustine's Confessions (one of about 4 copies left from previous roommates in our apartment). The book contained so much doubt, faith and poetry.... that I couldn't put it down. St. Augustine knew how to make highly philosophical ideas sound like nothing but a simple love poem.

I challenged myself in Europe; asking myself "why?" over and over with everything i did and made that semester. I grew as a designer and a person. Not only did the new environment of Europe make me more vulnerable..... it just allowed my mind to grow and be challenged in ways I never thought possible.

I guess that's why... when I finally come to my point... we can sit and search all day looking for really new and innovative ways to design through the internet. But for me.... and from my experiences.... nothing beats actually walking around in a new country where design is vastly different from anything you've ever experienced. You can't create a world in America that resembles Eastern Turkey or the Vatican. You just cant.