Week 12 - New Steps
By the end of this week, you should be able to:
Research and analyse how ideas are perceived in new environments.
Imagine a graphic design interest that you are familiar with and investigate how the idea can be improved, disrupted or retold through a shift of application.
Communicate your outcome/ shift ensuring your outcome is apparent, courageous and driven by risk and a rationale.
Document and communicate your working process on your blog.
Participate in and reflect upon debate on the ideas wall.
Manage your independent learning through good planning and self-direction.
Week 12 Lectures - New
Read | Watch | Listen - TED (2017) Anab Jain: Why we need to imagine different futures [online video].
This is an eye-opening talk on possible futures.
Anab Jain brings the future to life, creating experiences where people can touch, see and feel the potential of the world we're creating. Do we want a world where intelligent machines patrol our streets, for instance, or where our genetic heritage determines our health care? Jain's projects show why it's important to fight for the world we want.
Here are some of the projects she talked about that got me thinking.
She discusses a project she had worked on earlier in the year for the government of the United Arab Emirates. Anab was invited to help them shape their country's energy strategy all the way up to 2050. Based on the government's econometric data, she created a large city model and visualised its possible futures. But as she was discussing with a group of government officials and members of energy companies through one sustainable future on our model, one of the participants told her, "I cannot imagine that in the future people will stop driving cars and start using public transport." And then he said, "There's no way I can tell my own son to stop driving his car." She realised that one of the most powerful means of effecting change is when people can directly, tangibly and emotionally experience some of the future consequences of their actions today, so she created samples of what the air quality would be like in 2030 and invited the group to smell the vapour from the air samples.
“Just one whiff of the noxious polluted air from 2030 brought home the point that no amount of data can.”
Anab concurred, “It's about creating tools -- tools that can help connect our present and our future selves so we become active participants in creating a future we want -- a future that works for all.”
Noxious polluted air samples created in the lab
This was a great example of how Anab convinced the UAE officials of what their future would look like. She created samples in her lab and invited them to smell what the air quality would be like in 2030. This convinced them that they needed to invest billions in renewable energy.
Thoughts from the lecture - forming a connection with the user
I love the fact that the projects she works on have some type of interactivity with the user. Anab knew that data alone could not convince the users how important this was to invest in their children’s future.
I think as graphic designers, we need to think about alternative ways to get our message across, so by creating a more engaging, personal, and memorable experience for your users, you can form a connection to the message you are trying to present.
Read | Watch | Listen - The Design Museum, Waste Age: What can design do?
The video shows an exhibition based at The Design Museum from 2022 that discusses reimagining our waste and tries to imagine a more resourceful world for future generations.
The examples show Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama talking to us about his Fadama 400 installation, which confronts visitors with a sheer wall of waste – a vast piece made from televisions salvaged from an Accra scrapyard dedicated to European e-waste. His art installations, show how visually an installation can shock and capture the attention of the viewer about providing a cleaner future.
Gemma Curtin, Curator
'We must face the problem of waste – we can no longer ignore what happens to things when we get rid of them. Instead of thinking of objects as things that have an end life, they can have many lives. This is not just an exhibition it is a campaign, and we all have an active part in our future.'
Lectures -
What are potential future definitions of design practice? What are the sectors that might change or need to change?
Simon Manchipp
Simon talks about branding and definition getting broader. He uses the example of Wolves Football Club which he had recently worked with as a case study. He felt that the Wolves symbol was very impactful and didn’t want to change that, but felt it could be supported better to a broader audience by the experiences of being a fan. So for instance, their work didn’t just involve the typography and colour palette, it involves designing the tunnels at Wolves, that the players run through to come out onto the pitch as a stimulation and motivational part of their experience.
Simon talks about user experience
“We design every part of the experience for people, whether that's typography or colour or symbols. It’s experiences and that's broad. I mean that can be a theatre production show, that can be all sorts of different things where it's music, or smell, or interior design.”
Sam Winston
Sam talks about the potential future definitions of design. He came up with a fantastic definition of the current environment we live in called the ‘Attention Economy’. In the digital age the most valuable asset is how to keep focused.
Sam talks about ‘Attention Economy’
“The future of design is inherently tied to the attention economy, and the future of design is inherently tied, at the moment, to technology. And technology is going through this kind of push me/pull you thing, where it's faster, it's quicker, it's more efficient, it's more communicative, yet it’s more distracted.”
Following the lectures - I explored how, as designers, we should be responsible for creating a sustainable future.
We need to develop tools that bridge the gap between our present and future selves so we can take ownership of our future and create a better world for all. I thought about my own Attention Economy for this Week 12 Workshop Challenge and how I could capture the viewers attention in a short amount of time.
Here are some examples of how the ‘attention economy’ currently captures our attention:
Social media companies use strategies including notifications, personalised feeds, and targeted ads.
News organisations by publishing stories that are timely, relevant, and emotionally charged and based on our demographic.
Marketers use a variety of techniques to get us to buy their products, including advertising, product placement, and social media influencers
Content creators produce videos, podcasts, in order to attract our attention and build an audience.
By understanding how this can work, as designers we can make more informed decisions about how to capture our audience.
As designers I think we also need to be aware
Repurposing plastic crisp packaging for the homeless
While researching how an idea can be improved or retold I found this company reusing crisp packets and re-using it for the homeless.
Inventor Pen has been making blankets, sleeping bags and bivy bags out of crisp packets for the homeless across the UK.
Her amazing journey started in November 2019 and whilst working for a local charity, Surviving the Streets UK, she was frustrated that they were always running out of sleeping and bivvy bags for people sleeping in the streets and felt she had to find a way she could help.
They not only create sleeping bags and bivvy bags for those without homes, but they also offer survival kits that come in a sack bag made from used crisp packets. The kit contains a mat or pillow, survival sheet, poncho, wash bag, bamboo toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, flannel, winter hat, gloves, socks, and two hand warmers. These items are essential for survival while living on the streets as a rough sleeper.
Like the video on Design Museum Exhibition, Waste Age this is a great example of reusing packaging for a different medium, in this case a positive force for helping others.
References -
Pen Huston - Youtube
Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bfhwRwghVA