INB182reflection

#1) The idea while well thought out left out full development of...

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:58:20 -0400

#1) The idea while well thought out left out full development of full ideas for the conclusion, such as how the shaddows will appear, while an inventive idea, I don’t really see the point of such a device. To me it does not convey the idea of lightness, but more of light itself, which are separate things in my mind at least. But the elements that are there, are generally well thought out

#2) While supposed to take you back to your days of a child with a cubby house (Something which, to be honest, I can not relate to what so ever) it is a unique idea that I did not see another variant of in any other group. Although, once again, the execution leaves somewhat to be desired, with the trees in question not seemingly able to support it properly unless warped, I didnt get a close enough look for a total inspection. Overall the ideas are unique and interesting if the execution is somewhat off

Photo

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:15:25 -0400

The first order of business, after deciding on a name for the...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:46:59 -0400

The first order of business, after deciding on a name for the company, was to think about what direction we would take the advert. Would it be a compare and contrast of two people throughout their lives, this was deemed to be too time consuming with all the filming, and so we decided to go with a presentation. Each member getting their own specific task to do (Writing the script for the main person, writing the script for the founder, doing the powerpoint and recording their own parts) After shuffling the parts everyone would have in the presentation around a bit, we settled into our own jobs and got to work. While writing and re writing the script, with many rehashes and timing tests, I was just being reminded of how dynamic the design process can be. The modelling of the fluid, evolving language so that all the connotations pointed at what we wanted them to, and so that everything flowed smoothly reminded me of how we had to trim, transform and work at everything else in the process, it provided an amazingly apt comparison. This amazed me, as throughout the term I have been struggling with this idea of a design process, yet now, while doing a seemingly menial task, it all just clicked together a little more in my mind.

For the second design project we started off with listing ideas...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:32:50 -0400

For the second design project we started off with listing ideas that we thought could work, but then ruling out the ones that obviously were either a) too cheesy or b) didn’t make sense or c) Just didn’t seem to fit. We also started another A-Z but realised that it wouldn’t work too well in this situation, since anything could be talked about in the future. Having but a short time after journal #1 we went home, and came back the next day with our ideas. The main one at the start being a kind of ‘keeping up with the Johnson’s’ where instead of it being your car/house that you compete with, it being your genetically modified children. We decided to not go with women ruling the world as it would take more time then we had. Other ideas relating to stem cell research were: The gap between poor and rich becoming larger, since only the rich could afford the modifications and that each person could only take so much of it, so older people were considered ‘outdated’. We decided to go with an ‘info-mercial’ for the sake of ease with being able to get the point across. This time we realised once again that there is no one solution for everything (such as the A-Z not being valid here) and just how dynamic the design process can be.

After adjourning for the day, the next day two members came back...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:17:00 -0400

After adjourning for the day, the next day two members came back with an idea of a ‘purity sphere’ It started out as a simple idea of a quartz sphere with a black dot in the centre of it, representing the impurity of everyone, since no one is perfect. This idea evolved into it being a black rod, representing that as the sphere is moved around and as you look from different angles, the rod can look like anything from the small dot, to the long rod. This representing how different points of view can impact how much of a negative light someone is viewed in. (This and the rest of the symbolism can be seen on the picture). Having to develop this idea, from a small budding thing into a blossoming flower of creation gave us all insight into how hard it can be, and yet at other times how easy, to try to convey ideas and emotions in one of the simplest forms. With a light, a sphere and a rod. Just three items in its core, which are contained but yet they represent so much. This helped us understand the design process, and one of the reasons why you cannot put it down to a list of logical axioms, even when taking in as many variables as possible.

After being stuck coming up for ideas for a short while, the...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:01:04 -0400

After being stuck coming up for ideas for a short while, the group decided to do the A - Z exercise. Although slow at first, after help from a tutor who helped us to realise to not filter any ideas coming into our heads for each letter, it didn’t take too long. After establishing all of these ideas we each chose 5 of them which to us related the most to what Lightness was. The thing which came up most were aura, radiant, freedom and pure. So we decided to go with something pure, which slowly the cogs in our minds turning. After coming up with a few ideas (such as a statue floating on water, a ying yang symbol, angel, eagle, a treasure chest filled with light) and looking at possible locations (In the bamboo, in certain trees in the bottom of the valley) but we hit another brick wall here. I was trying to come up with a statue ideal which incorporated the flowing lines that I considered to be related to lightness, but the fact that I couldn’t explain it well and can’t draw well soon ended that. The day was drawing to a close and although we had hit a brick wall, the exercises from before helped us to think of ideas, and slowly migrate them outside the box. Moving them from the more concrete ideas to the more abstract, which would gradually let us arrive at our final idea, which would go through multiple evolutions. The purity sphere.

These two exercises gave me insight into seeing what isnt...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:58:52 -0400

These two exercises gave me insight into seeing what isnt obvious, the side on view of a humanish face helped open my mind to the forms and shapes which construct different viewpoints, how looking at something differently can bring new things into light and how different people naturally look at things in drastically different ways. The second one was inspired by this thought of what makes things up, helping me to visualise the atoms and quarks within the tree, the building blocks which comprised it, as well as the roots sprawling beneath the ground. Trying to imagine how each of these looked helped open up my mind to different approaches, something we would need in the design tasks ahead.

Thanks to the first exercise, I found the Love/Hate exercise...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:41:36 -0400

Thanks to the first exercise, I found the Love/Hate exercise relatively easy, starting with a transition from smooth, calm lines into the more jagged angry lines. This represents a transition from Love to Hate or vice versa. As I thought about why I did this I realised it was because of the socio cultural implications of different line segements behind it. This got me thinking about what else can be used to represent love and hate, producing the idea of fire. Your ‘flame’, the heat of passion, or the raging inferno of hate, all relating together and able to come from one other, this transitioned into my idea of a fractal, the thought of one drawing from the other, emanating from eachother in an eternal loop. Thankful of my mathematical knowledge this helped the idea evolve. This entire exercise gave me insight into how you can start at something simple, and through the design process, it can evolve into something new and improved. It amazed me at just how far something can change through even just a few iterations and a short period of thought.

The pig exercise was an experiment in uncovering more about one...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:20:20 -0400

The pig exercise was an experiment in uncovering more about one person in your team (As you are likely standing in clumps by now) and also about yourself through your subconcious manipulations of a pig drawing. Upon actually seeing what the pig said about me, it was quite accurate. This was an interesting insight into my own mind as much as it was into the persons who I annotated their pig for, if not more.

The first exercise of finding an object (Our team naturally...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:17:45 -0400

The first exercise of finding an object (Our team naturally finding a large tree in the foreground of where we were sitting) and drawing 4 different perspectives of it was challenging for me. The transition from a literal mindset of drawing something with a normal and topdown view, to looking it at in a non literal way, through time or from part of a flying insects view. This helped open my mind to new ways of approaching problems that would no doubt arise (and they did) in the first design project.

Working as a team

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:44:41 -0400

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 education we are put into teams enough so that we can get a kind of natural feeling about this, but extra reinforcement has never been a bad thing. We have all had our share of good and bad teams, but over time we learn how to tailor a bad team to more of a good team, working with our strengths and helping the design process.

Assignment stress relief

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:37:15 -0400

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 practically as aposed to theoretically. Different links between concepts become aparent.

Catching up reflections Lec#6

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:47:15 -0400

“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 learning be my playing.” The very fact that there are computer games based upon figuring out puzzles, making words, solving math puzzles (Of which I will admit I played a lot of when I was much younger) shows us that at least some of us have grasped the point that people learn via play. An example drawn from my own life comes back from when Age of Empires #1 came out, my father having bought it for himself I promptly started playing it as well. Being 3 years of age I took everything in, my teachers at kindergarten being promptly surprised that at age I could spell words such as victorious, centurion and other such words. This, to me at least, just proves that we learn through play. The fact that we grasp tactics easily when put into a strategy game, start to emulate squad activities when put into a first person shooter and things like that just help to show the derivations.

Catching up reflections Lec#5

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:38:22 -0400

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 squid looking but almost alien design of the Juicy Salif does do one thing well, start conversations. So having something that doesn’t do what it is ‘intended’ to do, what its mechanical purpose is, isn’t necessarily a failure, especially in the modern world where we are exploring all new kinds of design and seeing what we can do with materials.

Catching up reflections Lec#4

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:30:50 -0400

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 way of footing to help us to cut down to the basics of what we think is needed, and to avoid being tripped up. Eventually our own style will be noted, examined and criticised. Whether it is in a positive or negative light we need to keep on marching on, perservering on our rode to success.

Catching up reflections Lec#3

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:29:29 -0400

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 on it about 20 hours every week will still get us our 10,000 hours in approximately 9 years, 7 months and a few weeks. Now, if we can be lucky and get a job in something we love, working 9-5 (not including the experience we had before the job). That is 40 hours/week, which only takes a little under 5 years then to become an expert. When thinking of how little time this really takes, compared to our ~80 year life span. Think about it, even keeping up time to practice so they do not become ‘rusty’ each of us, if we really wanted, could easily be experts in 3 or 4 different areas.

Catching up reflections Lec#2

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:29:16 -0400

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 being tested, it was intended for use in lowering blood pressure and helping heart disease. They noted an interesting side effect, and now it is sold everywhere as the well known Viagra. These instances show that we shouldn’t be afraid to fail, because the worst that can happen is that we learn something new from our mistakes, and at the best we discover something new which may be successful anyway.

Ecosystems conceptualise the interrelationships of species that...

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:43:18 -0400

Ecosystems conceptualise the interrelationships of species that live in the same habitat. Natures way of ordering the food chain is not always in a straight line, quite often more like a web. These interrelationships can be very complex, and a conceptual diagram helps us to visualise the interdependencies of species.

pic taken from: http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/ipm/index.php/ecosystem-ecology

Airbags, much debate has been caused by these devices, do they...

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:36:22 -0400

Airbags, much debate has been caused by these devices, do they save more lives then not? Well the answer to this question is one of the reasons why you aren’t supposed to put children in the front seats of vehicles. A simple but yet effective design of a bag full of air increasing the amount of time it takes your body to stop, therefore enacting less force on it. Making us less like eggs in a steel box and more like eggs with cushions in a steel box.

Ur pic taken from:http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/ur.html

m1911 pic taken from: http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/pistol/M1911A1.html

Heart pic taken from: http://www.healthline.com/galeimage?contentId=genh_02_00382&id=genh_02_img0221

Airbag pic taken from: http://carsmechanics.blogspot.com/2010/05/hyundai-getz-part-vii-srs.html

A part of natural design, the organ we call the heart,...

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:20:14 -0400

A part of natural design, the organ we call the heart, responsible for pumping the blood around our circulatory system is another example of how nature can be wondrous and complex in its simplicity. Every part of the heart having its own function and no space being wasted, although we have found ways to augment it, only very recently have we come up with total official hearts, just showing us how much we have to learn about ourselves.