Lecture; Design Thinking

the design process 

shown by the double diamond design process diagram created by design council in 2005.

Desirable - will someone respond to your idea
Viable - can it actually been done to cost?
Feasible - is it realistically possible to execute in the given timeframe? 

7 stages of the design process

• define
• research
• ideate
• prototype
• select
• implement
• learn

Lecture; Gentle Ease

In this lecture we looked at pieces of work done on After Effects and also using stop motion. I particularly liked the clips where the animation was shown through drawings. 




We were also shown Sara's blog which was interesting to see and i really enjoyed looking at some of the work she has done.

Lecture; Helvetica by Gary Hustwit

In this lecture we watched the film Helvetica by Gary Hustwit. It showed interviews with graphic designers and typographers that were involved in the making of the font and also looked at the history of the font and how it was created.

Seminar; essay feedback (conclusion)

In this seminar we were given feedback on the conclusions of our essays.

The whole point of the conclusion is to summarise the essay but it is essential to use different words, otherwise you end up just repeating yourself which is pointless. 

We were told to write down 5 key words that summarise our essays, and to make sure all of these key words were in our conclusion. My key words were; branding, fashion, beauty, magazine and bloggers of which i had used all words. 

Seminar; essay feedback (introduction)

In this seminar we brought along two copies of the introductions of our essays so that someone else could read it and give us constructive feedback.

We were advised to use a short statement to begin our essays with which i had done; 

my essay opened with 'Branding is one of the most important aspects in the success of a company.'  Some of the feedback i got included that my opening sentence was a good short, simple statement and overall my introduction was clear in giving a brief overview of what was going to be discussed. However, it was suggested that i create my own specific question that I would be answering. 

Lecture; Prequel/Sequel

nothing is original

everything we design comes from some sort of inspiration; legal remixing is fine, illegal copying is not - if your work fails to distinguish itself enough then you must attribute.

'those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing'
Salvador Dali

'Don't try to be original. Just try to be good. That sounds sort of naive but it's true'
Paul Rand

One example we were shown was of the design for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The photo on the left shows the design, however it was spotted that it shows too many similarities to the design on the right which was created by a Belgian designer who claimed his idea had been plagiarised.

Seminar; Essay Help

In this seminar we split in to different groups depending on the essay we had chosen to do. I had chosen to do the Brand/Anti-Brand one and I found this session really helpful as i was quite stuck on ideas and was really struggling with my essay at first. It was reassuring to hear other people in the same situation but also listening to what other people were doing and their approaches helped me to think of my own ideas and the best ways for me to start.

Lecture; Adoption of Sound

MYRA - futaba

Lecture; Graphic Responses to Sound

'If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of Energy, Frequency and Vibration'
Nikola Tesla

Brian Eno - Music for airports 1978

Telegraphy 
-marks on paper
-morse code; developed by Samuel Morse
-ticker tape

Frequency and Oscillation 
-Oscilloscope (waves)
-windows media player sound visualiser

Harmonics and Vibration
Ernst Chladni - Chladni Figures
-glass plates
-ink in water
-mandalas
-cymatics 
 Nigel John Stanford

Digital Responses 
-digital software has given us more opportunities to explore our creativeness 

Seminar; Essay Research

In this seminar we worked in groups of 3 to create a mind map focusing on one or more of the essay questions so we could start thinking of ideas and possible points to mention in each of the essays.

Lecture; The Visualisation of Sound

This lecture looked at the visualisation of sound brief which is to experiment with different pieces of music each week to produce a graphic response to 8 of the songs we have been given. We should use a range of techniques which will be a good way to help improve my skills on different programmes that i'm not so good at, such as after effects.

We were shown examples of some designers work looking at sound visualisation, such as album covers. I particularly liked this album cover which was inspired by David Carson. 

“The term ‘graphic score’ refers to any kind of musical notation that uses pictures, symbols or illustrations, instead of or in addition to traditional notation, to inspire performances – musical scores can be just as satisfying to look at as they are to listen to.”

Jacob Thomas-Bell

Seminar; The Hollywood Formula

This lecture was about the Hollywood Formula created by Marten Jonmark. 

The idea of this formula is that you need to have structure in order for your 'story' to work. 

beginning - set the story, character and setting; needs to set the scene and hook the audience

middle - action, confrontation and central theme

end - conclusion/resolution; needs to leave audience feeling satisfied

Lecture: Narrative

'A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end.'  
-Aristotle

• utilisation of narrative design
• Freytags pyramid: setup, confrontation, resolution (structure)
• exposition
• narrative: description of story

designers: illustrate/demonstrate solution to a problem

story based messaging

• appeal to an emotional need
• connect
• tune message to audience

'The audience does not need to tune themselves to you - you need to tune your message to them.'
- Nancy Duarte

Toms: giving company - one for one

• imagery
• tone of voice

Massimo Vignelli - Graphic Designer

-only used 4 typefaces in his life

Seminar: Style

style: a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed. i.e. how you work

Dr Cornel West - his style is a fusion of many other styles
-hard to define style

Henry Miller - style for Miller is a fluid motion

'style is the mirror of an artist's sensibility - more so than the content of his work'
-Truman Capote 

style or content (completely separate)
-you can never act outside a style

Marcel Breuer (chair design) 1920
believed in 'purposeful construction of logical designed objects'
'styleless' 'logical problem solving'
he designs by redaction (removing all 'fluff')
manifestation and consideration of significances, rather than problem solving

antipathy - strong dislike

there can be no acting outside of style
for example; style is a container with things in them.
philosophical enquiry
-talking concepts and using them to drive enquiries
styles work on intensities - fade in and out
fusions and mutations.

Lecture: Perception & Illusion

This lecture was all about how we see things and also how we interpret these things.

perception: meaning to us as individuals; how we interpret

how we see:

• visual stimulation
• cone cells; retina
• rod cells; peripheral vision
  this is our subconscious vision and our eye sees this in black and white, our eye exaggerates these movements to warn us of possible danger 

illusion: misinterpreted perception

we looked at lots of optical illusions during the lecture to show how people see things differently.

Seminar; Abstracts and Intros

In this seminar we were split in to groups and were given the task of writing a sentence based on a 20 second clip of the film. The point was to produce an abstract; these need to be concise, exact and open strong. For example 'Mother died today.'

Seminar: Meaning and Messages

During this seminar we looked at information graphics and ways of displaying information in a visual way. We were shown examples of this and then we had a go at creating something similar ourselves.

I chose to present my family in order of how close I am to each of them and how this has changed over my lifetime. 

Lecture: Message and Meaning

 

“The difference between poetry and practical messages is that the latter are successful only when we correctly infer the intention.”
-Michael Rock

communications are only successful when your audience react in a certain way.

Message - a short communication
Meaning - what the source or sender expresses. what the receiver infers from the current context.

Sender: (encoder, designer)

• translate information in to symbols that represent ideas or concepts.
• to improve; mentally visualise the communication from the receivers point of view
• is the message urgent? is immediate feedback needed? is documentation required? inside or outside?  =  choose an effective channel

Channel: (medium of transmission)

• each medium has its own strengths dependent on situational effectiveness 

'are we sleepwalking through our waking state or wake-walking through our dreams.'-waking life

Kurzgesagt; German company that produce information films

Receiver: (decoder)

Conclusion:

• without feedback the sender cannot confirm that the receiver has interpreted the message correctly.

Seminar: Expanded Genealogy

future genealogy - reverse family tree

Michel Foucault (french philosopher) popularised the genealogical method.

method - a way of doing something

methodology - the knowledge of doing something

genealogists examine the pre-conceived and question the phenomenon that 'we tend to feel is without history'

-looking at something that has already been thought of before

without history: things we don't think about e.g. internet (for this generation), goodness, colour, sexuality

Nietzsche beyond good and evil (1886)
-pre-conceived notions/eternal truths

genealogies are subjective

genealogy claims there is no eternal truth (no fabrication) 

-you can never have a full perspective

'purpose of history, guided by genealogy is not to discover the roots of our identity, but to commit itself to its dissipation'
-Foucault

root-eternal truth

'philosophers do not search for eternal truth'
-Zizek

use everything you have access to

writing the essay 
every film starts with an establishing shot
-what the characters are doing, where they are e.g Simpsons in their home

1. establish parameters of research: where you are, what's the 'tone' etc.
2. contingencies/conditions of the space: setting the scene
3. what has occurred? what's the concept
4. analyse this new fabrication: what does it mean

'a paranoid man is someone who knows a little of what's going on'
-William Burroughs

Lecture: Influence & Behaviour

Influence: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something.
Behaviour: the way in which a person behaves in response to a particular situation or stimulus.

Designers need to understand the context and thoughts of their audiences in order to illustrate a problem and then relate this problem to their solution.

Many things affect out ability to make decisions; e.g.

• personal
• political
• psychological
• informational 
• social
• cultural

manipulation, propaganda..

'The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country...we are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.'
-Edward Bernays 'the father of public relations'          

             

Touchpoint: any encounter where customers and business engage to exchange information, provide service, or handle transactions.

Manipulation and deception shouldn't be the intention when designing a campaign message or story but you must consider who you are designing for an how they might interpret it.