Yesterday, Tania showed us the “LIVE + WORK with Stefan Sagmeister” video, and talked about the “on the binge” project by Sagmeister which I posted up a few days back, over here. There was also a reading which she mentioned, another of Hillman Curtis film of Sagmeister, which can be found here.

I spent my morning reading on Sagmeister’s diary, when he was in the “my year of graphic design without client” period. How he did his own self reflection on his projects, the things he sees that inspires, the projects he would like to do, etc. It shows how much aspirations he once had, and still have. In his journal, he mentioned, “keeping a diary supports personal development”. Thats what Tania encouraged us to do.

When I first knew that I had to start up a blog, I was merely blogging for the sake of it. Now I think I’m enjoying it, because to me, it’s like an archive of what I’ve found, what I’m doing, etc. Just like how I’ve defined the word blog on the left column of this page. Reflections, ideas, videos, works of others, there’s just so much to write about, in which would help us as a designer. I’m sure the next time when I look back at all my blog entries to reevaluate, it will be a fun one. There is just so much more to learn and absorb.

“Editor’s note: This tragedy has driven many of us to put our lives on a better course by reevaluating how we spend our time”

*UPDATED 16MAY08; Not forgetting, another video worth watching and archiving, thought I should just include this here. “Stefan Sagmeister: Yes, design can make you happy“, from TED talks. And this is the “Life Instructions“, that Sagmeister was talking about.

I saw a video by Gillian Crampton Smith, on the different aspects of research study in interaction design from Innovationsforum. She compares a design project and a research project, then proceeds on to the types of projects that have different insights. She then questions, “giving existing technologies, what different approaches could be taken to make it (a specific project) more usable, more useful, more satisfying?” I reckon that this a good point to dwell on. Being aware of the various approaches that can be taken, i can improve on my current/future projects in context.

In short, the video below, which was mentioned during the presentation by Gillian, is about how ideas are generated during a class/workshop, ‘Strangely Familiar: Repurposing Everyday Devices‘ in Interaction-Ivrea. I think the hanging alarm clock is quite interesting, which, once again relates back to my group project on Time Management.

I guess that would be a yes. Further readings, “the top 10 things they never taught me in design school,” by Michael McDonough, is something to add on to my earlier post, regarding my views on design education.

For my readings this week, I had to write my response of which I felt the most among a number of short essays by Kees Dorst from the book, Understanding Design. To me, I respond most to the short essay on “Limits of an Education“.

I feel that there is a limit to everything we do, and that we have to take responsibility towards our own future/education. Kerry Polite (2004) states that the design solution of a student either succeeds or fails, but in both cases, the student benefits by gaining the ability to discern the reasons behind the success of failure.This is an important aspect of a process. They are learning to see and learning to think on their own.

Everyone is born in a unique way with different talents, different opinions, different ideas, and as a design student, I learn through my mistakes. Grades definitely do bother me, but in actual fact, it doesn’t really matter. It’s what we learn and gain from all the failures that makes us a better designer. My lecturer back home once challenged us to fail, rather then to excel. He said, since its so hard to excel, or ace the project, why not produce a work so that he can fail us. Well, come to think of it, it’s equally challenging. At the end of it, we managed to get average results, nothing fantastic, but, it’s definitely something worth pondering.

I absolutely agree that the school is only there to guide and to teach us the basics. A lecturer can do only that much. However, what one does or learns is what matters the most. It is through the downfalls, the failures and the experience of dealing with a design problem that counts. With that, one is then able to learn about the various possibilities that can happen.

Kerry Polite, 2004. “Thinking about Design Education“. Retrieved on 25 April 2008, from AIGA.

I was curious about what was mentioned on todays lecture, and I googled ‘personas’ and ’scenarios’. I chanced upon this really good blog, by Jeffrey Bardzell. He is actually an assistant professor in the Indiana University, of which he shared really interesting stuff about personas & scenarios, judgement, epistemology & design, philosophy, and many other stuffs which was taught in one of my design theory lectures by Reinar. Well, I wouldn’t say he taught, he enlightens us with his never ending debating yet inspiring topics, (with zero conclusion/answers), about design, philosophy and ya… it goes on.

After reading all the enlightenment, I was a little distracted by youtube. So I began my search on prototypes, interaction design, and I found some videos that were quite inspiring. I’ll definitely get my group members to watch this stash of videos that I’ve found. Hopefully we would have more ideas.

City Keys, and Move me; are similar video prototypes on the interactive kiosk for tourists.

Other inspiring videos; Memory, The Send-A-Message Challenge (I like this), Experiment type in motion, Impress a woman vs Impress a man. 

I just went through the readings / links in Tania’s email, and I thought I should share this with my other readers (if any).

This is one of the many interesting reads / video presentations at ‘putting people first‘, which gave me a deeper understanding on interaction design and the other possibilities / aspects in generating concepts.

Gretchen Anderson, 2008. “Concept Ideation”. Retrieved on 5 April 2008 from IxDA Interaction08.

“It is about shaping our everyday life through digital artefacts, for work, for play, and for entertainment.”

Gillian Crampton Smith