Blog 1 – Reflection & Sandwich
Prior to our Studio class on Thursday, I attended an exhibit named “Shape of Things to Come” at Kelvin Grove with a large group of other design students. The works within truly inspired me, as previously I had only seen select works by graduates without much context and certainly without the wonderful insight provided by the two presenters.
Closely following this large gathering of students, I was greeted by a tutorial room full of students with varying experience. Luckily, those at my table were quickly acquainted and we got to talking about how design could be defined. My initial opinion was: “Design to me is the art of creating somethingfor the benefit of others. It is theability to create something other people can enjoy and/or use. As long as new things are desired and people require inspiration, design will be of utmost importance to every part of the human experience.”
Collaborating with my group, we managed to create a mind map which summarised the group’s ideas into a single chart. I don’t have a physical copy of the mind map to show – however, the list we came up with consisted of: “Problem solving, functionality, aesthetic, future, practical solutions, planning, communicate, message, brief, experience, objects, create, adaptable, iterations, sustainability”
From this, I helped to create our submitted definition: “Design is the process of creating a functional object, for the purpose of solving practical problems, to plan for the future, serve as an aesthetic or to give an experience to people. In order for a particular design to be successful, it needs to communicate a message to people, remain sustainable and functional, and be adaptable”
The final form of the definition was when the whole class got involved with shredding off parts we thought were unnecessary and to combine the other group’s definition with it. The much more concise definition is stated below:
“Design is to identify a need for developing an idea or concept and transforming it into a purposeful experience and/or artefact, creating change and serving a demand.” – QUT DXB101 (Anna’s Tutorial Group) 05/03/2015
Later, we were asked to think about skills required to be a good designer. The answers varied greatly across the classroom, which I found to fit to the personality of the person I was speaking to about it. My three words were Imagination, Practicality and Persistence. The choices serve as my mentality as well as a checklist to go through.
Imagination is required first of all, in order to come up with ideas in the first place. Practicality essentially means knowing whether the idea could be carried out using skills already learned, or if outside help is required to get the task finished. Persistence to get the task at hand done is what finishes off my creative process.
1. With these things in mind, I got to imagining a logo to use. Being a rather literal person, my first idea was to represent the three mentalities using symbols that intersect. A basic design for my logo was sketched as below:
2. Moving this into a vector-based program proved simple, due to the geometric shapes and minimalist design of the logo. The colours were decided since they stand out against each other, and I felt that the three colours matched my three skills well – with white for thoughts, red for urgency and green for upcoming success.
3. Next was our task for the week – to create a literal, real-life sandwich. Odd as it sounded, the delicious job was done just the other day for a school-bound refreshment. Now, this bread-enveloped, veggie-sporting and meat-slicing meal was in and of itself a good experience to eat – however, the process that went into creating the snack followed my creative process I’d identified the week before.
Indeed, imagination went into it – after all, my fridge was rather sparse at the time (a visit to the shops was to be made the next day). Practicality came into play later – I knew how to make a sandwich, but to perhaps make it presentable to the camera (as much as an everyday snack can be), I decided to use a sharp knife rather than the hack-job I usually pull off with an average knife. I knew the skills involved and put them into action! Persistence was with me throughout, since usually I’d skip making sandwiches and instead eat what could be considered ‘lazier’ sustenance. Putting the time into it made me realise I should make sandwiches more often; I don’t have to eat out every time I head to uni!
So, that’s the first set of tasks done! I hope to only keep improving at this subject and to discover new things about my creative side with help from my tutor and classmates in the weeks to come.
Blog 2 – Inspiring Designer
The studio was all about investigating designers to find out how they’d cope in revitalising the interest of 16-24 year olds in a given establishment known as ‘The Cube’. According to the task outline in class, The Cube deals with “providing numerous programs, events, and activities in order to engage young people in their pursuits to shapethe future Creative Industries of Brisbane.” (Project Brief, DXB101 Week 3 Studio)
The inspiring designer that my group within the studio concerned ourselves with was Eddie Opara. This particular person was simply chosen from a list provided to us, and unfortunately a source website to summarise his life story and significant works could not be found. However, we still managed to find works credited to him which fitted the task at hand (which was to find appropriate evidence for fitting Logotype, Typography, Colour palette, Tone of voice and Visual identity).
1. A design advertising SORG – Corresponds to Typography (the perspective and style of the text would very much fit ‘The Cube’, being that this typography is literally edgy and quadrilateral in design). Image retrieved from http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662252/
2. Eddie Opara was one of the authors of ‘Color Works’ – Corresponds to Colour palette (his skill with handling colours is shown here to great effect; simple yet intriguing to the eye). Book explained in greater detail here (and image retrieved from): http://new.pentagram.com/2014/02/new-work-color-works/
3. This designer is perhaps most famous for this particular design – Corresponds to Visual Identity (Eddie could design such artwork for The Cube in order to make the environment more interesting to explore). More details (and image retrieved from): http://new.pentagram.com/2010/10/eddie-opara-joins-pentagram/
With these matching examples in mind, we concluded as a trio that Eddie Opara would not only fit the task, but potentially be the best option for The Cube’s staff to consider.
Upon arriving home, I had to consider what would make up Eddie’s ‘sandwich’ – relating to the sandwich I built for myself last week. My inspiration for what I think his snack should entail relates to the last picture in the set I’ve posted here. This sandwich needs to be simple and consist of lines, while being elegant and inspirational.
Given that I didn’t have the ingredients around to make this particular sandwich, nor the skills to pull off the presentation necessary to give Eddie justice, I’ll simply list the components of this delicious snack:
The bread will be untoasted and cut on the sides to make the sandwich very straight on the edges. The inner ingredients would consist of thin chicken slices and vegemite. This may seem a rather abstract idea, but the contrasting foods would work just as well as a comparison between black and white (concerning their actual colours as well as different taste palettes they appeal to). Once piled up properly, this sandwich would be cut into many small triangles for sharing around to other people. Such presentation would be akin to Eddie’s wall design shown above and allow many people to sample the work put into the sandwich.
And with that ends my second blog post about DXB101. Be back soon with an update about a GOMA visit we are about to commence and what I learn from it!
Blog 3 – Creativity Lecture
Josue started by stating that the most important questions about creativity which should be asked include “How do I go about it?”, “How do others go about it?”, and “How do I inspire?”. Creativity to him was defined as “The use of imagination or original idea to create something”, and he brought up an excellent point about avoiding the embrace of status quo – since it’s comfortable but limits the potential of innovation. As an example, Josue’s parents wished for him to have a high-paying profession to be as well-off as he could. However, his natural decision to become a chef gave him the opportunity to travel and practice his culinary schools in some of the highest-ranked kitchens all over the world.
A lightbulb metaphor was brought up, to help us understand Josue’s mentality about creativity. If there are five lightbulbs and only one is lit, then that one clearly has something different about it. However, he warns that creativity can be negative if we aren’t aware of our environment – since we need to take other people and our surroundings into account when trying to innovate.
The lecture moved onto themed slides now, each one corresponding to a major point Josue wanted to bring up for us. The first regarded imitation; his opinion is that imitation is the first step of creativity. We need to find out what exists in the world already in order to create our own ideas. This will exercise our core skills (being listening, learning and being humble), and help us to understand why people out there are succeeding.
Creativity cannot be taught, since it is completely intuitive and based on a person’s experiences and insight. Setting yourself apart from the crowd is absolutely imperative to forging your own identity, and excellence must be strived for at all times! We have to realise that creativity isn’t so much about what we do as it is how we do it. Let others focus on the final product while we continue to embrace and learn more about our creative process.
Next, Josue brings up how he finds cooking to be creative. From the get go, I knew that culinary skills must be a fairly creative process, but his views on it further cement in my mind that it is perhaps one of the most innovation-driven careers out there. After all, most people desire a different experience each time they eat, and the skill required to pull that off is immense. A lot of cognitive thought goes into transforming an idea into something served on a plate. There’s a level of experimentation involved, yet the final product must also appear professional and artistic.
The method to creating something worthwhile in Josue’s opinion is bound by known parameters such as budget, expectations, type and context of the work. Inspiration should have equal amounts of influence from the industry as from outside the industry in order to keep ideas fresh. The key here is to create small innovations; instead of reinventing the wheel, just improve it!
Finishing up the lecture, the final point was that the freedom to create comes when one can control their skills of creating. People’s trust should be earned and maintained through having confidence in yourself and having authority for yourself – anything you do is 100% your responsibility!
After that final point, we were dismissed from the theatre to explore the gallery and complete a multitude of activities within GoMA’s walls. The results of that can be seen in my upcoming blog post.
Blog 4 – GoMA Activities & Mindmapping
I’ll start with photos that revolve around ‘Reacting’. These pictures depict objects and spaces encountered that people interact with automatically.
1: An escalator descending to a lower level in the complex made me realise that the human body does rather automatically step onto it and expect to be taken down without walking further until the bottom.
2: Walking around the museum made me forget the method of transport that was constantly interacting with the ground; my feet! As automatic it gets, I’d say.
The next two photos fit the theme of ‘Responding’. Some qualities and features prompt us to behave in particular ways.
3: When I came across this exhibit, I responded with confusion at how such a delicate structure can stay upright. I responded with curiosity at this exhibit.
4: An exit sign is the universally accepted symbol for evacuation and ‘way out’ directions. As such, responses must be invoked by this sign every day.
Next is ‘Co-opting’, where we make use of opportunities present in our immediate surroundings.
1: I spotted one of the students in my cohort taking a break from walking around the gallery, and knew this would be a perfect example of co-opting. Obviously this chair was in his immediate area and is an opportunity to rest.
2: When I was resting myself, I saw this book sitting atop the others on a table. I took the opportunity to read it for a little while, since I was having a break anyway.
‘Exploiting’ is where we take advantage of physical and mechanical qualities we understand.
3: Seeing that there was nobody occupying these chairs, the two soft surfaces here could be exploited by combining them into a flat area to lay on instead of sitting.
4: On the way out of the Gallery, I decided to take some notes and sketch some things before leaving. However, there were no tables around so I had to exploit a flat concrete surface they had inside the gallery.
Many creative minds use the skill of ‘Adapting’ which shows the way some alter the purpose or context of things to meet their objectives.
1: The group I travelled through the gallery with pointed out that this rock could be seen as a seat. Even though there were no warnings to avoid sitting on the art (and made us wonder if this actually was an intended seating area), we decided not to test it, preventing this from being an exploited feature but rather just an adapted context of what the object can be.
2: Upon noticing this painting, I could see a person yawning – those two curves representing eyes while the lines fit in as a nose and wide-opening mouth. So I posed with it yawning to adapt the appearance of the painting to what I thought it was.
Accepted social behaviour is brought about by ‘Conforming’, since we learn patterns of behaviour from others in our social and cultural group.
3: This intriguing exhibit was the first we visited – it had a lineup outside, all waiting for the opportunity to look at beautiful lights surround them. I entered with the group I joined earlier, and we all made sure to not step off of the platform we were standing on, since the exhibit actually has no protection from falling down in order to enhance the experience. I conformed to the established rules and so did the rest of us.
4: The library is one of the few social areas where people expect you to maintain absolute or near silence. As such, we had to all keep quiet and conform to the societal norms that have been made clear to us from childhood.
Lastly is ‘Signalling’, representing the way we convey messages and prompts to ourselves and other people.
1: This television screen showed a variety of video clips which demonstrated how to pronounce vowels through over-exagerated lip movements with the help of video editing. In this example, the man is signalling to us how to pronounce the vowel ‘O’.
2: In this final example, the signal conveyed is rather obvious. Text on a wall is just about as simple as a signal can get, however these signs were dotted around the gallery and helped with directing us to different exhibits and educating us in and of themselves.
Next are the sketches I drew which are based off of artwork I found particularly interesting within the gallery.
3: This sketch is replicating a thought-provoking artwork I noticed near the door. It represents the belief that Western and Eastern eating customs are very different – because the latter apparently require only one set of utensils compared to the many Western tools for eating. Despite the fact that Eastern countries do have utensils, such as soup spoons, the message is still fairly accurate. How did our cultures gain such different tastes that would justify the invention of so much crockery? We may never know how such diversity started.
4: This vase was displayed near the front of GoMA, and immediately intrigued me. The intricate design is perfectly complemented by the equally intricate message of ‘LIVE TO EAT’. Judging by the fact the subject is holding a burger and cup with a straw, by my understanding this person is being forced to eat to survive as any human is, except they’ve fallen into the habit of eating fast food, and taking the message of ‘LIVE TO EAT’ to heart by being a constant customer of said venues, to the extent where they feel comfortable eating in the bathroom.
The final exercise asked of us to be completed at GoMA revolves around observations of other visitors. All of the guests were found to be quiet and unobtrusive – with no outliers I noticed. There were some patrons who were just milling around, others there for a school trip, and a lot of QUT students taking notes just like I was. In general, people were in the venue due to their own interest in the subject matter – whether it was for personal reasons or for schooling purposes.
And with that ends Blog 4! I enjoyed the trip to GoMA, and hope these observations were of interest in some way.
Blog 5 – Design Critique
1: (http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/yanagihara440/ – due to language complications the exact page cannot be found)
With our task set, I got to work coming up with a concept for my own bento box. Due to the others in my group being occupied with other activities during their break which prevented communication, I was on my own for this one until we could regroup later. My concept began with the idea of a box that could be split into different sections, with moveable elements for a variety of configurations.
2: With a sketchbook in hand, I created the below diagrams to demonstrate this idea. These basic sketches (and three hours) eventually evolved into…
3: A prototype constructed out of Lego, which aimed to demonstrate in a physical sense how the box would work. Each of the seven grey walls on the inside could be removed or placed in any configuration desired. It is not to scale, due to Lego being bulky in nature. The actual product would be constructed out of light plastic or even wood for presentation. My intentions for its use at GoMA was to supply an adaptable container that could hold food for walking visitors, no matter how the food had to be arranged.
1: During the studio after semester break, my group mate Lydia came up with her own concept for a bento box, put together in Google Sketchup. In her own words, the box aims to replicate the floors of the gallery, so that different food that related to each exhibit could be placed into the corresponding space.
2: Below the Sketchup mock design is the inspiration, GoMA’s floor map.
GoMA. (2015). Group Visit Brochure. Accessed at:
http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/66048/2328_Group_visits_brochureUPDATED2011_v4.pdf
The two ideas were pitched to the studio group, with third group member Jesse helping us to present our prototype and diagrams. All three of us contributed to what I saw as a successful show of our individual visions. I plan to now use the prototype I built as a box to hold items in during everyday life, and perhaps to remind me every time I use it of the process that went into making that consistent, effective prototype.
