Language of ID

Standing at the culminating point in the class of ID history, I would like to talk about design as a method of communication and dialogue and as a way of embodying its poetic sense. Making and inventing something tangible and usable lets our lives to be better technologically, environmentally, and universally. Yet, our lives can also be enriched by design works that share one’s voice as language of thoughts, meanings, and outcry.

This is Global Warming Swimming Pool ad for HSBC created by Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai ad agency in India. On first glance, this might look like people swimming on top of a submerged city; in fact, an aerial photo of a city’s skyscrapers is glued to the base of a swimming pool to create the effect. The whole idea behind the campaign is to raise awareness of the possible consequence of global warming. If we look at the swimming pool in the ad, it is simply a swimming pool that has a photo on the bottom to make it look a city drowned into water. However, the message that the ad is trying to deliver rouses up viewers’ consciousness and becomes daily reminder of a serious existing problem in the world. The swimming pool itself has made to show the bank’s strong interest in global worming; however, the concept behind has enough effect to alert people to think what they can do to help the earth.







This is a one of a series of works created by a designer Joe Velluto blurring the line between art and design at his recent exhibition ‘UseLess is More’. At the exhibition, a chair has appeared without its primary function, but still containing the essence of its original function. Joe Velluto created the 'partial chair' extracting the main part of a chair - the seat and the back to show a dysfunction.'UseLess is More’ is the first interpretation of the ‘Manifesto of Adesign', a thought that partially denies design in favor of an original way of expression. The exhibition was on display as part of Torino World Design Capital Events. On Joe Velluto’s website, he talks about Manifesto of Adesign along with his thoughts in words and quotes including Anti Designism.

Anti Designism®
(Kill “di design” expression):
· Informal
· Unknownimous
· Radical
· Experimental
· Useless

This idea that Joe Velluto’s presenting makes people think again of what design is and what design means. Is he trying to simply say to think outside of a box? Or is he frustrated to be around with designs and concepts based of originality? He also says,

Vittime del Designism® --- Victims of the Designism
“I’m designER than you!”
“No, I’m the designEST!”

He sounds as if he is mocking some type of designers who has different focus than what he has. However, what is important here is not the fact that Joe Velluto has strong voice against other designers, but that he tries aggressively and powerfully to share his own opinions and true feelings for design with viewers, audience, and users.


Two examples, ‘Global Warming Swimming Pool’ and ‘UseLess is More’, shows clearly that industrial design is not just producing goods or inventing new technology. ID has voice and language. It has been trying to tell us many things for years. Now, it is time for us to pay attention and listen to what it says with open mind and considerate attitude.



LINKS:

Global Warming Swimming Pool
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/13/view/4631/global-warming-swimming-pool-by-ogilvy-and-mather.html
Joe Velluto - UseLess is More
http://www.joevelluto.it/http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/4563/useless-is-more-by-joe-velluto.html

What is Industrial Design for Me

Throughout the semester, I have gained knowledge about Industrial Design and found some answers to my questions. During classes, although I did not speak up too often, I have argued with opinions of my classmates with accord and discord. Also, writing short essays on lessons that I learned from lectures and presentations have helped me to really think and concern about matters that happen in the world with Industrial Design. In last class, I got to finally speak in front of my classmates out loud (Nancy asked me to talk about my idea) about Art + Design. The relationship between Art and Design has been my most concern for a long time, frankly since I entered RISD; I wanted to know what other students would say about artists, designers or design artists that work more towards considering aesthetic and artistic value. I am more on the side of appreciating the “art value” on products; however, people with great interest such as functionality, technology, and eco-friendly have had strong and harsh opinions on products that lack design value. I understand why there could be a gap between art and design, yet, I think that they should exist both together and separately. Now, I would like to show and talk about different examples with various focuses and purposes based on my personal choices of design works and projects.

Firstly, I have found a project that focuses using an accessible product with available technology to make people’s lives more convenient. BMW group research and technology has developed a prototype for a multifunctional car key. Through the use of a security chip (which communicates with a card reader via radio) that is inserted into an electronic key device, your car keys can give you the ability not only to access your vehicle, but also make cashless payments, functioning as a personalized credit card. The key can also be seen as a mobility device. The holder of the key is able to access personal data such as subscriptions to services, address books or favorite radio stations from inside their BMW, or any BMW hire car. This links the keys to the car owner rather than just a car, making them more of a personalized mobility device. Payment for tickets at the subway, car park and etc. could potentially be done using your car keys. Any purchasing or personal account information can be accessed online. BMW’s new multifunctional car key is a proper example of innovative idea for service design that can be provided to even bigger group of users on top of BMW owners.

Secondly, I would like to talk about products that are functional and considerate for users with more or less aesthetic value. This is ‘amplamp’, created by Dominic Bromley, one of UK’s most successful lighting designers, that works as both a high-tech speaker and amplification system and a table lamp in one. Dominic Bromley designs the ‘amplamp’ with an earthenware base and hidden hi-fi equipment. At the back there is a series of ports to allow users to plug in their stereo or iPod. The fact that He has tried to bring light and sound together, since they both have a strong influence in changing mood, appears to be a nice combination. However, in my personal opinion, the lamps are not aesthetically attractive enough for me to think that I want to buy them. The elegant lamp shades and bulky shape lamp base do not look to go together. There are some other products that are still functional and considerate but with more artistic value. The chair on the left is ‘Eclosion Stool’ and the table on the right is ‘Table Basse’ produce by Swiss design studio LIFEGOODS, working for public and private clients. Both pieces are made with steel and to be folded and clamped by users. The chair and the table are not only easy to produce as cut-out single sheet of steel, but also have nice weight and firmness of the material. Furthermore, they let users to be a part of completion of the furniture and give them an experience. The forms are interesting and intriguing and somehow clean and controlled; the chair even has different ways to be assembled. These two pieces of furniture seems to be good examples of good harmony between Art + Design.

Thirdly, I would like present works that have more highlighting on environment and atmosphere of where they would be placed. The series of lights that you see in the picture is the result of experiments with computer design and CNC manufacture and is assembled and finished by Liam Hopkins and Richard Sweeney by hand in the Lazerian Studio in the UK. The lamps comprise machine cut components and place emphasis on limiting the number of unique module shapes in order to simplify construction. As much as considered how well and constructively they can be made, the lamps create beautifully and attractively patterned shades in surrounding areas. If we were to imagine the lamps are constantly moving slowly, the shades will make us feel like we are in a moving space. Like this series of lamps, I would like to present ‘C-Lounge’, the new seating option, which is designed by Dima Loginoff, a Russian designer, who was once a professional hair designer. Dima’s C-Lounge has no symmetry or regularity in its form. It rather has flow, movement, and language. It is designed for Lounge Concept 2008; it is not yet commercially produced, however, we can all start to think about where it could be with each one of our own taste.

Presenting diverse products and projects with different design approach and purpose, I strongly believe that uncountable artists and designers from all over the world are constantly working, fighting, and challenging to make this world better whether it satisfies a small or large group of users or audience, and also whether it does more artistically or functionally. I can say we need all of the artists and designers who are different. Throughout my essay, I have been often subjective and personal, because I am also one of the users that designers should consider and satisfy. Industrial Design should not be for just one particular group of people, especially for those who have learned and known better about it. It values even when it gives one person a better life, because that moment can always be a start.

LINKS:

BMW CAR KEY
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/4676/bmw-use-your-car-keys-to-make-payments.html

amplamp
http://www.futuros.co.uk/design.html

LIfegoods
http://www.lifegoods.ch/

Lazerian
http://www.lazerian.co.uk/

Dima Laginoff
http://dimaloginoff.com/eng/

As an ID major student at RISD, I have been very confused about what is ID and what is being an industrial designer. Before I try to find answers to my questions, I would like to talk a little bit about my background. Since I was in elementary school, I started painting and drawing particularly to become a fine artist. As I expand my ambition through attending art middle school and high school, it became clear that I want to work in painting, drawing, and sculpture. However, since I have always been interested in 3D stuff such as furniture, kitchenware, and lamps, I chose to go into ID major when I became a sophomore at RISD.


Learning ID through curriculums for the sophomore, I often faced problems with designing process especially in Design Principles class. People talk about eco-friendly designs. People concern about functionalism, universal design, and material usage. However, my concern is how I am going to design something that is artistically satisfying and pleasing to look at. For me, making something has often been creating a beautiful art piece, rather than producing something green or eco-friendly. On the other day, I had a guest critic from Microsoft, Bill Buxton, in my service design class. It was great to see someone who is that much experienced and also famous; however, I could not agree with him when he said, “you guys are not artists, you are industrial designers.” I get his point, but I believe that industrial designers are the subcategory of artists.


Researching and experiencing works by the Campana brothers, the winners of the Designer of the Year award at Design Miami 2008, I have found a totally new and different side of ID; it is almost exhilarating that I have met these people even through online. Their works are very unusual; each piece of their work seems to try to tell me something. Their website also has given me a feeling of watching a movie of some creation or going through a journey of an art piece from its birth to completion. Humberto Campana said during his interview,

“I think a designer goes much deeper than function or form. Today, he brings emotion, because otherwise all the chair, if we have just one chair it would be so boring. So I guess people nowadays they like to have a relationship, kind of interacting with pieces. And for me, design is to bring emotions, bring fun and bring joy to people.”

Fernando Campana also said,

“It’s that ten attempts to make function poetic and to make poetic functional which is never reachable, sometimes one is in the place of the other. Whenever both put together, at least about fifty and fifty or one tern and two terns in the projects, we make people happy, comfortable, and dreamy.”

Here I found all the answers of my questions, doubts and confusions. ID, for me, is beyond functionalism; I would like to create something that can talk to people, touch their hearts, and move their minds. Although a thing that I make may lack some functional value, I would like to start from what I believe is ID and expand it from there.

When I was browsing through many people, organizations, or projects that concern a better world by design, there were two architects that caught my eyes, Michelle Kaufmann and Fritz Haeg. Michelle started looking for where she could leave, but she couldn’t find one that she wanted. Then she has come with an idea of making home that can give the most out of everything that’s used. She has designed home that requires zero maintenance, zero energy use, and zero waste of water and also are able to be mass produced. From use of off-site technology and sustainable materials and methods, her company reached to get these benefits,

• significant time savings
• 50% - 75% less waste
• increased quality control
• quicker to market
• reduced risk
• inventory control
• easier to target the intended market
• prepackaged green solutions
• quicker to market
• marketability of green solutions with high quality design

By giving people chance to have pre-constructed home created in a factory, Michelle’s company integrated pre-packaged green solutions.

http://www.mkdarc.com/
http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/conferences/videos/15279586.html


The other architect, Fritz Haeg, has ongoing project called Edible estates. Fritz says, “the utopian fantasy of the project is that all the front lawns in the United States disappear and they all become replaced with highly diverse edible landscapes, each one differs from the next, reflecting the taste of owners.” Not only he is trying to bring back the idea of growing and eating your own food when there used to be a war and everyone in farms were away from country, but he is creating a whole new idea of involving community together through planting green and making the earth healthier. Alice Waters, owner, Chez Panisse Restaurant says “Edible Estates describes wonderfully how a garden in front of every house can transform a neighborhood, sprouting the seeds not just of zucchini and tomatoes but of biodiversity, sustainability, and community.” The “Edible Estates” project is just amazing to see how amazing to just plant on the small space with earth that you have been given can change such things in the world.

http://www.fritzhaeg.com/
http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/conferences/videos/17171261.html

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.” —Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises



Browsing the website of Design for the other 90%, I have discovered some serious issues that exist in all over the world. There are so many people out there who suffer from poverty that includes hunger, mal nutrition, health problem, and lack of basic needs for living. Those people are also poorly educated with any matter; they have no chance or opportunity to experience things that we, who falls into the 10% group, think common, normal, and natural such as using technology, cell phones, computers, and internet, picking what to eat for dinner out of pizza, sushi, and spaghetti, and do favorite sports with proper gear like soccer, swimming, and golf.


What makes it okay that those people in poverty not experiencing any of the stuff that we do? Should we not care because it is obvious that they are poor? In my opinion, we should all consider how we can help those people to live better, eat well, and learn more about what happens in the world. Everybody knows that they are poor and have very low standard of living; however, everyone knows also that he or she can do something to help them. Therefore, a designer, who has learned and trained to design and make things better, should consider people who cannot afford the things we can and produce life saving products for them using funds and donations. It’s right that we need designers, who make an i-phone, high fashion clothing, and PS3; however, we also need more designers who build better shelter for refugees, develop services that can give people in needs an access to learn more things, and make things with low cost approach.


There is an impressive example of helping people in basic needs not only by designing shoes with the most comfort but also by involving customers to think more thoroughly for those people. TOMS, a shoe company, has been on “One for One” movement. For every pair you purchase, TOMS gives a pair of shoes to a child in need. Since its beginning in May 2006, TOMS has given over 10,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina and 50,000pairs in South Africa through the purchases of its caring customers. In 2008 TOMS plans to give 200.000 pairs of shoes to children in need around the world. “One of One” movement of TOMS is doing a great job of getting customers involved in helping those kids and give the customers a chance to reconsider people in needs. Not only TOMS shoes will help those kids with no shoes and allow them to walk and run around with comfort, but also do shoes give them positive hopes and anticipations toward their lives.

During class discussion from last class on Rachel Maines, the Technology of Orgasm (1999), and Lee Wright, “Objectifying Gender: the Stiletto Heel,” A View from the Interior: Women and Design (1995), I found many interesting facts in ID history concerning design and gender. It is not that this subject have never come to my mind and given me questions; however, the real evidence from those two case studies led me to some specific questions. Both topics have given me different approach to think about design and gender issue as a designer and a user; however, the more interesting study that I could not stop listening and wondering about is Maines’ study on the invention of vibrator.

First, when my professor showed us the first page of the slide presentation on a projector, I could not close my mouth. Especially from my cultural background (I was born and raised in South Korea being taught human morality based on Confucianism), just seeing word “vibrator” was not comfortable but little embarrassed. It was not too bad though, since I have been studying in America for eight years; I have become used to different thoughts and aspect on sexuality through people’s eyes from more opened culture. There are sex shops just on streets and at shopping malls; they are open to everyone regardless how old you are. However, if you go to Korea, people think that going to places like them is some kind of an embarrassment to show other people. With all kinds of different ideas and opinions of people with diverse background, knowing that people now agree with that a vibrator is some sort of a sex toy, I have come up with a question wondering if the inventor of a vibrator and users really thought that it was just a solution to help women with “hysteria.”

In my opinion, people, particularly the users must know that a vibrator does more than helping them with “hysteria” when it was first invented. Also even the inventor and doctors who treated those women patients eventually should have found out soon that the pleasure that patients get is beyond treatment. First, patients start with treatment by doctor with this new great invention that gives them orgasm, but the more they get treated, the more they would have want to use a vibrator. The invention certainly was made based on a medical reason; however, as time goes by, people must have realized additional and often need of a vibrator along with developing new designs of smaller and portable vibrators. Although it has started off as medical equipment, it has given users a chance to know what they can do for their extra and essential needs. Furthermore, supported by a lot of women users, it must have changed how people think about sexually and helped other people who once have thought about inventing other type of sex toys that they were originally afraid to make.