v2 How? Show Me “The Real World”
Off-White-Spaces
Experiential Learning sparks a colorful relationship between students and white spaces. White spaces require taking action in between knowns and unknowns. By working in the between of their clients’ white spaces, students step into personal white spaces.
That’s how Experiential Learning works. It gives permission to be detoured. To step off track or off road.
Or Off-White.
Off-White Founder Virgil Abloh shapeshifted society. He fused fashion, architecture, and music, coloring white spaces with analogous inspiration. A genre gymnast, he nailed every ten-point landing. Brands noticed too. He enticed Louis Vuitton, Nike, Evian, and more to thoughtfully impact cultural conversations.
Abloh’s life deeply resonates with me. Maybe because we were born less than a month apart. Professionally, I credit Abloh for showing me how to evolve Experiential Learning. Specifically, “Figures of Speech” (FOS) taps into The Great Irony in Experiential Learning.
Welcome to “The Real World”
In FOS, Abloh used quotation marks as a design tool. Quotation marks let him say two things at one time. Open and close quotes transformed everyday objects into unexpected contexts. Abloh showed us how irony reflects figurative and literal conversations.
In higher education, FOS reflects how “The Real World” opens an off white space. Educators breezily wrap air quotes around “The Real World”, creating a mythic membrane to detach ideal classroom calm from actual career chaos. “The Real World” panders to students’ desire for relevancy, provided we insulate them from uncertainty. If we want to connect students’ actions to workplace norms, we must prioritize their relationship to what’s to be determined.
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How might we step out of “The Classroom” and into The Real World?
In my dream Experiential Learning space, I would place “The Real World” welcome mats at entries/exits. Inspired by Abloh’s 2019 Ikea MARKERAD collection, the mats would show anyone who stepped on to the mat and into The Classroom that they never left The Real World.
Show Me Shortcuts
It is always The Best Day when my design thinking students reflect on Abloh’s Public Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 60+ minutes, Abloh’s Run of Show reveals how to use his Cheat Codes. Three favorites include:
- 3% Rule: add a little to create big wins
- Tourist + Purist: experts + non-experts, specialist + generalists, insiders + outsiders all benefit from advancing culture
- Work in Progress: process > perfection, leave space to be determined
With ironic injustice, Abloh’s story remains a Work in Progress. Three years ago this week, the world lost him to a rare form of cancer. His life will always be TBD, so we will always be In Search of Virgil Abloh. Abloh is the first entry in Think By Design’s index. That’s my “Easter Egg” (not-so-subtle FOS irony) encouragement to learn about Abloh and how much color he put into off white.
“AI”
Talk about irony: ChatGPT refused to put quotes around the text in the mat images generated for this piece. There’s something very FOS about that, making AI feel more “Abloh Irony.”
