Making Things with Mr. Mills

I am a tinkerer

From a very young age, I've always been obsessed with tinkering.  Cracking things open, fiddling with loose parts, investigating and experimenting, like a mad scientist. When I get my hands on something, I need to know how it works, reverse engineering every layer, every step of its creation in my mind. I've also always been drawn to the invisible wonders of the world; the wayfinding signs in a busy airport, the perfectly spaced lines and uniformity on a nutrition label, the elegance of a 3D printer moving in 3 different axes independently.  It's one thing when a well designed thing is underappreciated, it's another thing entirely when that same thing goes completely unnoticed. This is what drives my passion for design. Bringing attention to the inconspicuous ubiquity of the world through play. Through discovery. Through tinkering.

Really, what I mean by tinkering is: a lot of trial and error. Starting fresh from time to time and carrying forward the things learned from previous attempts. I find that I learn best when I have the time and space to fiddle and play with an application with an end result in mind. That way I can move at my own pace, with a big dream in mind, collecting the little pieces along the way to help me move from the easy tasks to the harder ones. Confidence with a workspace is key. Because I'm very proficient with troubleshooting on the web, it's very easy for me to figure out the answer to something I don't know simply by ALT+Tabbing to Google Chrome, snapping open a new tab and spewing out the keywords I need, like a wizard would cast a magical incantation.

Meticulousness is a large contributor to my workflow, which can be a bit of a curse in disguise. I'm definitely the type of person who would adjust a slightly crooked painting on the wall in a public setting. This compulsivity translates to my personal design projects as well, always checking to see if I've aligned my elements to a common axis, getting pixel perfect distributions, and (almost to a fault) getting around limitations by inventing my own way of making it all look pretty when the software I'm using doesn't give me full control (I'm looking at you, Google). The result is that I end up with a very well thought out piece, something that I'm very happy with. It feels cathartic, an act of self care, to spend that much time on something that (if we're being honest) doesn't really matter to that many people. My advice to other budding designers out there is to get it comfortable with that last 5% of a project being not exactly perfect. If you've got the time, give it that extra hour of tinkering, but perfection comes at a cost, you've likely got other things going on in your life, and at some point... the changes you're making are only going to be noticed by you. 

Teaching During COVID-19

2021 was chalk full of new challenges. I am particularly proud of the broadcasting set up that I jerry rigged from spare tech and equipment around the school. I think the final products from the students turned out wonderfully considering we were essentially using parts that came out of a closet. I think I'm most proud of the Subway Map I produced for the school. It was a fun design challenge trying to get all the rooms, corridors and stairwells lined up in a way that still felt cohesive for a subway map. Later in the year, I created a proper, updated map (not a schematic) of the school that was used to welcome the new Grade 9s to the school, and is now used throughout the school as a general wayfinding tool! My next project will be trying to get RCI's video morning announcements up and running. I'm hoping to pick up some more coding skills to ensure the broadcast server runs smoothly.