Design Career

I always have a thing with drawing, my parents collected all my drawings from kindergarten till now, i always hated maths, biology, physic or chemistry. in high school i picked visual art and textile and design, unfortunately they are scale down subjects ,even tho i did good my UAI was bad, but i didnt want to go apply a commerce degree for the sake of it, so i did a year of foundation and had a better uai at the end of the course, so i started looking at my options, i was juggling between industrial design and cofa design, i wanted to learn about technical drawings and how to use computer aided design softwares, i never knew if i can become a designer or not, coming from an Asian family, graduate from university is a necessity, regardless of the future career, my father always said you go to university to learn the way of thinking, logic and sophistication. If i can become a industrial design i would design sportwares, may be specifically for martial arts, because i have a huge passion for it, martial arts carried me through some of my darkest and most miserable times of my life, i could not give them up, so if i can use this passion into my advantage in term of designing, i believe i have a higher chance to succeed in becoming a designer. i haven't been clear about my path of life, for the last three years so i delayed alot in my academic progress, but i believe whatever you do, as long as you put in effort you will get results. 

Product sketch

project 2 - peer comments

commented under name MandaChuva

http://pamablang.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycling-lamps.html?showComment=1318911753007#c4666720701651647412

http://jacquelinebui3377777.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycle-rationale.html?showComment=1318911956930#c8744819262252022892

http://lovedbyee.blogspot.com/2011/10/xxx.html?showComment=1318912117042#c2243622442798036678

http://mfredrick.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycled-utility.html?showComment=1318912279632#c9146371326774628477

http://christine-x.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycled-utility.html?showComment=1318912465092#c1344221887772722608

project 2 - poster

project 2 - rationale

Rationale

This design idea came from a random browse on the internet about nature, a caterpillar cocoon shown up and I tried to incorporate the shape and curve into my design, however pattern making for the living beings in nature is very difficult, through many trials I almost given up, I was play around with the shape of a fan-like template I cut out and as I spin it diagonally, it creates a beautiful curve similar to a sea shell, although the form is beautiful but it is unrealistic in terms of lighting design, there were many flaws and difficulties I can not overcome, so I have to forfeit this idea as well.

I made a final large template to try out one last time of the sea shell idea, it failed but i discover as it been curled so many time it starts to sustain the curvey shape, and through a few improvisations, I can to this final form.

I choose 3 different gradient from dark blue to light blue and then dim yellow for the inner layer, I thought it might allow more light sources to penetrate through but because there are very little range or bending at the top of the lamp, the stripes do not open up, even through a trial of sanding the inner and middle layer mildly, thinning the layer doesn’t help at all for the brightness, so I decided  to  cut some stripes off from the inner and middle layers, surprising it turns very dynamic, the positive and negative space the light source creates from the extra space on the layer, displays onto the outer layer yet without losing its original form from the outside, the reason I do not want to cut the outer layer is also because I do not want to lose the original cocoon form.

The joints are really difficult to decide, any foreign material can easily break the form of the lamp or look imperfect, so I decide use the same material as the lamp and make some round arrow head connectors, so by just cut line through the layer and slide the arrow head across it, it can easily stabilize the pieces.

I decide on the cocoon theme is because I think at the time that the life inside of the cocoon is alike to the energy of light, radiating through the layer, ready to shine through.

project 2 - assembly instruction

Project 2 - Cutting diagram

peer comment for project one

http://kosukedesign2011.blogspot.com/2011/09/project-1-experience-enrichment.html?showComment=1318230879812#c7286960177163986989

http://2011jj.blogspot.com/2011/09/project-one-experience-enrichment.html?

showComment=1318229497336#c8815282535650867931

http://neveronline4.blogspot.com/2011/08/design-posters.html?showComment=1318227353080#c1987369037484973853

http://danielhjkim.blogspot.com/2011/09/experience-enrichment-hero-shot.html#comments

http://seon-tae.blogspot.com/2011/09/projet-1-experience-enrichment.html#comments

comment under name of MandaChuva

commented under the name  Mandachuva

What is Design?

Bill Moggridge as the head of the copper hewitt design museum, gives an inspirational insight of what is design, he said anything altered by human is design, everything is "design" the only limitation is one's imagination, he also thinks that there are no categories of design, itself manifested into different way such as architecture, industrial design or interior design, fashion, interaction design. It is not so much of what is design, but more about the feeling it creates of what it is. He also discusses about good and bad designs, because you will not recognise good design unless you know bad design.

Moggridge encourage and emphasis that the demand in designer are now more than ever, the competition to develop and design a better and desired technological future, are pushing the designer harder to innovate and enhance, especially design for people, because designer are always designing for oneselves, Bill said that everyone is selfish, it is an attendancy to all of people to think of themselves first, so it is important to design for other people, let it be different race, culture, religion, background etc.

As Moggridge discusses about good design he gives an example which is a system customized and provides personal service to the visitors, so the designer's focus is on the satisfaction of the visitors, such as their needs and wants, this system can used in the service of parking device, music player and navigator and as a phone which speaks in one's native language.

the most memorable bad design Bill mentioned is the purchasing of soft drinks from one's mobile phone, the I-mode "buy a drink from your mobile phone" service, 'a good design is as little design as possible' stated by Dieter Rams. This service provides unnecessary confusion and complexity to use for a purchase of a drink.

Experience Enrichment Poster

Experience Enrichment Tech Drawing

Experience Enrichment Rationale

Crowned Corkscrew Rationale

I really like organic and curvey lines and being worked in the dining and alcohol industry for 2 two years I realized the corkscrew are mostly dull shaped and cost effective which in other words, it looks cheap. I want to make a corkscrew that can be aesthetic  while using as well as idle. I want the person who serves the wine by opening the pit, and pouring the wine feel not in a servicing role but instead the centre of the attention, and powerful, after the screw penetrated into the pit, the person is crowned.

Crowned corkscrew has so many curves and round edges, your fingers can easily hold and grip onto any part of it, the size and shape balanced out the outline of the wine bottle by adding more volume to the top. The downward indent at the 4 tips also creates comfort to stabilize the fingers grip.

The bee hive oval shape fits into the neutral hand grip, the round overall outline gives the hand more grip, the round outer edges and the indent curves are made to create more friction therefore more stabilized, however I did not have time to execute the base and the screw as desired, as there are so many error and difficulties to overcome and to reach the organic form of the shape of the corkscrew

story of stuff

The lady in the documentary mentioned that linear system isn’t able to work on planet indefinitely, because every steps along the system is reaching its limits.

All the process in each step did not taken the people into the account, what it means is that, no one knows there are actually organizations behind each process. Eg government, however corporations > government because globally, within 10 largest economies, 49 own by government and 51 own by corporations.

Extraction is a fancy word replacing natural resource exploitation  which is another fancy word for trashing the planet. We have to understand that there are limited resource on the planet for us to “extract”, in the pass few decades alone, we have used up 1/3 of the natural resources. The manufactories then use these natural resource along with toxic chemical and energy to create toxic contained products, then human consumes or exposes to these toxin, the worst is that the food product by the top of the food chain for the top of the food chain is breast milk, which is fed to the next generation. U.S. alone releases 4 billions lbs of toxic waste.

Corporations able to sell product so cheap which is impossibly profitable, because they externalizing the cost, in other words low price product are due to the fact that in each processing stage, community or natural environment pay for the cost, in other words damaging the environment, exploiting underage workers, deduct worker’s health insurance. Their goal is to keep the inventory of toxic contaminated goods moving and keep the price low by exploiting (shown above) and keep the customers buying.

U.S. after 911 president bush convince the general to continue to shop, like jimmy carter said in one of his announcement “ we are no longer identify ourselves of who we are by what one does, but what one owns…” usa primer public value is based upon how much they consume, however 99% of product in U.S. are trashed 6 months after consumption and ironically U.S.  ultimate goal is to produce sustainable consumer goods

Planned obsolescence – Design for the dump

Perceived obsolescence – throw away things that are working fine, but they change the look of it, so that the trend leads the way, and people who don’t have the newer version, it shows you have not contributed into the value system as part of the national consuming community

National happiness in usa peaked at 1950s, right before the consumerism exploded

Recycle isn’t enough even if 100% of household trash is recycled, because the factory produces 70 bins of trash to create your one bin of garbage.

Confusing Design

Design Excellence

Human-centred Designs

David Kelley said in the lecture "put behaviour and personality into products". how i interpreted is that a product should not only function merely for its purpose but also synchronized with the user, connect and almost engaged with the user during the usage or simply around the product. the New York City Prada store he mentioned is typical human-centrally design, what makes this Prada store so special? what difference does it have than the one five blocks away? the store itself as an product has convenience, witty, curiosity and technology, 4 things i believe any person would like to see in a product, in this case for example

• the scanner, it can scan any of the garments and basic information will be shown on the scanner screen, but a prospective buyer can also view a footage of the garment such as the runway show etc when press a button on the scanner pointing to a big standing screen.
• changing room, once garments are present in it, a screen outside of the room will display the exact number and type of garments, as well as other suggestion of preferences of the similar style of fashion.
• crystal liquid glass window door is very fascinating to me, it is quite witty because it makes outsiders wonder would they actually get to see the person change cloth, but with a press of a button the entire glass door becomes misty.
• delayed mirror in the change room is also a great design because i personally find difficult to examine the back of a garment that i currently wearing, the delayed mirror has a 3 seconds lag so you can spin around and see the back without having to sprain your neck.

Designing the Cubical in the video is definitely the ultimate human-centered  design because human uses it, human stays in it for 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and human has a lot of problem with its design.
It is all about the person. Most employees feel claustrophobic, trapped and imprisoned in cubicals, design this needs specific behavior and personality thought into it in order to make the users feel good and comfortable , hence human-centered. The final cubical design has sun-penetrable walls, sections of walls contain small aquarium, hemic, speedball to punch with the boss of your choice, a flower in the face of wilt when the user leave the cubical and rises back up when the person comes back.
Human centered design from what i have learnt from David Kelley lecture is that, every product has to not only function but also makes the user feel certain way or behave in certain way, designs are driven by human.   

Don Norman Emtional Design

Dan Norman mentioned a concept that is oblivious yet obvious mind set of consumers, which is consumers expect a product to work exactly how it meant to, for whatever purpose it serves, so the ability to function is unquestionable and is the minimum satisfaction, consumers now turn to aesthetic attributes, he also suggests something very interesting that is " pleasant things work better" designers need to take that to heart because if the consumer able to engage your product at an emotional level then even if the function of the product may be average but the aesthetic of it still makes the process pleasurable, he also believes users connect and engage better with behavioural designs because they feel more in control during the process of usage. He also used an example to explain if a person is in a happy state, he/she can be more creative and problem solving, i find that very intriguing because i have not yet able to do so. one theory Don stated in the lecture is visceral level processing, which he said it is the rapid judgement of good or bad via visual contact made by our brains, i believe designers need to focus on this study and understand what consumer looking for in an product visually, because the ability to catch the attention and fixate a liking from the prospective buyers in an instant, not only means its an successful design but also means the mastering of the psychological behaviour of a person.