Blog for Design 2

“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”

- Charles Eames

I’m always interested in other aspects and disciplines of design. Although design as a whole is vast I can see there are similarities between disciplines and process.

The other day I found an interesting review site called Red Letter Media. What sets this review site apart from other is the way the reviewer (with a little bit of humour attached) breaks down the movie stage by stage. He explains why a movie works, through character development, what emotion the movie evokes. What really impresses me is he doesn’t say bad or good things about the movie without reason. This reminds me of what we were taught while learning design.

An example is to do with “Disney Eyes”.  He explains characters with wide eyes are more identifible and gain the audience’s sympathy due to look that they have nothing to hide. Where are characters with beady looking eyes are less likely to gain the audience’s sympathy due to looking like they have something to hide. This is all true and can be backed up in People Watching by Desmond Morris

He explains in one review that sometimes movie makers forget that they should aim to envoke an emotion, an aspect that I have to remember when designing. As designers we sometimes forgot we are trying to get a reaction out of people not to make things look pretty.

I really appreciate the time and effort this person has put into these reviews. Not only are they humourous but go into great detail! I’ve embedded the first part of the review. For the 2nd part if you are still interested go to his website.

For a link to Red Letter Media’s Site:

http://www.redlettermedia.com/

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs

While at tafe I never really had a good look at youtube videos, something I regret doing now. I have found some videos to be a great resource in understanding and remembering the fundementals of design.

Below is a video of interaction design which has been broken down into 3 parts. I found this easy to understand and will build on this knowledge.

Early last year I wrote an article on intuition. I went into some detail on what is intuition and how it is used on interface design. I will post the article on this blog at a later date.

The other day I was watching “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” and this clip:

Although it is meant to be an amusing parody of what a first time might be like using a computer it might not be so far from the truth.

Even 23rd beings from the future who come back in time might not know how to use a computer.

There are a million ways to interact with products. The company mobile art lab have combined an old technology that users are familiar with, with a new technology the iphone. This allows for a interaction with books on a whole new level. A book no longer becomes static, the book allows interactive explanations for methods and theorys.

Currently the technology is being developed for children’s books but could have multiple uses in the near future. I’m excited by this type of technology and hope to see more of it in the future.

“The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.”

- Victor Papanek

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

— Steve Jobs

I was once told “the best interface is no interface” which put me in a dilemma. If there is no interface then how can I design or develop an interface for users to interact with? As a designer we strive to make an interface more simple and easy to use, which is not always an easy feat.

Enter Pranav Mistry who may have come up with a solution to human interaction. Most of his ideas come right out of science fiction novel, think “Minorty Report”. His ideas, I believe could be the next evolution of the interface.

The word interface means to interact with a face and Mistry’s ideas allow the user to become the interface as well as receiving the information they want. It’s allow the user to gain real world data though simple actions.

This project goes to open resource fairly soon so I’ll be interested in having a look.

A link to the TED site (it’s worth looking at the comments too to see what other people think):

TED

It’s been one of those hectic years, still studying tafe, getting a full time job halfway through the year and somehow I’ve neglected this blog. To finish off the year I would like to post some texture I’ve found during a visit to the old red brick company.

I hope by the new year I will be back on track to post in this blog regularly