It's both an end and a beginning for me. It's my last semester of my degree and the beginning of a new project. Beginnings and endings generally bring the excitement and anxious anticipation that comes with change; this past week has been no different.

I'm fortunate to be working with a wonderful, talented group of first year students on a compelling project with Pacific Wild, an environmental conservation group based in Bella Bella region of British Columbia. More on the details of the project in the weeks to come.

For my teammates it's their first time working on an industry project; I'm fortunate to be able to share my experience from the past two projects I've worked on. One of the many things that I've learned over the past year and a half is how easy it can be to get blinded by focus.

We essentially  spend three months in the same room working on the same project with the same people. With this tremendous focus we are able to accomplish significant undertakings in a short period of time, but it also has the potential to narrow one's field of conceptual vision and overlook opportunities for inspiration.

But the best ideas come from broad sweeps of multiple art forms and mediums and styles and perspectives. Creative group think  can stilt the effectiveness of a team. In an effort to battle against this our team has started to hold weekly moments of inspiration. This isn't some spiritual meditation hour but rather a way to continually keep our mind's open. The idea is that each week a different team member will present to the group something of interest, the less digital and unrelated to our project the better.

I started off the tradition this week by sharing with the team the recently published final, unfinished, novel of Vladimir Nabakov, The Original of Laura. Nabakov was in the midst of writing a novel at the time of his death. He realized that he would not be able to finish it and instructed his wife to burn the manuscript. She didn't do it. Their son, Dmitri Nabakov, inherited the manuscript and has been grappling with what to do with it. At the age of 77 Dimitri decided to have it published. It was a controversial move. It was a direct violation of the author's, his father's, desire.

The book was published, but it doesn't look like any Nabakov you've seen before, or any novel for that matter. Nabakov wrote with pencil on q-cards; that is the form of his manuscript. In order to preserve and express the unfinished nature of the work, Chip Kidd, the books' designer, photographed the q-cards, front and back, and reproduced them on the page of the book. The q-card is at the the top half of each page and is trasncribed on the bottom half for legibility. Some cards contain a single word, some just scratched out text. The q-cards are perforated so that they can be removed and re-arranged the way Nabakov would work. The subtitle of the book is a novel in fragements; it is indeed a book of fragements in both physical form and narrative.

The goal of design is to marry concept and usability to create experience. This book accomplishes that by staying intimately close to the concept while enhancing usability. Just flipping through this book is a unique experience. And although it is a story about death which was never finished because of the author's death, it's a book that oozes with life. The connection to the creator is intimate and palpable. It is a testament to the confused artistic process and the power of design. Stay close to concept and design flows naturally.

Ryan Nadel is a second year student in the MDM program