Experiencing enrichment

Salt and pepper grinder has been the same since…. Well, ever. Since the invention of salt and pepper mills, very little has changed about them and as a part time waitress, I know using an ordinary salt and pepper mill can be very uncomfortable having to twist your wrist over and over again.
Where there is salt, there is pepper.. But having so many things on your dining table or kitchen top could look messy, especially when they are ugly and unrefined for the contemporary houses. I am targeting my product to young couples who has just moved into their contemporary home and needs stylish utensils to suit their living standards.
So I came up with an idea! A salt a pepper grinder, that looks good and works well with the hands! The design I have came up with is unlike any of the existing salt and pepper grinders. Instead of having a cylinder for its body, I replaced it with an asymmetric, elegant, ergonomically shape that is soothing to the hands and works as a beautiful table decoration when not in use. No one would have ever thought that the sculpture on your table was a salt and pepper grinder.

Peer comments:

Monica Lu

http://monicayllu.blogspot.com/2010/09/experience-enrichment.html#comments

Chien Ming Lee

http://leechiehmin.blogspot.com/2010/09/experience-enrichment.html#comments

Hae Lin Kang

http://liah90.blogspot.com/2010/09/wharvo.html#comments

Andrew Bae

http://baejin.blogspot.com/2010/09/experience-enrichment-lamina.html#comments

Sarita Parto

http://saritaparto.blogspot.com/2010/09/experience-enrichment-hex-dron-tape.html#comments

design for life

Watching them at facing Stark at the end of each week presenting their work really reminded me my own presentations, lots of nail biting and anxieties. I was literally on the edge of my seat watching the contestants being criticised or praised by Stark whom I feel is a person that is contradicting and unpredictable. To make matters worse the tasks that Stark sets out for them are very vague which leads to confusion and lack of direction of the project.

In the “final” project in episode 3, due to a misunderstanding in the term “first draft” all the remaining 8 students were thrown off course and were completely lost in what they are doing and came down to the result of a very unhappy Stark. The critical feedback of other people telling you what is good and what is bad, often hard to accept and often upsetting is something all designers need to learn how to channel into something positive and is certainly something I have learnt and experienced in uni studio. Seeing these students facing Stark in presentations I find myself feeling exactly that.

“At one stage I was just thinking maybe I shouldn’t be a designer maybe I should go home and do something else.” -mike

I have thought about the same thing many many times; “do I have what it takes to be a designer?” or “maybe I should consider something else for a career” and many doubts, struggles and uncertainties at my ambitions. However being someone very stubborn, like Ilsa I hate not finishing what I started.

I actually anticipated that Ilsa would win by around the 3rd or 4th episode. I feel that she is very determined, sophisticated and like Stark said “ambitious”. And by the 5th episode when we first saw her prototype of the walking stick, I was sure that she was going to win. I was just surprised how in such short time, she transformed some sticks really to a very elegant support for the aged. Even though half way through the project, Ilsa like everyone else had a poorly designed product, but it all came together for her in the end.

This reminded me of my own projects, remembering the despair halfway through a model or drawing thinking “how on earth am I going to get this done” or “how am I ever going to make this look professional?” But looking back, nearly all my projects came out okay, like the Piranesi drawing for example, “there is no way I can finish an A1 drawing , in the way that Piranesi drew as well as be creative whilst having to do other projects at the same time” – or so I thought.

Objectified

"every object tells a story, if you know how to read it" -Henry Ford

As consumers we decode that story by analysing its form and aesthetics and we often do this in our subconcious mind to determine a good design or bad design. but as a designer we need to be able to program these codes into that object.

Good design are designs that improves our daily life without us knowing it. from the grip of our peeler to the tip of the toothpick, everything we own and touch are carefully thought out and designed to be the best they can be.
But to creat a good design is no easy task. first of all we need a complete understanding of the object we are designing; its purpose, its form, how was this task done before, what may it be in the future? who are we designing for? what kind of material are to be used? where will they come from? where will they go after use? all these need to be considered simply to create A design.

We need to be critical of the world around us. we need to be observative and analyse everything around us, asking "why is it like this and not like that?", "how could this object be better", "is this object the best it could be?". we need to be innovative and imaginative and see things that only people can dream of. we need to think big. One of the things that really interested me in this documentry is seeing the process of a new design being made. all your thoughts and possibilityes are being poured out onto sticky notes for everyone to see, being inspiring and inspired at the same time. in the process all the possible aspect of the object is throughly thought over.

As new technologies are coming out every day, (especically the internet) our world is moving faster than ever, more "new" designs are being produced at a rapid speed and also becoming "old" faster too. so its vital to never to linger on designs that are "now" but to look forward to see what is going to happen.

Design is all around us. every object we see and touch was designed by someone who has put their thoughts, emotions and apart of themselves into the object.
Design in a sense is the bridge that connects the designer to the consumer. we put our emotions and characteristics into the design to create a relationship. in another word, we are objectifying our life, emotions and philosophy.

Design Confusion- RIce Cooker

The story of stuff with Annie Leonard

I was very much surprised (and disappointed) when I found out that product designers played a deliberate and direct role in trashing the planet.
The textbook explanation of materials economy is indeed very misleading.
Personally I feel that we are obligated to design products that seek not only the best interest of people but our planet as well. So therefore we are responsible to design products using environmentally friendly materials and production methods.
There are 4 issues in this system that greatly interests me

1. We are running out of resources - We are using too much stuff!
In the past 30 years one third of the earths have been consumed and even today we are consuming our resources at an accelerating rate. So it will be in less than 60years time before we completely use up all the earth’s resources. And the scary thing is that, that is actually within my life time! (If I live to be 80).

2. Third world – our stuff that somehow got onto someone else’s land
So even tho a country (in this case America) doesn’t have enough materials within their land to provide their needs, they go and take someone else’s and trash their lands as well! Deforestation, pollution of water ways and dumping of rubbish on someone else’s land obviously does not make a good living environment for ANYONE.
I found this really ironic as that we are the ones that are stealing their stuff and causing problems such as health endangerment and child labour and yet we think we are being the bigger man donating to them what is essentially already theirs.

3. Toxic materials- toxics in, toxics out. We get what we give
When my kitchen goes on fire, I’m going to put it out with my pillow....that sounds very practical indeed.
These toxins affect everyone in at least one way or another. Factory workers, mothers and babies, and these toxins become super toxic after its incinerated and is released into the atmosphere where we all breath it in.

4. Material satisfaction – are you satisfied?
It has become typical in this generation and generations to come for us to seek happiness and confidence in material goods, but this wasn’t always the case. It was designed for this to happen:
“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life , that we convert the buying and the use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption, we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” - Victor Lebow economist and retail analyst in 1950’s
BUT! Statistic shows that our national happiness is actually declining (base on statistics in America). As Annie Leonard addressed, we have more stuff but we have less time for the things that really makes us happy. We are so engrossed on our material life that we have forgotten the simple way of life where human interaction was all that mattered.

It is indeed a system in crisis

The existing systems were created by people. as a future industrial designer, i believe we have the power to change

Don Norman- Emotional Design

Beautiful design = happy design

Function is so important in a product, it is the sole purpose of the existence of the being been designed, manufactured, and sold to the world. Up to a few decades ago this was the criteria of product design, with industrial designers having to take subjects in mathematics, physics and chemistry. But today industrial designers have taken “form” just as important as “function”, where the form of the product became largely the reason we purchase.

When I buy things, I have to make sure that it works. The function of the product has to superb; but if there is a product that is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, even though that the function does not match the initial product, there is every chance that I will consider purchasing even that the function does not suit my needs 100%.

But why is form so important?

According to Don Norman, it is about understanding what beauty is about, making things neat and fun. This is done by designing the product such that it allows positive human interaction creating the emotional experience that forms a bond between the user and product.
The emotional experience, broken down by Don Normal into three parts as the Visceral, behavioral and reflective process.

The Visceral level is our subconscious’ response to the product and is what appeals to our senses reguardless of function. “I don’t need it but I like it”. Don Norman gave a Perfect example of this is with the gold plated special edition juicer… that doesn’t make juice. Instead he use it as a decorator in his entrance way because it looks wonderful.

Behavioral design is feeling in control, which includes usability and understanding. The feeling of being in control makes us feel good about ourselves and gives us a sense of security. Such as the example given, the Global knife being “neat and sharp” gives us the feel of control of cutting, or driving a high performance sports car gives us the feeling of control over our environment.

Reflective level: the part of your brain that has no control over your body whatsoever. This level of emotion is what you reflect to the world about yourself.

Just a note of what Don Norman said regarding to the experiment by Alice Isen, with the conclusion that emotion can affect our thinking process. Being happy can make us awesome problem solvers.

So make us happy and we’ll give you awesome designs.