Bill Moggridge - What is design?

Bill Moddgridge reflects on the good and bad aspects of design in the video. He uses many examples of what a good design and a bad design is and elaborates why the design is good or bad. In his talk he also elaborates about the difference of design, whether its industrial design, fashion design, graphic design and architecture.

Moddgride deeply elaborates the good and bad aspects of design in todays society and around the world. An example of bad design he talks about is the i-mode cell phone service. he showed a video of the service being used to purchase a drink from a vending machine, however the whole process of purchasing a drink took 35 minutes. in theory this servie would have worked well, but the designer didnt realise the fact that the service will not work well in a real life scenario beacuse it will just take way too long. this is a reason why a designer would have to explore and prototype their designs to further understand the design and how it would work, which is an important aspect in the process of design.

Moddgride also discusses the importance of designing for people. he emphasises that designers shouldnt design a certain product for themselves, but intead they should design for a wide variety of people with different age, build, ethnicity etc. a designer should thorougly undertsand how different people are by analysing information gathered and observing how different people are.

After watching this video i have learnt the difference between good and bad design and why they are good or bad. i also learnt that as a designer, the design process is extremely important in order to understand a design and if it will be succesful of not.

PEER COMMENTS

Jan Gerardino - http://janraymondgerardino.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycled-utility.html?showComment=1318860914463#c5542042563792048380

Sunprit Singh - http://sunprit.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycled-utility-rationale-i-chose-to.html?showComment=1318921581892#c2023041487715060432

Mathew Caraig - http://mfredrick.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcycled-utility.html?showComment=1318921364160#c3866266122774539637

Clement Yoong - http://clementyoongides1031.blogspot.com/2011/10/project-2-upcycled-utility.html?showComment=1318921931277#c6318394245860367077

Robert Vlahovic - http://robertvlahovic.blogspot.com/2011/10/blog-post.html?showComment=1318922267184#c3169227478412779327

PROJECT 2 : UPCYCLED UTILITY

PRODUCT POSTER

ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS

CUTTING DIAGRAM

RATIONALE

The brief challenges us to create an elegant mood or accent lamp out of used advertising posters. The way i wanted to go about designing the lamp was to only use straight strips which was quite a challenge. The material of the poster can be manipulated in many ways, but i wanted to let the material let form itself which is why i chose to loop the strips. The brief also askes us to make the lamp flat-packable, which was a major factor in considering a design for this project and i beleive i have achieved this goal. My design for this lamp is able to fit in a 42x13x6.5cm box, which will reduce shipping costs and enviromental costs. The design itself is inspired by the form of a cocoon, which is a very natural form. The two layers both illuminate differently, which is what i tried to achieve, and this gives it more depth. Overall my design is very simple and elegant.

Annie Leonard - video reflection

The story of stuff at first reminds me an important part of our everyday behaviours. Simply to raise our attentions to the environment sounds simple as described in the video however hard to achieve. With US as an example, it clearly shows what has been told and warned isn’t enough to change our attitudes on everyday consumptions.

From the beginning of the video I thought this was just another greenie production to point out the obvious as it began by retelling the basic assumed processes and stages of a product which eventually ends up as waste. However the story builds as further emphasis and elaborations have been included about who is causing this inefficient and unsustainable cycle. To just an individual making a difference doesn’t seem to have one slightest chance, especially as mentioned throughout the video; the major causer or players to this wastage system are the government and the corporations with the power. But it reminds us that if each and one of us all think as such there will be no change as we as a world play part to the change.

As the video continues it gives more in-depth definition to this production and consumer cycle however the result is always the same. It concludes to say no matter the power spend to extract resources, the workers labour and the money spent by consumers it all ends up being trash within 6months. This made me think closer about the product than our behaviour. Ultimately I realised design does have a major impact on how the user will treat it mentally and eventually determine how he/she will use it and throw it away. As mentioned in the video this doesn’t count the disposable items such as paper cups and plastic bags, it was bigger products like electronics and other large material demanding products. If a person treats the product depending on its value then it is possible to design things to make people treat it better.

In essence the biggest heads up from this video is to relate this known sustainability problem to our design career not just our daily lives. To be aware of our impact and ability to change a person’s judgment on a product can most definitely affect his/her options on treating a product well and the desire to keep it for longer. This might be a first thought for us against planned obsolesces.