blog assignment 7: selected posts

[great!] post from Annabel Hawkins:

Who Are You As A Designer?

My approach to design is the mixed bag of lollies you buy at the dairy. It is quaint and nostalgic, a vintage revival of old favourites and new surprises. It is a kaleidoscope that represents a broad illustrative exploration of colour and content. Growing up, my house has always been filled with old religious relics and historical art references. These are the old fashioned raspberry drops that leave a mark on your tongue when you eat them. You can see the influences of such art interwoven in most of my designs. An Art Nouveau femininity plays an integral role to my approach. These are the retro lollies wrapped in delicate cellophane which melt in the sun and make the whole bag smell of sweet. I have a fascination with the patterns of old fabric, and its ability to catalyse the dynamics and textures of a piece of design. These are the vibrant sherbet fizz’s that explode in your mouth. As a European New Zealander, I don’t believe my culture has a substantial influence to the way in which I develop my ideas. Because of this, I like to add influences of others, particularly Indian and Mexican. These characteristics make up the hundreds and thousands of spirited hues and colours, shapes and motifs.  I am a maverick. So are my designs. My history and environment inform my work.

[rich in details] post from Max O'Brien:

I am Designer

When it comes to design, I think as openly as I can, from as many different angles as I can, in the simplest way that I can. That’s the way I do things, and it’s the way my life has lead me.

As far back as I can remember, I have been instilled with the principles of many different theories in design. My father, a software engineer, had always been an advocate for great design in both a material and virtual sense. The walls of the many houses we moved to and from were lined with an array of books ranging from the specifics of code to the ideals of James Dyson.

For the first 6 years of my life, having lived in London and being a mere jump away form the rest of Europe, I was exposed to historical architecture from the likes of Antonio Gaudi to the giant sculptures of Henry Moore. In a continent rich with history and diversity it’s hard not to admire and be influenced by such things, especially when your family members are so actively engaged in design practices and have an eye for important pieces of history and ways of thinking.

We were never a religious family and never derived from any extreme religious backgrounds or beliefs but our morals were like that of what any religion strives for. Unlike religion however, acceptance of others who are different to who we are was commonplace.

“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

I remember this quote from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird because of the fact that it adequately describes my morals and beliefs, not only when it comes to issues of judgement and prejudice, but because it serves as a way of thinking when approaching a variety of situations - including design

It could be said my morals and way of life is influenced by what influences great design. Design isn’t judgemental and neither am I, and like design I’m open and honest. So even when I may not appreciate a piece of design because it’s over-the-top or extravagant like Gaudi’s work, I can still accept its importance in the architecture/design world and history.

My household was littered with designs of likes of Phillipe Stark, Le Creucet, Dyson, Apple and many others and was taught why they were so important in a design sense. Consequently, I found it very hard to adjust when I left to stay at friends houses and found their appliances to be so radically different (and in most cases useless).

If there were any designer I could think of whom I share the most principles of it would have to be Dieter Rams. His ideas, I believe, are the foundation of what makes many great pieces of design what they are and are what any piece of design should be judged by. Designers are artists in problem solving and should be judged as such, it’s the way I’ve been taught and it’s the way I believe.

As a designer, I had been brought up in such a way to think about everything, question everything. “Why did the designer choose to do this? Why not that?” are questions I constantly ask myself and in the end it usually ends up with me endeavouring to come up with a better solution built upon the principles and experiences I have been brought up with.

blog assignment 6: selected posts

from Kerwin O'Malley:

Bauhaus

Considering this weeks theme on technology and the Bauhaus method, There are similarities in the methods and philosophies first introduced at the Bauhaus. Walter Gropius (1883-1969), was the first director of the Bauhaus. The Vorkurs or preliminary work was covered in the first semester and its job was to stimulate the students interest in materials, drawing techniques and form so that there innate creative ability might be best directed towards a specific workshop. This is almost identical to first year design, with DSDN 101 being focused on drawing techniques and different perspectives. DSDN 111 focused on form, especially the fluidity project. And lastly DSDN 141, which focuses on experimenting with materials. By doing each of these courses, we are encouraged to open our minds to view the world in different perspectives, which is necessary when being a designer. Although the school does not have ‘workshops’ anymore, they are represented now with the different disciplines in the BDi; media, culture and context and industrial. The workshops had a technical master and also a form master. This is similar to us having tutors and course coordinator’s. The BDI at Victoria university has many similarities to the Bauhaus as they both encourage students to look beyond conformity and normal views and to look at things from a different perspective and use there innate creativeness.

from Zach Challies:

Technology + Progress

The Bauhaus movement introduced by German designers, craftsmen and architects in the early 20^th century, although heavily criticised at the time, was an educational movement many years ahead of its time. The Bauhaus was school of contemporary design that focused on an amalgamation of the aforementioned principles: design craft and architecture. The school was less concerned with focussing on creating a set of artistic parameters for its students and more encouraging of free expression and an education of a wide bearing of subjects. This mode of education was in order to give students an understanding of the design as an entity, giving them perspectives on design that would be less apparent in a more focused set of educational practices. The curriculum also encouraged the ideas of collaborative design between apprentices, journeymen and masters as the occupants of the school were known as based on their degree of mastery.

These educational methods are reasonably evident in the first year design course. The first semester courses of DSDN 101 and 111 encouraged examinations of form through craft and drawing and incorporated a wide range of briefs that involved varying subjects and use of equipment and media.

These two courses are reminiscent of the Vorkurs, preliminary courses that introduced students to a variety of crafts, methods and subjects before they went on to choose their specializations and subjects of further study.

Philosophically the two courses are similar in that they encourage the examination of multiple specializations in order to give students ideas and principles of design based on an understanding of multiple disciplines; a “holist” education with which they can create design that has universal aesthetic and application.