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.