Leading with Social Design at Facebook’s Analog Research Lab

“Everything just is,” says Christopher Cox, Vice President of Product at Facebook. Photos is an application for photos, Events is for events, and Groups is for groups of people. Though many criticize Facebook’s interface and design as bland and uncreative, its designers at the Analog Research Lab test their ideas and design decisions in a highly informed way.  According to a design mind article by Reena Jana, the Analog Research Lab is the company’s creative design space used to

...create branded marketing materials—T-shirts, for instance—for developer conferences and other Facebook events. It’s also where designers experiment with simple fonts and sleek iconography that will eventually influence what appears on the Facebook website.

I had never heard of Facebook’s Analog Research Lab. But its purpose, products and success reminded me of topics I have discussed in previous posts. For example, consider Facebook’s design decisions in light of  Nina Simon’s The Participatory Museum. Facebook has certainly managed to promote a social experience that is accessible, meaningful and unique to each user, in large part due to the structure format and design elements the creative team at the Analog Research Lab develops.

Or consider artist Tanja Hollander’s most recent project, Are You Really My Friend? The Facebook Portrait Project,  exploring the (d)evolution of human relationships as a result of our simultaneous existence in two worlds- the virtual and the real. At the Lab, designers are on a mission to make virtual interactions between individuals less cyber and more real.

The Analog Research Lab is not staffed with full-time employees. Instead, it serves as a space for Facebook designers to express the company and the brand using tools and techniques that are, get this, non-digital. The lab is stocked with a printing press, wood cutting tools, ink, a dark room for developing photos, drying space, etc. It encourages designers to focus purely on design, design techniques, and simpler, less complicated design strategies. True to its name, the Analog Research Lab is also a design research space. Colors, fonts, styles, shapes, etc. are tested on real people to gauge their future success and popularity online. The designers also use the space to make motivational, quirky screenprinted posters. Lots of them. So. Cool.

The Lab also serves as the home of Facebook’s new Artist-in-Residency program, a project to create, support and install offline artwork in Facebook’s offices. The first artist, Jet Martinez, recently completed a large, colorful mural titled “Bouquet” to beautify the walls of Building 17, where the company’s engineers work their magic.

Facebook’s offline and online design decisions aim to support human-to human interactions. This may come as a surprise, especially in light of the charged sociological and anthropological discussions that social media has forever affected (for the worse) humans’ ability to interact, engage and relate to one another in the physical world. Facebook’s creative leadership, including Cox, Ben Barry and Everett Katigbak, are committed to the design approach of “social design.” Updates to Facebook’s features, product development and design are made in response to users and their online behavior. Jana explains this approach as one that

…improves how people build human-to-human, versus human-to-interface, connections online.

Take for example one of the Lab’s stationary products- postcards printed with the word “Poke” in red letters. The design is in obvious reference to the virtual action of “poking” a friend on Facebook. To support the human-to-human connection, designers in the Lab created printed postcards, with non-digital design tools, for Facebook employees to write hand-written messages to send through good old fashioned, snail mail. The creative work done in the Lab explores the overlap and divide between cyber and physical interactions- translating Facebook's interactiveness in the digital realm to a tangible reality in our inhabitable space.

It is a neat space- the perfect dichotomy of trendy, vintage workshop and hip, old-school office. I am always curious to see how technology companies incorporate offline art and celebrate non-digital artists in their physical space, if they even do so. Are there other technology companies with similar artistic, in-house projects like Facebook's Artists-in-Residency program? Do technology or digital design companies have a responsibility to support non-digital and offline art? Are cyber users more attracted to online interfaces with simpler, non-digital design elements? Take a look at your own Facebook page. Think about the scaffolding, constraints and structured components that ironically, like Simon suggests, make self-expression so much easier and fluid.

Are you really my friend? The Facebook Portrait Project

I went to elementary school with her- confirm request. He is the son of my mom’s friend from work- confirm request. She’s a friend of a friend that also likes Amos Lee, Portland, Maine and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, but we’ve never actually met- confirm request. The word “friend” is now synonymous with Facebook and its meaning has been redefined to incorporate relationships formed as loosely as in the situations above. Regardless of how intimate your real world relationships are with your newest virtual “friends,” they receive the same amount of information and become privy to the innermost private details of your life through your Facebook activity, statuses and photos.

Yes, you can “poke” others on Facebook, but Maine photographer Tanja Alexia Hollander, has discovered through her own Facebook friendship odyssey that Facebook cannot replace human interactions

Social media has become a fundamental part of our society in the 21st century. Its convenience allows us to instantaneously communicate and share a level of intimacy with those we know well and many we don’t know at all. Despite its presence in our lives today, social networks cannot replicate human interaction. It is arguable, however, that the online environments we’ve created and the resulting reduction of human interaction have an impact on our relationships.

Since the beginning of 2011, Hollander has embarked on a journey to meet (some for the first time) and photograph all 626 of her Facebook friends, traveling across the state, country and world to reach them in their most intimate and private space: their home. Hollander’s photographic and personal journey grew into the project and upcoming exhibit “Are you really my friend? The Facebook portrait project.”

More than just an exploration of virtual social networks and humans’ dual existence in a cyber space and physical, real world space, Hollander’s project and exhibition explores the evolution and modern-day role of formal portraiture, the meaning of home and the future of human interactions and American culture in an increasingly virtual world.

My project is an exploration of friendships, the effects of social networks and the intimate places we call home. Facebook seemed an ideal forum for this exploration. Though we are in the initial stages of understanding the effects of social networking on American culture and photography there is a pervasive feeling that it is changing our interactions with each other and building a false sense of community.

But do not misinterpret Hollander’s project or exhibition- she is neither defaming Facebook nor purging herself of it upon completion of the project. Quite the contrary, actually. As a result of visiting with and photographing each of her friends, Hollander discovered they do in fact pay close attention to her life online and wanted to follow up about what they saw or read. To Hollander, this gave greater merit and value to the relationships she maintains via Facebook and lessened the gap she was questioned between our simultaneous existence in cyber space and the real world.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Hollander before the holidays as she approached the final stages of preparing for the exhibition. Since her project has received wide coverage and media attention, I wanted to discuss Hollander’s relationship with social media as co-founder of the self-serving, fine arts photography studio, the Bakery Photographic Collective in Westbrook, Maine. As a manager and artist, Hollander is in the unique position of successfully managing the studio and doing so with a great sensitivity and passion for the arts.

Hollander is admittedly still overwhelmed by the possibilities, perks and opportunities of blogging and social media, though she now considers herself a Facebook expert (and if you have been following Hollander, the project's Facebook page and photographs, you would most definitely agree).

I asked Hollander specifically about the use of Facebook as both an artist and co-manager of the Bakery Photographic Collective

Now I’m obsessed with it. I’m learning as I go. It has been a process of realization of the perks Facebook offers. It has created an audience. Facebook is really important for an artist promoting their own work. In this down economy, artists can’t rely on galleries for sales- that model is shifting.

Hollander plans to turn her Facebook love loose on the Bakery Photographic Collective’s page once preparations for her February exhibit are complete. For Hollander, Facebook has helped her maintain 626 “friendships,” locate each person geographically and most impressively, create a virtual exhibit to complement her real world exhibit at the museum, as each of her photographed friends were asked to upload their portrait as their Profile Picture.

What started out as a personal documentary on friendship and environmental portraiture has turned into an exploration of American culture, relationships, generosity & compassion, family structure, community building, storytelling, meal sharing, our relationship to technology & travel in the 21st century, social networking, memory, and the history of the portrait.

The possibilities of Web 2.0 for artists as creators and managers promoting their work are endless- Hollander says

I am able to post work as I make it, have a dialogue with a global audience, and market - in one location.

Hollander's exhibit opens February 4th at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

(Photo Credit: Tanja Alexia Hollander)

All things 2.0: Web, Museum and Photo

Before I introduce Maine artist Tanja Hollander in a soon-to-be-published post, take a look at these persuasive and content-rich lectures addressing certain topics of Hollander's project Are You Really My Friend?: the impact, opportunities and shortcomings of web 2.0 for artists, museums, cultural institutions and art venues. Not sure what exactly Web 2.0 is or how museums can best use it? Start here, with Nina Simon’s informative and practical explanation of what it is, what it is not and how the museum exhibition can be used as platform for user generated content. Additionally,  the video allows viewers like you to leave voice comments following the presentation.

I believe that museums have the potential to undergo a similar (r)evolution as that on the web, to transform from static content authorities to dynamic platforms for content generation and sharing. I believe that visitors can become users, and museums central to social interactions.

If you are well-versed and comfortable with Web 2.0, Andy Adam’s lecture explores the many possibilities for photographers through Photo 2.0 and the role of Photo 2.0 in redefining photography as a medium.

Photo 2.0 – Online Photographic Thinking / SPE Conference at Light Work from Light Work on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for next week's blog featuring Hollander and her upcoming exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine which celebrates, challenges and responds to the future of a Web 2.0 society.