Photo by: Amber GregoryAs Maurer described, Moniker is all about finding ways in which people can influence the design process. It all started with a series of simple design workshops and trainings among the three Moniker founders. Sometimes, they simply hang a video camera over their table and record the progress as each person in the group mimics what the “leader” is drawing. Other times, they each add one right angle to a composition and see how the process unfolds.
From there, the Moniker movement has grown.
The studio holds weekly design experiments that range from collaborative typography exercises (each person in the circle adds one sticker to a piece of paper before passing it to his or her right, and this continues until the stickers form letters) to simple line drawing exercises that are compiled into “crowdfunded” design videos. In other projects, a Photoshop screen is projected on top a canvas, and the Photoshop user creates white boxes that dictate the area in which the pen doodler can draw. If that doesn’t paint a clear picture — or even if it does — visit the Moniker website to see the videos for yourself. They’re a fascinating study on human nature and creativity.
Moniker says each of these collaborative projects blurs the line between digital and physical art, and performance and design. They also explore the concept of co-authorship. “You always react to what you see,” Maurer said when describing the experiments. “There’s no such thing as arbitrary design.”
What else do all these communal collections of lines, stickers and drawings have in common? They have a knack for going viral. One of its latest interactive creations, “a homage to point and click,” as Maurer put it, has hooked 3 million participants and counting.
Luna Maurer from Moniker
– Emily Hubbell, @emwritesbiz
