RAGE!!

This was a design assignment about RAGE. We were given an article to read about rage, and then asked to design three different concepts for critique based on the article. I liked the article, and the last few paragraphs really hit home:

"In The Enigma of Anger, Keizer writes about Abbot Ammonas, who lived in the fourth century as a hermit in a remote and desolate region of Egypt. Keizer points out that Ammonas, while doing his monkly spiritual exercise, never ceased praying to be delivered from his anger. Which raises the quesion: What exactly does a hermit have to get angry about?

Ammonas, whatever hardships he had to endure in the desert, was spared "Dixie" ringtones, telemarketers, and traffic jams. He was spared Bill O'Reilly. Yet he continued to struggle with his anger.

Maybe Ammonas' problem was that he was left, in the end, with the one thing that not even you- well-meaning and kindhearted as you are- can escape.

Your own angry self."

[Utne Reader, Nov.-Dec. 2007, Andrew Santella]

I really liked this assignment; we were instructed to "go crazy" which always makes me happy. I designed the three concepts above, and still had a lot more ideas floating around. After discussing them with a friend, I realized each design appealed to a different personality type- the first was very visual and evokes lots of emotions and senses of calm being distrupted. It appeals to a Feeler. The last is a math equation- reducing something abstract, like rage, to something logical that can be added and divided, like math. It appeals to Sensing types. The second is very practical and somewhat in the middle of both Feelers and Sensers- it isn't overwhelming on emotions, but still gets the emotion across, but using conventional means- words, instead of images, which tend to be more Sensing inclined. Fascinating.

Yes, I buy into the Meyers-Briggs personality theory to an extent, the psychology degree part of me is fascinated by this sort of thing. Jung was always a favorite of mine, many papers written about his theories, and my senior research was based on right-left brain preferences- logical vs. abstract. I think it can tell us a lot, of course as long as we are aware of the danger in it- saying one person can and will only act one way. Which is silly. Most of us have two sides of a brain and most of us use both sides all the time.

Anyway, this was my final version, based on critique and my own Feeler type perhaps, emerging in design!! Which version do you like best and do you think the Feeler/Sensing theory upholds based on which version you like best?