April 2011
10 posts
Working as a team
Why would we talk about teamwork? In the game design industry, unless you are personally developing you will always be in a team of people, hence it is important to understand the dynamics of a team. Things such as every persons roles, the development, when to converge, when to diverge, learning to trust etc. These are all important concepts to try to grasp, thankfully throughout our early...
Assignment stress relief
I hope that doing the design projects will increase my understanding of the design process which is currently incomplete, as it will always be. Working through someone practically often helps to understand the constructs involved. This applies not just to design “Maths is taught through the hand, not the head” for example. It is sometimes suprising what you notice when working...
March 2011
15 posts
Catching up reflections Lec#6
“Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.” - Homo Ludens. Play is an integral part of human culture, and us as a whole. Most of our younger lives are spent playing, but we learn important things during this time. “Let my playing be my learning, and my...
Catching up reflections Lec#5
Does something need to do what it is ‘designed’ to do? What its named function is? Philippe Starck and his famous Lemon Squeezer which wasn’t really meant to squeeze lemons, the Juicy Salif. This shows us that while most things should be designed to do as intended and to be economic, such as his windmill and interior designs. Not everything has to be like that, the interesting...
Catching up reflections Lec#4
Practice makes perfect. Persistence. The Japanese proverb “Fall seven times, stand up eight” sums this up well, if we wish to succeed we have to keep on trying, ever giving in when we are told we should just give up. Over time, through sucess and failure we gain our own style, our own twists and dives as we fall down again. The ‘style’ we gain being kind of like a stance, a...
Catching up reflections Lec#3
10,000 hours. That is how long it is said that you have to do something to become an expert. Ten thousand hours. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? Well, when you think about it, not really. We are constantly bombarded with messages saying ‘do what you love’. So if we want to become an expert at what we love, does it really take long? Even if we cannot get a job in that field, working...
Catching up reflections Lec#2
Can design be accidental? I think that it can, whether through an absent minded doodle, or as a side product/mistake from a current project. Relative to purposeful design I think that accidental is much more rare. One example of what may be considered accidental design is http://www.logodesignlove.com/quiksilver-logo-design. Or it could mean something like as when Sildenafil Citrate was first...
First Reflection
Evolution; is it a design? I believe that if life upon this planet/in all its possible facets across the universe was first propagated by an omnipotent being on some form of ‘higher plane’ or not, it is still designed in a way. Throughout evolution we see natural selection, this in itself is design. Designing future generations of the species, the slight genetic changes eventually...
