WEEK 1 CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
Sketches I like: Nicholas Baker
I appreciate how simple these drawings are and how there's not that much pencil lines are on it before the designer put the pen lines on it. I also like how the designer put some color that directed the viewers toward the function of the product on the drawing. I also thought it was interesting that the designer put the rectangular boxes behind the products to put some structure and framing around the drawings and to give the products some depth as well as show how big the product is.
Simon Sinek Reflection
I thought it was interesting how Sinek saw how apple did their adverts and proposals, they started with why they do things, how they do it, and then what they do, instead of the other way around (which is how most companies do their adverts). This was interesting to me because I never thought you would say what it is that you do last but it makes sense that it would make the biggest impact because you leave the audience with a better view of what it is that you do. I think I might end my Pecha Kucha with "I am a designer" or at least start the Pecha Kucha with why/how I do what I do to follow this sequence.
Hero who inspired me: Giles Miller
Giles Miller:
- Creates furniture and structures out of the simple material cardboard
- He produces it in large quantities in-house with the vast majority being completed by hand in a practice that marries technically innovative design with a hand-crafted process of making. Has a team of individuals hand making each of his unique designs
- He has a degree course in furniture design at Loughborough University.
- "I designed a bed platform out of cardboard to raise rough sleepers off the ground and soon realized that the corrugated side presented wonderful opportunities".
- He co-founded Farm Design and was shortlisted for the New Designer of the Year award at the New Designers exhibition.
- The work is done in his warehouse with the help of his team of individuals making the furniture and structures by hand
- The work is for multiple people, from 'furniture and signage for Ecologist magazine and lighting for Marks & Spencer to cardboard mannequins for Pants to Poverty, part of the Make Poverty History campaign.' and makes furniture and structures for the individual who wants a nice structure and who also wants to be environmentally conscious in the meantime, or for companies who need a nice structure for an event.
- The cost/payment is to his team with him getting most of the profit. I do know that a proportion of every project to the charity Cancer Research
Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3559946/Design-Special-The-Sustainable-Designer.html
Week 4
Why we draw:
Practitioners draw because they need to take the idea that they have in their mind and make it relevant on paper. It is also a way to brainstorm ideas and sketch out the linguistics of how their idea is actually going to work out (in product design, how the product is going to develop from an idea to a functional product).
Their drawings are made by first coming up with an idea, and then putting that idea down on paper, seeing what ideas worked and what didn't, and then coming up with new ones based on those previous sketches/ideas.
Usually, designers draw-- those who need to sketch out the purpose of their idea and design and to further develop the design. But artists may also need to draw to see how they are going to plan out their creative idea and art and how it is going to look as a final art piece.
The purpose of the drawing itself is to visualize better how the idea is going to come about and how the designer/artist is going to implement it in real life.
Circle drawing activity:
Reflecting on the activity that we did in class where we took a paper filled with circles and turned each of the circles into something else, I thought it was going to be easy because I thought the ideas would just come to me naturally, but it ended up being harder to think about possible things shaped like circles when you are under a time constraint. I might need to work on myself under pressure/time constraint.
20-second Reflection of Drawing:
I thought that our reflection of the drawing we found online of a professional in the field that we were going into was pretty hard because 20 seconds is a lot shorter than I had originally thought. As my drawing showed up on the board it was hard to get my thoughts out in a timely manner whilst still remaining calm and talking at a normal pace. I could see the startled looks on everyone's faces as the slides went by, them each hoping that theirs wasn't going to be next. My heart beat faster than I thought and I think that I will have to really practice for the Pecha Kucha in the weeks to follow so now I am making a plan to finish my Pecha Kucha soon so that I have time to practice it seeing as I am way further behind than I originally thought and especially after seeing how small of a time 20 seconds is.
Contextual Practice Week 5
Today when we had the presentation on collaboration, I was amazed at the people who came together to collaborate and actual do something/be good at it. Like for example these people would come together from completely different countries and rig an ATM so that they could collect the people who use the ATM's information. Even though it is a crime, it was a collaboration that was so complex but used so much communication that it was impressive. I saw how collaboration is used in real life and how people can get together with a common goal and actually achieve something.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/europol-dismantles-french-atm-skimming-group-504442.shtml
Pecha Kucha Feedback 1
The first time I ran through my Pecha Kucha I didn't fully understand the time and how short of time I had to present my ideas. I had all my slides but I hadn't quite thought about what I was going to say (I wrote it down in my journal but I didn't know how to summarize all the things I wanted to say). I also don't really know what the tutors want in this presentation. I am putting a lot of my manifesto but am unsure of what else to put in. Jo told me to focus on the future of product design so I will put a couple of inspirational products that I think is the direction product design is heading.
Final Feedback Response
So today I presented my Pecha Kucha and I came in today very prepared because I rehearsed my presentation yesterday night about 10 times haha. I was the first to present in Allistar's group and it went really well. I definitely thought that the time was going to be more of an issue than it was because in the actual presentation I was perfectly on time which was great. At the end, when I saw other people's slides I thought that theirs were very good because they used a lot of images from their own work and put that into the slides to connect it more to what their discipline and their work as a whole. I thought that I could've done better with making the transitions of my slides be smoother in terms of wording because the organization was very jumbled and the slides didn't relate to one another as much as I had hoped. I also started each of my slide with "and here I wanted to show" so there was a disconnect between each slide that I didn't intend to happen. After the presentations and Allister gave us back our feedback, I was surprised to see that on one of my criteria's I didn't get an "excellent." I asked Allister about this because I thought I did pretty well and he said that a lot of my slides were very generic and lacked personal connection. At first I was taken aback by this and had some excuses for this in my head but then as he explained more of how I just used stock google images I started to realize that he was right and I needed to show the audience what I actually meant and connected it to real life images that I thought were inspiring. Next time I need to be way more specific with my images and have a clear story showing my personal opinions instead of just stock photos that show what I am talking about. This was a good reality check to see what I needed to improve.