Favourite Websites! (Assignment 3)

The final part of the assignment was to choose 5 websites about Interior and Environmental Design and another 5 sites with general information about the world that interest me! So here are some websites I visit the most...

Interior + Environmental Design Websites :
http://freshome.com/category/ideas-objects/
 http://www.designspongeonline.com/category/diy-projects
http://www.arcspace.com/index.shtml
http://www.interiordesign.net/newproducts/Green/
http://www.architonic.com/nttre/news/7030000/1

General websites:
http://www.treehugger.com/design_architecture/?campaign=th_nav_design
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle
http://www.designweek.co.uk/design-disciplines/exhibition/
http://www.granddesignslive.com/

Assignment 3: Looking up,Looking down!

For this assignment we had to look into our chosen topic from the Tipping point more thoroughly. During the previous assignment we brainstormed about Mavens,connectors and salesmen and talked about services that people use in order to connect. So I've chosen Social Networks for my research, as a lot of people use them to communicate and socialize. During my research I used the Main Library and the DJCAD Library as well as the Internet to find information.
 

Social Networking Sites

Ballantyne.A, Trenwith.L, Zubrinich.S and Corlis.M, ''I feel less lonely'': What older people say about participating in a social networking website, 2010,UK, Pier Professional. (Journal Article)

This article highlights results from a pilot project that implemented an Internet social networking intervention and evaluated the effect it had on older peoples experience of temporal loneliness.

Dulworth.M, The Connect Effect: Building strong, personal,professional and virtual networks, 2007, Berett- Koehler Publishers. (e-Book)
Dulworth argues that networking is an important skill that if people have and improve it, they can become big connectors and this can enrich every aspect of their lives.

Mitchell.W, E-topia: ''Urban life, Jim- but not as we know it'', 2000, Cambridge, The MIT Press (Book)
The global digital network is not just a delivery system for email, Web pages and digital television, it is a whole new way of socializing. In this book Mitchell examines this new infrastructure and its implications for our future daily lives.

Rheingold.H,The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier, 2000, Revised Edition, Cambridge, The MIT Press (Book)

In this book Rheingold tours the ''virtual community'' of online networking. He describes a community where people talk, argue, seek information, organize politically, fall in love and dupe others. He says that people relate to each other online the same as they would do in physical communities.

Robins.K and Webster.F, Times of the Technoculture, 1999, London, Routledge (Book)
The two authors question whether the new information and communications technologies, such as the internet, justify the utopian rhetoric with which they are promoted, suggesting that they often work to reproduce conservative social practices under a new guise.

Shaviro.S, Connected: or what it means to live in the network society, 2003, vol.9, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press (Book)
This book shows how the continual experimentation of science fiction, like science and technology themselves, conjure the invisible social forces that surround us.

Don't try to be original, try to be good. (Paul Rand)

 In one of our lectures, Jonathan Baldwing mentioned a graphic designer called Paul Rand which I hadn't heard of and thought I'd look him up and learn more about him.
I started by going on his official website, where I found a lot of information about him including articles he has written, videos and interviews.
In his website you can find some of his work, I looked into what he has done as a designer, but what interests me most is the way he talks about design. Rand, was mostly self taught and influenced by the German advertising style.He became one of the world's leading graphic designers and was honored by awards from many professional and academic groups, he was the first to receive the Florence Prize for Visual Communication in 1987. He is also the author of many books.



 Here is a very interesting article by Paul Rand about design, originally published in ''A Designers Art'' :
The Politics of Design (Paul Rand)

Logos he designed!

Finally, here is a video of Paul explaining why a design doesn't have to be original, but good! He is a genius!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49mln0oilsc


Enjoy!! : )

Bomb........ Project!!

Shop!

Play!

Learn!

Learn!

Dwell! (Mr. Dwill)

Shop!

 Bomb project? What is that supposed to mean?
We were all confused when we were given the brief for this ''BOMB PROJECT'' one week into our furniture project but it turned out to be a very interesting and fun project!! It was actually the only time all four years got to work together and met new people!
After being split into groups, we were given a topic each. There were five subjects, Dwell, Shop, Learn, Play and Care. Each group had to think about there topic and bring in stuff we could use to make a 2D or 3D object with.

My group was given Play, sooo....... that's exactly what we did!! We played..:) We focused on the process of playing more than the final outcome and got over excited without even thinking how we are going to present it.. Balloons were filled up with colorful paint and hung onto a tree, then we placed two A1 kappa boards and started throwing darts at the balloons!! A couple of workers asked us if that is what we were being taught at uni and laughed at us and a man told us off for standing on the ''baby'' grass, which was very embarrassing but the whole point was for us to feel like children again and have fun and we succeeded in doing that. During that activity we took a lot of photographs and used them in the presentation by sticking them on the other side of the kappa boards and hung them from the lights of our studio...
Finally, the third day came and we presented it to all four years and tutors.I spotted a lot of disappointed faces, especially our tutors' Jasons cause he wanted to have a shot too!! Bellow are some images.

Setting up the game!

Final outcome!

Photoshop!

Activity 2C: Thinking (Poster)

Here is a poster I made after brainstorming and discussing with the group how design relates to Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen in ''The Tipping Point''. Connectors nowadays use new methods to spread the word, such as the telephone, cars, advertisements and many more services.

Activity 2A: Brainstorming + 2B: Discussion

For this assignment, me, Duncan, Christina, Cara, Lynsey and Lindy got together in our studios and started brainstorming about how design could relate to Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen. We all had different views on it and it was interesting to see everybody else's notes and ideas. Having learned more about service design after Tom Inns lecture, I mainly focused on which services connectors could use. In order for connectors to spread the news ( word of mouth), they could use websites, advertisements, phones and also social events.
After the brainstorming our group got together to discuss everything we put down on the sheet while brainstorming and explain why it all related to design.

Brainstorming

Result

Group discussion

Juteopolis, Final Presentation.

Above are my groups final presentation sheets for the Juteopolis project, which we had to design an exhibition for one of the spaces in the DCA.

After a lot of research and development, we got to the final idea by using ''The Lade'' - a stream of water that past through the jute mills to keep the atmosphere clear- to create a curvy path for visitors to follow through the exhibition. This pathway would be formed by Sensacell modules, allowing people to interact with the exhibition by lighting up the area where they are standing. Along this path there are six water tanks containing information about Dundee when the Mills where still working and about Lily Thomson, a former weaver. In the center of the exhibition there is a sitting area formed by jute and lit on the inside, creating rays of light coming through the holes and lighting the dark exhibition hall.

Here is an image of the sheets displayed for the presentation and beneath is the final model and development models.