Ryan Fitzgibbon | News and thoughts

Clearly in shock of making it through the second round of elimination, I stood on stage with my two remaining opponents, Alison Yard Medland and Monina Velarde. Once the applause died down, Michael told us to have a seat for the announcement of the final design challenge.

What’s it going to be Beirut? Just get on with it and tell us that you’re going to make us fix the economic crisis in the next 24 hours. Come on, I can take it.

“Your final design challenge” he hesitated, “Make a statement about Civil Rights.”

Oh shit, this is way worse. Where do I even start with this vague of a brief? He preceded to inform us that there was a car waiting for us outside, ready to take the three of us on a private, after-hours tour of the National Civil Rights Museum. “Be specific” he suggested “Choose one thing from the experience that moved you or inspired you or angered you or that you never knew. Based on that, create a call to action.” Paul Sahre added the insightful advice of using our limited time as our constraint and work hard on that single source of inspiration.

What happened between that moment and our arrival at the Museum is mostly a blur now. It was dark and misting as we pulled into the parking lot. Walking up to the Lorraine Motel, the place of death of Dr. Martin Lurther King Jr., was an eerie experience. Connie Dyson, Communications Coordinator for the National Civil Rights Museum greeted us at the entrance. We freely explored the Museum, sketching and capturing every possible piece of inspiration. After about the first half hour, we became more mindful of our docents time and increased our pace. When our time came to an end, we left in silence, awestruck and overwhelmed with emotion.

Reviewing my notes on the drive back to the convention hall, I remembered two booklets displayed in the Museum. Meeting Your Needs and What Are You Still Looking For? Sponsored by the NAACP, both titles stood out to me as ways to share your story and voice your concern with the state of discrimination. I walked through the exhibitions again in my head trying to piece my experience together. I recalled numerous retellings of peaceful protests. Boycotts, picketing, sit-ins, silent protests, marches, freedom rides—All means of expressing frustration.

That was then, but what about now? Where is our voice heard today? Is it heard today, or is segregation just ignored and thought of as a fault of our past? I was confident in this direction, but I had a lot of work to do to answer all of these questions and actually make something to present the next day.

After a 10 minute pause to rest our brains (and debate whether or not to make a quick appearance at the Design Observer party) we retired to our hotel rooms to begin our secondary research (sadly missing the rumored mad-dance skills of our beloved emcee).

Found on Flickr with the caption “Shouldn’t they be working?”

I inhaled room service over a few encouraging calls to my former IDEO colleagues. The next few hours involved a pot of hotel coffee and a lot of pensive palm-in-forehead gestures. You know the pose. It’s in that moment of desperation that you think “maybe if I close my eyes tight enough and really focus, then it will come to me.” Right, like every other genius that can instantly summon an Ah Ha! moment. By 2:30 AM, I had given up on this theory and decided to walk down to the lobby to speak with what I expected to be the only other person awake in Memphis, the concierge. I approached the African American women working with uncertainty. “Just be honest,” I thought to myself.

“Alright” I said to the women quite frankly. “I have to create a statement about Civil Rights” I projected.

“That’s great” one of them said.

“You mean, you don’t think that’s weird? Coming from me? A young, white male, not from around here.” We proceeded to have a very honest conversation about our personal histories and the current state of the Civil Rights Movement. I did a lot more head-scratching at the end of the front desk as they patiently waited for me to raise my next concern. By this time, the Design Observer party had ended which meant that a rush of slightly inebriated designer were released and were flooding back to their rooms. Passing, of course, the front desk where I stood, half-awake and completely defeated. To my surprise, their hilariously drunken pep talks gave me enough motivation to push through until 4:30 when I finally retired for the night.

Three strategically programmed alarms went off until I finally responded to the 7:00 am call reminding me that I had a video interview with Sean Adams in an hour, and I was not going to let him upstage me with his perfect hair or intimidate me with his perky morning interrogation. I used secrecy as my tactic in the interview, but the truth was that with just 7 hours to go, I still had no idea what I was going to do. Shortly after, I remembered having a crazy idea the night before to make a movie. With every ounce of courage in me, I ran with it and began writing a script. There was no time to fear the risk of not finishing, I just had to do it.

A few AIGA volunteers helped me find a quiet room to record my audio and away I went. In the middle of recording, I received a wonderful surprise visit from our mentor, Sean Adams of AdamsMorioka accompanied by Michael Vanderbyl of Vanderbyl Design, and Dana Arnett and James Koval of VSA Partners. So there I was, in a quiet room, suddenly getting advice from four of the country’s greatest designers. It was nice to know that they had my back, but as they were leaving, Michael turned to me and said something to the effect of, “If you screw this up, I’m going to find you and personally kick your ass.”

Got it. I worked faster and more intensely in the following hours than I’ve ever worked on anything. At 2:30 pm, just one hour before the deadline, my best friend and greatest support brought me a change of clothes and wished me luck. This was it. I had no idea if I was going to get this thing done, let alone leave time to export this enormous Final Cut file.

At 3:00 pm sharp, the Memphis Cook Convention Center crew began tearing down the space around me. My two competitors were off getting ready for their final debut, so it was just me, my computer, and a room full of furiously moving fork lifts. I sent out an emotionally panicked tweet. I didn’t know what else to do. Ten minutes later, the unimaginable happened. I looked up from my screen and standing beside me was none other than the lovely, Debbie Millman, partner and president of design at Sterling Brands and current president of AIGA’s national board of directors. My idol came to my rescue. Remarkably, she managed to dispel the chaos around me as she offered her assistance. “Anything,” she said “Just tell me how to help.”

She listened to me talk through my concept, gave me advice, and offered to kick start the conversation of my viral video by tweeting the title of my work, #startasking. I gave her a hug and told her how honored I was to have her support before she disappeared to find a seat for the closing ceremony.

I took a deep breathe, put my earbuds back in and somehow finished my film just in time to hand it off to the Command X coordinator who would deliver it to the production crew backstage. By now, the Apple support team had already begun reclaiming their equipment before I was able to save and transfer my three days of hard work onto my personal hard drive. This caused a minor dramatic incident that would have been great footage had this really been a reality show. Allow me to paint the scene for you; I was surrounded by 8 yellow-vested volunteers, vultures really, each one tugging at different cords. The final straw was when one of them pulled the power cord before the files had completed their transfer.

“I need these files!” I screamed.
“For what?” someone sneered “These computers need to go.”
I was dumbfounded. “BECAUSE I MIGHT NEED THEM LATER!”
I snapped.
“Okay, okay, step away from the designer,” their tech master ordered.
(The time was 3:50, I had ten minutes to get backstage and I hadn’t prepared my speech.)
“Just get them to me, alright?” I said as I scooped up my pile of belongings and ran to the performance hall passing the audience on their way to find seats.

I overheard a group of students say “there he is!” Their voices faded as I raced past, just like the movies. “You wanted a show, right?” I thought to myself. Luckily, a surprise guest appearance from an Elvis impersonator bought me a few more minutes to scratch down my final pitch.

Back on stage, in front of 1,500 designers, I began…

This was an extremely difficult challenge. I felt uncomfortable approaching this subject as a young white male. What role do I play in the Civil Rights Movement? How do I communicate a statement about Civil Rights to an audience of socially conscious makers and thinkers? I had a lot of questions. But who doesn’t? My solution, ask more questions. Start a conversation. And leverage the viral nature of video to continue asking questions.

In the end, I was awarded first runner up. The judges questioned whether or not my execution was the appropriate solution and were concerned that it lacked an emotional charge that would incite action. I disagree. I think the script is powerful and forces conversation and its viral nature speaks to the current state of the Civil Rights Movement, which is the feeling that your voice is no longer welcome in the public domain. Regardless, every single one of the final solutions were remarkable achievements for the time we were given. I am proud of all of us. This experience was by far the most challenging to date, but equally as rewarding. Thank you to everyone that helped encourage and support me to the end.