Design - [verb] to form in the mind.: March 2011

Monday, 21 March 2011

Wednesday, 16 March 2011

Salvidor Dali, Hitler and Super Mario are all very different personalities yet they all share one memorable trait; their iconic moustache. It’s the most memorable feature of men who fashion them and almost always leads to a better memory of whom they are and what they represent.

There are many different styles of moustache but they all have a practicality aspect in that they keep sweat away from the mouth much like eyebrows do for our eyes. My moustache represents my profession as a designer. I feel it represents the approach to design that I enjoy and aspire to use in my future career; mixing style and aesthetics with practicality and functionality to produce products or services that are attractive to users but can also greatly benefit them.

Generally moustaches represent confidence as they are worn on your face which is a very visual statement to make. I want my moustache to say “I am a designer and innovator!” I want this to be very clear to people when they see this image that I am proud of my profession and I’m passionate about this industry. Most of the great leaders of the world wore moustaches; Gandhi, Stalin, Einstein, Hussein. Although I do not agree with every aspect of their views or opinions I cannot argue with the fact that these men gained the trust and respect of many followers. I think of myself as being a good leader, I enjoy motivating and directing people towards my own views and opinions.

I use this image to represent myself because even in 2011 the design and manufacturing industry still predominantly consists of males and professional women continue to face prejudice in the workplace. I’m trying to convey, by using this image, that I wish to be viewed as a designer and professional first and a woman second. In using this image I want it to show that the product design, engineering and manufacturing industries should not be stereotyped to being a male only industry as women can fulfill these roles just as well as males can.

Most importantly my brand image is fun. I never take myself too seriously and I’m always the first one to laugh at my mistakes. I think this is really important in business especially design because it’s the best way to overcome and learn from these mistakes. In my opinion, being too serious and focused on the outcome of projects can make designers narrow minded. Even though projects may address serious problems such as global warming, natural distracters, famine etc I always feel it is important to, if possible, make the solution exciting and fun to engaging users and interesting them. It’s also important for me to add exciting techniques and procedures into the design process to help myself engage with the problem. I work better if I don’t actually feel like I’m “working”.

Like many other iconic moustaches my moustache represents me in an instant without any need for further images or explanation.

Saturday, 12 March 2011

No Offence But...

I love old sayings and proverbs. I love knowing where they come from and the real meaning behind them.

It really annoys me when people use them wrong or use them when they have no idea what they actually mean. The best example of this is the term

"Rule of thumb"

It means to make an estimate without any real measure or scientific fact. I'm sure most of you will have either used it or heard it being used at some point. But did you know this term originates from the English law made in the 1700's that allowed men to beat their wives with a stick as long as it was no thicker than their thumb?

It really gets to me when people say these things without any background knowledge in what they're actually saying. You never know who you may offend.

What are your favourite sayings and what do they really mean?

Twitter: @Claire128

There's something about this that's so peaceful.

I read the story about the millions of poor wee fish getting caught in the harbor in California after getting confused and not being able to get back out. Turns out they suffocating because there was so many of them and not enough oxygen in the water for them to breath. Every since then I can't stop looking at pictures of it, it's so fascinating they just look so peaceful floating in the water you almost forget they're dead.

Then I just started looking at other images of animals in formaldehyde. A little disturbing I know but they are so calming to look at just floating so peacefully.

I came across work by British artist Damien Hirst. I'd seen previously a little of his work in news paper articles, mainly the cow and calf preserved in formaldehyde which were displayed in London.

Below are some pictures of a tiger shark preserved by Hirst in the 90's.

The work is entitled "The Physical Impossibility of the Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

As the shark was poorly preserved in the beginning they had to re-do it by stretching the skin of the shark over a fiberglass mould and replacing it in the casing. This made the shark look less realistic as there was no weight or flexibility in the structure.

The cow and calf were dissected and placed into two separate containers each allowing you to walk between them.

While looking around the internet for other pieces of work I came across this image.

Initially even I was shocked by this but when you look at it for a while it just seems so calming. As if the monkey is merely sleeping.

I'm not completely crazy. Death and such don't interest me in any real way. I just had some thoughts on this because it didn't provoke the reaction I expected from myself. It doesn't mean I'm going to go around pickling my pets so they can live on forever...

Stare at these images for a while. Do you feel the same way about them now? Is this how you expected you would react? Let me know.

Sunday, 6 March 2011

James Dyson Workshop

Dyson - the 'perfect example' universities love to use when talking about design. So our university ran a workshop with the James Dyson Foundation for an afternoon last week.

Being totally honest wasn't really looking forward to it I'm not the biggest Dyson fan. I just get the feeling they're still snobby about that time they got one over on Hoover and they can now do no wrong. Which is far from the truth!

While the Dyson representatives were giving us a presentation on their design process and showing off their triumphs I couldn't help but think they were glossing over all their failures.

I can't think one one guest speaker I've heard in the past 3 years at uni that hasn't spoke about their failures and the lessons they learned from them, they were all totally honest with us as most of us are aspiring entrepreneurs. Mistakes and failures are how you learn!

So, the Dyson washing machine - Fail!

Where to start? Ugly? Over priced? Unable to function?

Instead of fixing the problems Dyson stopped production claiming the market was not ready for this kind of product.

The Dyson Airblade - Fun, but fail!

Once the water is ultra-hygienically, super-fastly removed from your hands where does it go? A nice wee puddle on the floor causing a major safety issue that's where. Admitting there is a problem seems harder than fixing the problem itself.

Maybe I'm just bitter because my Dyson vacuum cleaner broke not long after we purchased it and they made me sit through a full presentation on the thorough testing they need to go through to avoid such problems. Now when I say my vacuum broke it wasn't an electrical problem or anything to do with the inside mechanics. The hose fell off. The head fell off. The attachments broke. By the end of it's life the poor thing was covered in Duct tape.

Don't get me wrong the thinking behind all these ideas are incredible and the products could be amazing if they just admitted they were wrong and released a new version that tackled these issues.

So after the presentation we were split into groups and given a brief;

Design a product powered by air that solves a problem. Use Dyson parts and cardboard.

Each group got a different theme and our was games & entertainment. Eventually after some brainstorming, debating, sketching and a a few more heated debates we came up with a product that could be attached to a wheelchair to help disabled children play football. The product was hand operated and pushed air through a pump to move the ball which was on the ground.

My favorite part of the workshop was prototyping the idea. I love looking at technologies, products and mechanisms and trying to use them in different ways so sitting with two huge boxes of miscellaneous Dyson parts was heaven. After some trial and error we made a prototype that functioned reasonably well and presented it to the rest of the workshop.