As a designer my objectives are the following:
Create unique and inspirational designs
Evoke deep seeded emotions through my designs
Remain relevant by continually learning and practicing my chosen mediums
Inspiration
Eric Wareheim is a Writer, Director, Actor, and Editor whom I’m greatly inspired by. If I was to pick one artist/designer who I feel I am most influenced by it would definitely be Eric Wareheim. Eric Wareheim has a distinctly different style that he has slowly implemented into mainstream culture, TV and film. Instead of changing his style to suit a particular trend surrounding him he remained true to his style and was eventually rewarded for doing so.
Designed and built by Polish architect Jacob Szczesny, the Keret House claims to be the world’s most narrow house, just 122cm wide at its widest point.
The Keret House is positioned in between two buildings, originally designed as a house for travelling writers. The house built with just enough space for a single person to live and work in.
This house is a great example of the ever growing trend of micro houses. This trend created out of social and economic necessity. In order to combat the steadily increasing cost of living, specifically in metropolitan areas. Micro houses make metropolitan living more affordable by reducing cost of land, cost to build the houses as well as reducing the ongoing cost to operate and maintain the house.
Living in a micro house forces you to consider your true living requirements, forcing one to eliminate excessive consumer goods. This stripping down to the bare essentials means you are consuming less resources and it also means producing less waste and less pollution.
The topic of emotional design is an issue often misinterpreted due to its heavy subjectivity, yet it is an extremely important facet of design and therefore extremely useful to understand. In this post I am going to outline some brief points explaining how emotions affect design.
Now in the following paragraph I will be using beauty to elaborate my point.
Beauty is completely subjective. Nothing is objectively ugly, nor is anything objectively beautiful. What makes something beautiful is how it is interpreted. How something is interpreted is greatly affected by a myriad of variables. Interpretation can be affected by historical context, social status, age, religion etc. All of these different variables are what makes each and everyone’s palates and perceptions unique.
For example, two brothers both the same age, born in the same city, same year, went to the same school, ate similar food etc. would be much more likely to have similar perceptions that two people from different times of the world and from different places. As a large fragment of our perceptions originate from our remembrances.
I briefly touched on the effects that memories have on our taste and that remains very true in the field of emotional design. When we view a person or object we automatically pull memories from different parts of our brains one being Episodic (memory of experiences), unconscious memories and also declarative (factual memory). From these memories our perception of this person or thing are made.
Our perception will then determine our view of a person or object, in this case, whether or not something/someone is beautiful. Therefore I believe our perception, our tastes are completely subjective.
To determine my emotional connectivity with an item or object I must objectively collect data and information regarding any particular item. To elaborate further, it’s important to establish the context supporting my observations.
Whilst I don't extensively feel the direct emotions of love nor hate on a regular basis there are several different emotions that are commonly associated with love and hate that I can use to explain a certain connection that I have with products. Below I will list some common factors that I associate with love, in context to feeling the emotion of love for an item of design.
Any positive emotions that I have are some way or another associated with the memories I have of any particular item. Without memories there is nothing to separate why I would like this item over another one.
LOVE
Positive memories (Nostalgia); when having positive memories with an item, directly relating to it. E.g. Memories of a family member associated with an object such as a chair.
Affection or Pleasure; e.g. Feeling an emotion relating to a positive feeling or act of pleasure from another being “his joy for her affection for him”
Any object of devotion or liking; Feeling joy or warm affection, e.g. “His love for Japan, His love of basketball”
Now that some context has been delivered I will list some items/products that I feel positive emotion towards and why.
What Do I love? / Why?
Macbook
Positive memories:
- Social activity
- Discovery
- Connectivity
- Knowledge
- Wealth
An item that due to the amount of time I have spent with the Item, I have developed a sense of reliance and intimacy with the item. When I don’t have access to the item, I can truly appreciate the positive emotions that I have with the item.
St Christopher pendant
This item was given to me as a symbol of protection before I departed on an extended time of travel. Due to the seemingly grandeur event of travel, which at the time was somewhat of a foreign concept to me. This item gained significance due to the position it was placed within.
Upon reviewal I connect the following emotions with the pendant;
- Optimism
- Serenity
- Anticipation
- Interest
- ecstasy
Time = Creates memories Memories = Create emotions (Love and Hate)
Errors are an unavoidable part of everyday life. Proper design can help decrease the incidence and severity of errors by eliminating causes of some, minimizing the possibilities of others, and helping to make errors discoverable and reversible, once they have been made. We do not have to experience confusion or suffer from undiscovered errors. Proper design can make a difference in our quality of life.
Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman (via yosriady)
In Spiekermann's article, he identifies three methods that a corporation can apply to typography in order to create a distinct identity. What are these three methods? Give examples and note any advantages/disadvantages that might relate to them.
Three methods:
The first method mentioned in Spiekermann’s article is designing a typeface from scratch.
Some advantages and disadvantages of designing a typeface from scratch are:
A: Unique and Original
A: Can be a cheaper alternative to buying licences of existing faces.
D: Difficult to find talented designers
D: Can be a risky move for companies
The second method mentioned is to occupy and dominate an existing one.
An example of a company dominating an existing typeface is Marlboro. Marlboro dominate the typeface Neo Contact so much that people often believe it is their own typeface, which is not the case.
An advantage to dominating an existing typeface is that the design is already made; you simply need to adapt it to suit your corpotation which is a lot easier than creating a typeface from scratch.
The final method mentioned is to adapt an existing design.
An example of corporations adapting an existing typeface is Deutsch Telekom and BMW who both altered the Helvetica typeface enough to avoid paying for the full license of the real thing. Volkswagen also added Utopia to Futura when redesigning their typeface in 1995. Another corporation that has adapting an existing typeface is Audi. Audi repositioned itself as a premium brand by adapting the faces Univers and Times New Roman.
An advantage of adapting an existing face is that you can rename the typeface; e.g. Audi renamed their interpretation of Univers to “Audi Sans”
The Wassily Chair was designed by Marcel Breuer in the cabinet making workshop of the Bauhaus in 1925-26.
The design aesthetic of this chair is very sleek, minimal and modern, Breuer decided to remove all ornamentation and instead design a chair based around functionality.
The initial model of the chair was available in both folding and non-folding versions. The folding aspect of the chair is a clear modernist influence, allowing the user to fold up and store the chair when not in use. This allows an increase in spatial efficiency within a room.
This chair is a perfect example of modernist design. Implementing a myriad of different design principals commonly found in Modernism.
This week in LMI we explored designing from metaphors.
I found this topic extremely interesting as it was a process of design that I was quite unfamiliar with.
Initially we were placed into small groups and given an item/object. As a group we were to find a suitable concept or metaphor for the object.
Then we were given particular objects (e.g Chair) that we needed to design using our initial concept/metaphor.
This activity was a great way to really deconstruct the method of designing from metaphors as it helped me to understand how to not only design from a concept but to imagine an already designed objects design concept.
In this class we looked at design issues in five areas home, health, transportation, entertainment and communications.
The area of design that I chose was home/workplace. We discussed the following questions in groups and came up with the following ideas.
What are the considerations a designer must look at in this area of design?Safey, Functionality, Accessibility, Pricing, Aesthetics, Ergonomics, Market, Sustainability.
What future directions might design in this area be heading
The future of design in the home...
Space is continually getting smaller in homes therefore we need to design products of the home in a more efficient manner. Versatility is also very important.
Functionality. the removal of redundant items etc etc.