Category / Class 8

by Joya

pleasure

I read Pleasurable design and agree with it entirely. As an industrial designer in our current global state of affairs it is extremely important to be away of what we are producing. If we produce a dangerous car we are murderers. We walk a very thin line as creates, with the constant possibility that we may do something wrong or that someone may be inspired by us to do something wrong. We play many roles as creator, we can be an entertainer, a stylist, a helping hand, a shelter and countless more. One of the most important facets of design to keep in mind is pleasure. There is never anything wrong in pure pleasure, it is never something we have to fear. I was inspired by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and decided to make a website inspired by their designs.

I set all the vectors i created off of their work to transparencies and percentages so that they would overlap in different ways when you expanded the page.

 

by isabela

Class 8 Reading

Is it possible to make something that is universally aesthetically pleasing and at the same useful?

 

In my opinion, yes. Just this weekend, I watched the ‘Steve Jobs’ movie, and I guess that kind of inspired me to think that it is possible. The original models that were made by Apple, were literally bricks. And when Jobs left and made a new model, it looked like a box.  However, I think that the apple computers are a good example of an object changing and improving over time, both for actual use and aesthetics. There are so many examples that I could use, and this is especially apparent on the web, which is one of the most useful aspects of our society, where literally anything is possible.

 

by Jessica

reading | pleasurable design

As designers, where do we truly find happiness?

This article features a bunch of recent works by designers that are said to be “pleasing”, or make us happy. It seems like just as futile of an attempt at exploring happiness as any other one. This has been such a trend in design themes, but not so much in art. Stefan Sagmeister focuses on exploring happiness in The Happy Show, which is an exhibition dedicated to the understanding of what makes us enjoy certain things. It features bright yellow walls smothered with infographics based off of recent studies, and endless interactivity.
There is a new concept that Art and Design have evolved into the same. However this interest in exploring happiness distinguishes the two in a big way. When have we not seen this topic explored in science or even technology? Even better, when have we ever seen this in fine art?
The understanding that happiness means the same thing to all of us, whether we are designers, artists or scientists, is false. Trying to develop universal truths about happiness will most likely not be successful.
In this article, there are no designed objects that are out of the ordinary. A book, a chair, a vase, etc. They are all purposeful and functional in their designs, but the writer finds aesthetic pleasure in each of them. Maybe you will too! It’s a pretty well-written article after all. Why is it then, that after reading I am still left wondering more about what happiness is supposed to even be?
As designers, how can we design for happiness? Is it a matter of being happy while designing? Where and when does this magic happen? The designed objects that this writer has chosen do not necessarily please me. The bias in this article is frustrating and barely legitimate rather than inspiring, because happiness is a topic that is not based off of anything close to objectivity. You could argue that science offers some studies that contribute to the greater investigation of happiness, but as a whole it is simply too subjective to form any real truths from this type of data.
This article may be fun for someone that is not aggressively pursuing design, but for a designer, these articles – regarding aesthetic pleasure and happiness – are simply not helpful. Designers may want to subvert the concept of happiness, rather than focusing on it head-on. At least in my experiences, happiness is a thing that happens exclusively while other things are happening. In the meantime, diving into deeper more substantial areas of interest may be a quicker and less maddening path to gaining true pleasure from design.

by Fernanda

Reading Response – Class 8

 

What design means nowadays?

It seems that, nowadays, the word “design” is used so loosely that its meaning gets lost. It appears that everyone is a designer these days. You have engineers of all sorts that can be considered designers, architects, interior designers (as the name already shows it) are designers. Then you have graphic designers, UX designers, clothing designers and the names go on. And so, it gets to a point that when someone says “I am a designer”, it doesn’t mean anything, or even better, it means everything, therefore the person has to be more specific about what kind of designer he/she is. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, design is “the way something has been made, the way parts of something are formed and arranged for a particular use, effect, the process of planning how something will look, happen, be made”. Taking into account this definition, indeed a lot of people can be designers and create designs, because they are creating, making something. Architects are creating buildings, clothing designers, clothes, obviously, interior designers are creating nice spaces, engineers are creating products, technologies, websites and so on.

I agree with the author of “Pleasure Design” in saying that design more than make us happy, it entertains and surprises us. But, who is to say what is considered a good design? Some say that taste is personal and it cannot be discussed, in other words, it cannot be judged. Therefore, who is the judge of a good design? Maybe the design of a person is beautiful to someone and, at the same time, horrible to someone else, as it happens in many cases. It is not like a math problem with one correct solution. It has many solutions, being a very subjective matter.

by Luna

Reading Response- Class 8

Do designers have a responsibility to do good? 

Yes and no.  I think the ability to create and the exercise of creating is positive, no matter what it is, because creating is what propels us into new realms of living.  The ability to imagine and then make what before was just fantasy, is beautiful.  If we continue to imagine and create worlds based on that imaginative thinking, we will continue to grow as a collective species.

 

This is not to dismiss the issue with designing destructive products; there are obvious concerns with 3D printing a gun or even on a greater level- making the atomic bomb.  While it would be great if people chose only to design positively, the issue is not with the way people design, but with the way people think, and the power and profit that go to ideas that are negative towards the earth and other humans.  Censoring ideas will do nothing but circulate more negativity and the real solution would be to foster environments and spaces that invite positivity and beauty as opposed to fantasizing destructive apparatuses.

by Ashley

Can design ever have too much functionality?

In this reading the writer mentions four ways in which design can benefit us; pleasing, entertaining, surprising, and astonishing us. In the 21st century, products have become more and more functional but the idea of having to label something to be “user friendly” makes me question if something wasn’t what is the point of that product to be put out to have users. Products in the past have only had one function, for example a cell phone just made phone calls not to surf the internet, play games, track spending habits etc. Sometimes in the world of technological development the need to have pleasure, entertainment, surprise, and astonishment in one product is a lot and almost makes something not functional and not necessarily pleasing. I do agree that some products are complicated now because of the industry and pushing to create something new, like the 3D printer, a product meant to be run by a specialist. In my experience with 3D printing it is definitely satisfying after the hours and hours of work and holds both astonishment and surprise. In conclusion, reading this article and thinking about the products that I own, it is convenient to have all these elements in one but to other generations they would not necessarily call anything “user friendly” now.