ccdn 331 | project four | manifestation

Design Manifesto

I look at things from more than one perspective;

I do no harm;

I craft with love;

I question stereotypes;

I am organised;

I am never finished;

I adapt;

 I stimulate more than one sense with my work;

I do not waste my resources;

I value the practice of remediation;

I am engaged in a two-way learning process;

I design my world & my world informs my design:

It's all two-way

ccdn 331 | project four | first draft of manifesto

It's All Two-Way

1. I do no harm – my take on one of the fundamental principals taught to healthcare students throughout the world: “Primum non nocere” (First, do no harm) I will always consider the consequences of my designs and avoid causing more harm than good;

2. I look at things from more than one perspective (RAP 2) – the flâneur concept helped me to remember how important this is. Context is everything;

3. I make with love – AKA passion, care, attention to detail. You can tell when something has been made with love. It looks better;

4. I do not buy into stereotypes (RAP 4) - I question any prejudices I may have that may cloud my judgment of things;

5. I am organised (RAP 1) – the spreadsheet is my friend;

6. I am never finished – there is always another iteration;

7. I adapt – I embrace change;

8. I draw on the past to inform my future (Essay) – remediate

“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” -  George Santayana

or

‘those who remember the past are obliged to remediate it’;

9. I stimulate more than one sense with my work (RAP 7) – I seek to move beyond the contemporary tendency to privilege sight over the other senses;

10. I design within my means (RAP 6) – no waste;

11. I am always learning – practice, educate, read, participate in quality discussion. I seek inspiration from within and without;

12. I design my world – ‘there is a way to create a better world by participation’ (All Saints, 2014) ‘Just like your car, your clothes, your life is the result of of the various choices, improvement and mistakes you have made so far' (Menon, 2010).

References:
All Saints (2014, September 11). Manifestos - Benjamin Southworth, Technology ‘Evangelist’  [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOEmM5gmTJM

Menon, A.(2010, August 6). The Design Mindset – 8 Principles You Can Apply in Your Life. Retrieved from http://www.ashmenon.com/the-design-mindset-8-principles-you-can-apply-in-your-life/

CCDN 331 | Project Four | Precedents

ccdn 331 | process | project 4

This is some more inspiration for my manifesto project.

ccdn 331 | Project Four | short summary

Review of initial concepts

1.    Short summary (50-100 words) that outlines your argument (manifesto) and its specific relationship to a critical/theoretical idea. Address how this relates to you and your practice as a designer/design thinker.



I don't want to separate my design persona from my everyday persona. I believe I practice a way of thinking that could be termed as a design mindset. And that all my different 'personae' (or are they contexts?) are welcome because they inform one another. I have spent much of my time during my studies thinking about how design principles can and should be used to guide the mind through all aspects of life. For example, why shouldn't we be able to practice a methodology in our everyday life that involves identifying the problem, issue or question at hand and approaching it from different perspectives – just as we do in design? In fact your life is product of your design.And this should be a manifesto for life.

ccdn 331 | project three | inspiration

Found this online today ...remediation? (or reverse remediation?)

Tom Hanks’ Typewriter App Shoots To The Top Of The App Store

ccdn 331 | project three | stage one

Topic: Remediation in the design context

According to their book 'Remediation: Understanding New Media by J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin', remediation is a defining characteristic of new digital media because digital media is constantly remediating its predecessors (television, radio, print journalism and other forms of old media).

Thesis statement: 

Remediation has been used in the digital design context to describe the representation of old media in new media (Bolter & Grusin) however it could equally be used to describe the act of (deconstructing and) refashioning any preexisting object or even concept with the objective being to improve its design.

Other questions and concepts:

Has the concept of taking one form of media and turning it into another become a legitimate design methodology in its own right?

Can you apply the concept to other creative fields such as food, craft and fashion?

Is there a two-way street that exists between the two media in this relationship?

Bibliography

1. Bolter, J. & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation understanding new media. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

The crux of this text, which has been enormously influential in media design, is that Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin present a contemporary theory of mediation that challenges the assumption that digital technologies must dissociate themselves from earlier media in order to create and adhere to new aesthetic and cultural principles.  They argue that 'new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television' (back cover). They have labelled this process of reconstruction“remediation". They acknowledge earlier examples of remediation such as: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville, and radio.
Evaluation: This is a key text since historically it breaks new ground in thinking around reworking of media and coined the word 'remediation' in the media design context. It is not possible to discuss remediation without referring to this source.

2. McLuhan, M. & Lapham, L. (1994). Understanding media : the extensions of man. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Marshall McLuhan prescient phrases "global village" and "the medium is the message", written in 1964, have since become media catch-phrases and unknowingly predicted the eventuation of today's information-dependent planet. Understanding Media was written twenty years before the PC revolution and thirty years before the rise of the Internet. Despite this McLuhan's observations of our engagement with a diverse range of media gave rise to a complete reevaluation of the role of media in society. He anticipated that the proliferation of electronic media would usher in a cultural revolution. In 1964, this may have been interpreted as an extreme point of view, however in our twenty-first century digital world, it seems lucid and unsurprising. 

Evaluation: Understanding Media is acknowledged as a seminal text on communication  and it's use as a source, as well as providing important foundational theory for my assignment, will augment credibility since any discussion on media demands acknowledgement of McLuhan's work.

3. Kichuk, D. (2007). Metamorphosis: Remediation in early english books online (EEBO). Literary and Linguistic Computing, 22(3), 291-303.

This article studies remediation in electronic products in library collections, especially the digital facsimile. Early English Books Online  is an interesting example, not only because of its scholarly importance, but also because of its multi-layered genesis from printed work to microfilm, Early English Books to digital facsimile, and to the text encoding initiative a joint ProQuest and Text Creation Partnership project. The article analyses the impact of filters and limits of remediation such as the choice to duplicate a single copy of a work as bi-tonal black and white images.

Evaluation: This is a step outside the general writing on the subject of remediation and could be useful as a way of demonstrating how my theory works outside the digital media context examined in the Bolter and Grusin text.

I have identified Daisy Cox and Mays Ali as the peers who will review my work and I will in turn review theirs.

ccdn 331 | project two | hand-in

The Summary

‘Colour is the strongest tool we have as designers to impact the viewer’s perception of our work’. (Best, 2012)

When I embarked on this project I discovered that focussing on one colour in two different environments was an excellent means for testing design theories around context. Research revealed that, fascinatingly, while there is a great deal of work done in research on colour physics, physiology and language, there remains relatively little on colour psychology in humans. It is agreed however, that colour is an important aspect of any design since its choice carries with it messages that can be understood across sex, age, culture and even species. (Elliot, 2013)

The purpose of the selection of photographs I have chosen for this essay is to demonstrate that while the colour yellow can have one connotation in an urban environment: function, caution and danger; the meaning can be perceived entirely differently in the home environment where it can signify warmth, sunshine and domesticity.

Metaphorically, the colour yellow could be me as I move between my two worlds, being seen as one person here and another, there. Yet, essentially, I am the same person in either place.

The Haiku

Yellow can show us

The context of the colour

Affects its meaning

The Photo Essay

Brief: The final iteration, produce a photo essay inclusive of eight images that expresses your critical perspective through your unique design voice. Consider the essay in its totality as a comprehensive and unified composition. Much like the haiku, the impact of your final photo essay should aim to be greater than the sum of its parts and should support you in articulating your design identity.

The following are two images from my essay. There is a PDF presentation of the essay in its entirety, including the haiku, at the end of this post.

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

Bibliography

1. Best, J., & Textile Institute (Manchester England). (2012). Colour design theories and applications. Oxford: Woodhead Pub., in association with the Textile Institute.
2. Elliot, A. J., & Maier, M. A. (2012). Color-in-context theory. (pp. 61-125) Elsevier Science & Technology. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-394286-9.00002-0

ccdn 331 | project two | stage two

The second iteration of my eight images for the photo essay. I took on board the idea that I may have been trying to cover too many bases and have pared my idea back to the colour yellow being the common theme of my images. I really wanted to express my original idea of duality through these images. Even though there is a sense of a dichotomy being presented here, the yellow demonstrates that the two locations also share a commonality. I would go so far as to say the yellow is a metaphor for me.

In fact, there is a strong sense of self in both the subject matter AND the style/tone of my images. Typcially I like images with high contrast and dynamic colour which is what I have presented here.

Note: I am still trying to work out how to present my images and after today's feedback I can see it would be good to pair the images so that not only does each pair represent each of the two worlds but that they each also have an aspect in common. An example might be to pair the two instances of hands. 

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

My haiku is:

my sun is yellow
wherever I go it is
the language I speak

ccdn 331 | project two | stage two

I have been taking photographs of natural yellow things around Plimmerton - I have decided to try and express the duality part of who I am through a narrative concerning form and function.

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

ccdn 331 | project two inspiration

I really wish we could present a multimedia photo essay for this project. This essay by Pierfrancesco Celada about the isolation of contemporary Japanese society is very inspirational for me. It really seems like the work of a consummate flâneur.

ccdn 331 | project two | stage one

First draft of photo essay. 

I took to the streets and shot a dozen or so images, each of them featuring yellow objects. I then selected the best eight. For this exercise, I was inspired by the Geoffrey Batchen quote in Snapshots - one of week 3's readings. I have studied for two of his papers and am very interested in his theories around vernacular photography and its study using the conventions of art history. For this project I would like to explore his theories around the everyday in photography (or, as Batchen would have it) visual culture. (Durden, 2013)

I wanted to further investigate the 'boring generic snapshot'. (Durden) As a jumping off point, my yellow objects constraint resulted in a useful exercise since the focus of only choosing yellow items allowed me to remain reasonably detached in my approach, which in turn lent itself well to the concept of the Flâneur.

The results ended up reminding me of Instagram so when I downloaded the images, I deliberately cropped them to squares to play on the Instagram look. With that in mind, I also amped up the contrast in Photoshop although I stopped short of applying any filters until I am clearer about where this project is going. I am interested in the act of photography not only as a means of creative expression but also in it's relationship to mourning and death (Barthes, 1980) as well as Batchen's Foucaultian proposition - that photography exists within a discursive space and relies on our interaction with it for it's production. I feel that these theories have a massive influence on the sort of design aesthetic I gravitate towards. That is retro, domestic and nostalgic-feeling design.

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

ccdn 331 | project 1 | hand-in

Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way.

Hand-in: 

The final part of the process: 

Daisy and I hadn't really seen Chris since the project had started and we weren't really sure what stage he was up to when we came in to campus this morning.

We caught up with Chris after the 331 lecture to see what he had done. He had added the sound which needed some tweaking and then, while we watched and discussed our design decisions, he added the text. This is the final version we handed in.

Reflections on the group project:

The output:

I feel like we answered the brief with a strong project. I am pleased that it fulfils my own expectations regarding clarity of message and refinement of vision. The object we made from the wood we were given was playful and yet there was a mature quality to the whole concept in that it didn't just fall back on the easy option of destroying it, which was an idea we had toyed with originally. I feel that the message of the video is twofold: one is about sustainability but the overarching idea is about how it is possible to draw the attention of your audience to everyday items (that might otherwise be overlooked) through thoughtful design.

Because we did not finish in a timely manner, despite my best intentions, mean that I feel what we handed in was not as polished as it could have been.

What I learnt through the group-project dynamic:

From the outset I really bought into Daisy's initial jumping off point (the pencil) because she justified the connection through the research she had done into the type of wood we'd been given. She had found that cedar is typically used for pencils. So it not a coincidence that we ended up with a (giant) pencil, and I really like that this was such a considered choice. Daisy is also an excellent communicator and is good at sharing her ideas without being overbearing. We are friends, so there is an established rapport between us which makes working together fun. Even though familiarity can be a positive, it can also be the source of distraction in a group project. It turns out that Daisy and I are also effective at being efficient with our time when completing tasks together, so this was not a problem we had to contend with.

Chris was an unknown quantity for both Daisy and I, so I was curious to know how things would work out when we were initially deciding how to divide up the work. As it turned out, everyone performed their designated roles really well, however communication was not something that characterised the way we ended up working with Chris. This did make the project harder to resolve between all three of us. As someone who places great value on communication I found this challenging. Happily, in the end I do feel Chris' input, even though it occurred late in the proceedings, was valuable and justified. I thought the music he composed worked well and his input around the text was thoughtful and elegant. It would have been preferable not to have been completing Chris' part quite so late on the day of our hand-in but I recognise that I could have made Daisy's and my timing expectations clearer to Chris.

For my own part I relish project management and took this role on without hesitation. It also felt good to get back into making the pencil after a trimester away from the workshop. I don't deny I have much to learn about Premiere Pro but enjoyed working with it again and think it was good I made an initial clip to help us understand the final requirements better. For someone who doesn't major in media design, I feel I can be proud of what I achieved with my initial clip. It confirms my theory about this degree being really useful for better understanding the work that future specialists do for me. I don't need to be able to use technical applications brilliantly but I do need to understand what they are capable of producing and how they work. I definitely learnt more about what is needed in terms of camera-work for video production and enjoyed my first foray into the school's ergonomics lab.

ccdn 331 | project 1 | process part 3

I came home on Sunday night, and couldn't wait to start working on the footage in Premiere Pro. Finally ended up last night with this version to hand over to Chris to add sound to. I had quite a lot of fun tinkering with the video and have to admit I got into the zone after a while.

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

This is the version (made by me) that I finally handed over for Chris to add sound to:

ccdn 331 | project 1 | process part 2

Daisy and I finished the pencil and shot our footage on Sunday:

We filmed yesterday using the storyboard as a guide. Some of the shots were hard to get - I think we were fairly ambitious wanting a sweeping panning shot that gave a sense of majesty! But in the end the pencil came out looking like a star.

We managed to get the lead centre to look like lead. And glued it into one half of the pencil:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

We then traced over printed letters to get our message onto the interior of the pencil.

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Then the shoot began

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

On my return home I processed all the raw video through LightRoom and decided on the footage we needed to keep for the final clip. I am going to do some editing to see what the storyboard looks like and how it all shapes up.

ccdn 331 | project 1 | process part 1

I have put together a storyboard based on our group's ideas:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

Daisy and I worked on the pencil design and execution on Thursday:

We cut the length of wood so that it formed half a pencil ( lengthways) then cut it in half.

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We then cut a groove for the 'lead' down the length

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We cut it in half so we had two lengths 250mm long. We used the lathe to 'sharpen' a dowel that will form the 'lead'. We even inserted a piece of real lead so that in principal you could use the end product to write with.

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© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

A test video done on the iPhone's slo-mo camera gives us a hint at how this might work.

ccdn 331 | studio one for project one

Our theory:

We have:
a nice length of wood - 17mm x 38mm x 500mm

We are:
Chris | Media
Daisy | Industrial
Me | Culture + Context

Our studio notes:
We were asked to brainstorm: Examples & ideas that support this
We started by observing that the word 'should' should be optional.
We tried relating it to sustainability (without much success)
Talked about redesigning recycle bins in a way that might test this theory
Thought about designing a house that has an integrated recycle system... but ran into a dead end
Each person is different - not everyone will/can be inspired by design - i.e. they might not be visual people
There is not really 'design for the masses' (um - except for IKEA?)
We completed a paper exercise where we were asked to create something that demonstrated one of our ideas as noted in our brainstorming.

Examples of these were:
1. Things don't have to be what you initially think they are
2. All is not necessarily what it might immediately appear to be
3. Fewer resources can be used to achieve the same result

After some further discussion we are going to approach our group project with the idea of perhaps cutting or burning the wood (transforming it and then reassembling it in some way) so that it demonstrates the theory we have been given.

Like dominoes.

We toyed with the idea of 3d modelling the block of wood and doing something with that but think it's too much - keeping it simple

Researched online and found this time-lapse that kind of sparked a few ideas:


 

back at it...

testing the new intervalometer

Received my new intervalometer in the mail last week and last weekend tested it on a G Road sunset. Took 600 odd images at full RAW size (so only got 2 x an hour or so of images done before the 32GB card filled up). Did a little post production editing in LightRoom which is what gives it the weird, high contrast look. Used LightRoom to render the first video file.

Sped up the resulting file in PremierPro by 1000% to end up with a one minute film.

Here is the result: