1. Designers need enthusiasm and passion.
Education at the university cannot teach you about design, it will only be able to guide you in the right direction, the rest is up to yourself in your approach towards learning and discovering what design is about, and what it is capable of. The more interests you show and time spent on self-study the more rewarding it will be. Enthusiasm, curiosity, passion and conviction are the key components in becoming a good designer.
2. Time management is crucial for a designer.
In an ideal world, work should be organised and completed well in advance of the deadline, but this is not an idea world so the best you can do is to manage your time in the best possible way to complete the work at hand on time. Using a plan and following it through will benefit both yourself as a designer and your clients. You can start new projects and work as soon as you have completed the previous project so this will save yourself some valuable time. Lagging and dragging your feet will help no-one so always plan and prepare.
3. The importance of self-study.
It is not the job of the lecturers or the university to teach the students they are there to guide them, but the job of the students themselves. You can only learn so much from another person, if you ever want to understand and improve your skills, your knowledge, or your abilities you will only succeed through self-teachings. There are numerous ways to teach yourself a new skill but it all comes down to self-perseverance, commitment, and hard work.
4. Designers need to take more social responsibility
In the new age of design, designers have a greater responsibility towards social, political, ethical and psychological issues. This was never the case before, but now it is becoming apparent designers have the responsibility in what they are broadcasting through their work, what kind of messages are they communicating to the people. If the work you are undertaking has implications of being misleading, or falsification then as a designer you should speak up and change, alter, or even scrap the design. Basically if it has a negative effect on our society then designer should think hard about what to do to reverse those effects. If it means sacrificing the work completely then so be it.
5. Take people as the foremost
What is good design for the market?
After learning about critical reflection I believe design is not about new techniques or expanding the market but rather about peoples’ values. Seldom do designers begins a project by thinking about the people first about their needs or their desires. So by placing people first when you are designing will give you a more intimate and accurate account of what people really seeks in life. Therefore putting people first I believe is the most important factor when designing.
6. Communication, communication, communication…
The purpose of graphic design and visual communications (terms that are interchangeable) is to make it as quick and easy as possible for people to receive that information. With everyone in such a hurry, you have only fractions of a second to grab someone’s attention and get your message across. Knowing how to do this effectively is what makes graphic design so important and exciting. It is important because fortunes are made and lost on effective or ineffective graphic design. It is exciting because your design could be the one that grabs everyone’s attention.
7. Stay calm
When you are learning about critical reflection, there will always be times you will stray from your target. So at that difficult moment you need to stay calm and refocus on your primary objective. Look into the problem to find the key, and then you can reapply yourself and complete your task.
8. Design must be creative and plausible
Good designs should have many features but a great design should be creative and full of imagination yet still possible to make it into reality. There is no point in thinking up the wildest and most wonderful designs but if it is impossible to complete then it becomes a useless design.
9. Sharing experiences and success.
Sharing our work as designers will help each other into raising our own standards. If I were to share some techniques with another designer that can help him to understand a little more about design then it will make me happy.
10. Move with the times.
Designers should not be sitting in an office trying to draw pictures and posters, designers have to embrace their surroundings and society and the flow of the world. After learning about critical reflection I began to move into areas I have previously untouched, such as motion graphics and trends, way findings, CSR and so on . I believe designers need to be out in the open world and experience what the people are doing things that can impact their lives directly and indirectly. If the designer can do this and learn from these experiences it will for sure improve their views on designing and their understanding of trends and possibly the future.
2010年4月13日星期二
2010年4月8日星期四
Task 8.1 Sustainable design
Lets discuss what is sustainability first, it is where one thing that can be reused over and over again, or where something that has a very long lifespan or long product life. So what is design, it is creating an object or a system, usually done by designers, it can be 2D, or 3D it can range from clothing to advertisement, product or services. Now put the two together to form sustainable design. In theory it is to create something that will last longer, or that can be used over and over again. I think it is more than that; sustainable design is to create something that can last for a long time and can be reused, but also helps to protect our planet.
It may sound very bold or even ridiculous, how can one thing help protect our planet, how can creating something so small and insignificant be a help at all in protecting our vast planet. Simple, because sustainable design is to create a product that is based on renewable materials and long life cycle. They are formed through the basic single emotion of helping the environment. They must be reusable, made of recycled or renewable materials, they must not emit any harmful substances into the environment, and even the energy used to produce these products or services must ideally come from renewable resources. When you add all these factors together then you can begin to see how one small object can start to protect our dying planet.
Our planet, Earth, is in danger of losing many of its natural resources due to carelessness and misuses. To counteract or slow down the effects pollution to the environment and depletion of resources we must act quickly and collectively, that is why sustainable design is crucial to this movement, as it can be done on a massive scale. For example by creating an improved everyday household item that will last twice as long as an ordinary item will automatically reduce wastage or rubbish by half, which will lengthen the time it takes people to fill landfill sites. Now we know what sustainable design is, but do we know how it is done, or what makes a good sustainable product.
Creating sustainable designs is by no means easy it is in fact extremely difficult. To truly make a good sustainable product the designer must first satisfy three critical points in order to design a sustainable product, environmental, social, and financial sustainability. Designers will first look closely at these three factors and how to satisfy them to create a new and improved product. Social sustainability is to satisfy the users’ requirements; it also means to protect the mental and physical wellbeing of the user. Environmental sustainability is to protect the environment, create new ways of producing and manufacturing such as using renewable resources like solar, or wind power. Financial sustainability is not to threaten the financial wellbeing of its users, and maximising the profits by minimising resource consumptions.
Designers are taking the initiative on starting at the forefront of this green campaign, designers are here to educate people about ways that can help our planet through adverts; products; services; and many other forms of communication. Designers are gathering in numbers to try to accomplish this monumental task, not only are they trying to educate they are also trying to invent new improved sustainable products right across the market, from clothing to cars; kitchen utensils to stationary. Anything and everything are being remodelled in this effort of saving our planet.
At the moment this campaign has yet to reach maturity as there are numerous difficulties and obstacles, such as cost; resources; support; and knowledge. When they are overcome one by one then designers will know that we have reached the goal of helping to save our planet.
If I were to tackle a project on sustainable design, then how would I start? I would first look closely at the product that I have chosen to see where I will be able to make it sustainable, it will not be on the surface type thinking but an in-depth study of the particular product. It will have to fulfil the three critical criteria of making a product sustainable. To help I would look at one of the guidelines that is available to sustainable designers such as; eco-indicator 99; simapro; and solidworks sustainability xpress. Then figure out which part of the product would really make it sustainable, it may be the material, the reusability, the disposable factor, or the distribution factor.
As you can imagine the difficulties designers and manufacturers are faced with is colossal, they are not only battling the consumers but also society itself, the trends of consumers are very hard to change or persuade, once they have been nurtured into a buying pattern it is extremely difficult to get them to change. The comfort zone that is defined by the financial outlay of the consumers on the items they purchase and the location they purchased from also plays a big part in consumer buying behaviour.
Furthermore in our current difficult financial climate, very few people will be willing to pay extra for an item with the same functionality as the ones they have become accustomed to, even if the new product can help protect the environment, but we cannot be brushed aside or ignored, as we will have to continue to push, communicate, and educate the people until they realise it is also their responsibility to help save our planet. There will always be a few people that will pay that little extra if it means helping our planet but that is not enough, actually it falls very short of the commitment required in order to change our ways which have caused all this destruction to our planet at the first place.
There are currently very few sustainable products available to the consumers; they are generally energy packages or recycling methods. But there are some companies already established like the clothes makers Nau of Portland, USA, a specialist in eco-fashion, they use materials that are more sustainable. The introduction of the reusable shopping bag by Asda in 2009, where they made it clear if you damage the reusable shopping bag then they will replace it free of charge. It was an outstanding effort to try helping the environment to ease the amount of plastic wastage. There is also “Milliken & Company” a textile company specialises in sustainable materials and reuse of old materials such as carpets; “TerraCycle” a company that takes unwanted waste from the consumers and turns them into new colourful accessories.
I found some new developments of sustainable designs that are beginning to penetrate our everyday living.
NoMix Toilets Separate Waste, Are Super Eco-Friendly
Karim Rashid Univeils Beautiful Energy Efficient " Trex" Lamps
Designer Karim Rashid just unveiled a beautiful new modular lighting system that continues his trek along the path towards greener designs. Dubbed ‘Trex’, the lamp has a soft and stunning aesthetic and utilizes efficient, eco-friendly circline fluorescent bulbs. Perfect as a stand-alone light or dazzling as a clustered constellation, the flexibility of these pieces can add out-of-this-world ambiance to any space.
Seek Rotary Faucet Lets You Dial Down Wasted Waster
Designer Eun Ji Byeon has come up with a new way to conserve water when washing our hands. Far more thoughtful than those pressure-packed push button faucets, the Dial is a stylish polished metal design that gives a nod to old-school rotary phones. Depending on your water needs, all you have to do is turn the dial to 5, 10, 15 seconds or more to manage the flow, and tad-dah! A successful connection to increased eco-consciousness!
These are just a few of the designs I saw, this is just the beginning and it is clearly a working progress towards our goal. I believe it is a difficult task but one that is crucial and critical in helping to save our planet, we as designers must continue to create new sustainable designs and pass on the message to the people, we need to communicate as a group that if we pull together we can accomplish anything, we shall prevail.
It may sound very bold or even ridiculous, how can one thing help protect our planet, how can creating something so small and insignificant be a help at all in protecting our vast planet. Simple, because sustainable design is to create a product that is based on renewable materials and long life cycle. They are formed through the basic single emotion of helping the environment. They must be reusable, made of recycled or renewable materials, they must not emit any harmful substances into the environment, and even the energy used to produce these products or services must ideally come from renewable resources. When you add all these factors together then you can begin to see how one small object can start to protect our dying planet.
Our planet, Earth, is in danger of losing many of its natural resources due to carelessness and misuses. To counteract or slow down the effects pollution to the environment and depletion of resources we must act quickly and collectively, that is why sustainable design is crucial to this movement, as it can be done on a massive scale. For example by creating an improved everyday household item that will last twice as long as an ordinary item will automatically reduce wastage or rubbish by half, which will lengthen the time it takes people to fill landfill sites. Now we know what sustainable design is, but do we know how it is done, or what makes a good sustainable product.
Creating sustainable designs is by no means easy it is in fact extremely difficult. To truly make a good sustainable product the designer must first satisfy three critical points in order to design a sustainable product, environmental, social, and financial sustainability. Designers will first look closely at these three factors and how to satisfy them to create a new and improved product. Social sustainability is to satisfy the users’ requirements; it also means to protect the mental and physical wellbeing of the user. Environmental sustainability is to protect the environment, create new ways of producing and manufacturing such as using renewable resources like solar, or wind power. Financial sustainability is not to threaten the financial wellbeing of its users, and maximising the profits by minimising resource consumptions.
Designers are taking the initiative on starting at the forefront of this green campaign, designers are here to educate people about ways that can help our planet through adverts; products; services; and many other forms of communication. Designers are gathering in numbers to try to accomplish this monumental task, not only are they trying to educate they are also trying to invent new improved sustainable products right across the market, from clothing to cars; kitchen utensils to stationary. Anything and everything are being remodelled in this effort of saving our planet.
At the moment this campaign has yet to reach maturity as there are numerous difficulties and obstacles, such as cost; resources; support; and knowledge. When they are overcome one by one then designers will know that we have reached the goal of helping to save our planet.
If I were to tackle a project on sustainable design, then how would I start? I would first look closely at the product that I have chosen to see where I will be able to make it sustainable, it will not be on the surface type thinking but an in-depth study of the particular product. It will have to fulfil the three critical criteria of making a product sustainable. To help I would look at one of the guidelines that is available to sustainable designers such as; eco-indicator 99; simapro; and solidworks sustainability xpress. Then figure out which part of the product would really make it sustainable, it may be the material, the reusability, the disposable factor, or the distribution factor.
As you can imagine the difficulties designers and manufacturers are faced with is colossal, they are not only battling the consumers but also society itself, the trends of consumers are very hard to change or persuade, once they have been nurtured into a buying pattern it is extremely difficult to get them to change. The comfort zone that is defined by the financial outlay of the consumers on the items they purchase and the location they purchased from also plays a big part in consumer buying behaviour.
Furthermore in our current difficult financial climate, very few people will be willing to pay extra for an item with the same functionality as the ones they have become accustomed to, even if the new product can help protect the environment, but we cannot be brushed aside or ignored, as we will have to continue to push, communicate, and educate the people until they realise it is also their responsibility to help save our planet. There will always be a few people that will pay that little extra if it means helping our planet but that is not enough, actually it falls very short of the commitment required in order to change our ways which have caused all this destruction to our planet at the first place.
There are currently very few sustainable products available to the consumers; they are generally energy packages or recycling methods. But there are some companies already established like the clothes makers Nau of Portland, USA, a specialist in eco-fashion, they use materials that are more sustainable. The introduction of the reusable shopping bag by Asda in 2009, where they made it clear if you damage the reusable shopping bag then they will replace it free of charge. It was an outstanding effort to try helping the environment to ease the amount of plastic wastage. There is also “Milliken & Company” a textile company specialises in sustainable materials and reuse of old materials such as carpets; “TerraCycle” a company that takes unwanted waste from the consumers and turns them into new colourful accessories.
I found some new developments of sustainable designs that are beginning to penetrate our everyday living.
NoMix Toilets Separate Waste, Are Super Eco-Friendly
Karim Rashid Univeils Beautiful Energy Efficient " Trex" Lamps
Designer Karim Rashid just unveiled a beautiful new modular lighting system that continues his trek along the path towards greener designs. Dubbed ‘Trex’, the lamp has a soft and stunning aesthetic and utilizes efficient, eco-friendly circline fluorescent bulbs. Perfect as a stand-alone light or dazzling as a clustered constellation, the flexibility of these pieces can add out-of-this-world ambiance to any space.
Seek Rotary Faucet Lets You Dial Down Wasted Waster
Designer Eun Ji Byeon has come up with a new way to conserve water when washing our hands. Far more thoughtful than those pressure-packed push button faucets, the Dial is a stylish polished metal design that gives a nod to old-school rotary phones. Depending on your water needs, all you have to do is turn the dial to 5, 10, 15 seconds or more to manage the flow, and tad-dah! A successful connection to increased eco-consciousness!
These are just a few of the designs I saw, this is just the beginning and it is clearly a working progress towards our goal. I believe it is a difficult task but one that is crucial and critical in helping to save our planet, we as designers must continue to create new sustainable designs and pass on the message to the people, we need to communicate as a group that if we pull together we can accomplish anything, we shall prevail.
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