Video reflection : What is a design?

People always wondering “what is a design?” “What is a good design?”. Bill Moggridge gave a concise summary about design in his speech, “Design is everything.” Design appears everywhere in people’s daily life, a smart handle of a pinchers is a design; a great building is an architecture design; a stylish clothes is a fashion design…Moggridge mentioned about National design awards, in order to giving us a sense of design, and showing examples of good design. For example, Frank Gehry, He designed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The clever use of curve makes the building seems modern, even it was established in 1997. In the speech, Moggridge also gave some examples of bad design. For instance, in Japan people can even buy a drink using the I-mode service. However, this takes 30 minutes to buy a drink. There will be only few of people would like to use this service, because nobody has patient to wait 30 minutes just buy a drink. The designer didn’t understand the design process, and they didn’t figure out people’s needs. As a designer, we should understand people. Basing on people’s needs, we can create some new products, which are useful for people, and user will feel pleasure to use. Moggridge said about an innovation framework, it includes people, business and technology. For example, for the engineering research, they will start with technology, and then look for business position and type of people intend to buy it. For business man, they will start with their business point view, and then technology and people. For a designer, one of the most significant thing is they will think different point of view to understand different people’s desire. Such as: older people; young teenage, people with different ethic; people with different cultural background. A good design is to meet user’s wants, let the process experience pleasurable and gratification. As Miggridge said: “A good design for some disabilities, also is a good design for everybody.” This also refers to the Universal design, which is a popular topic now. Besides, in the speech, Miggridge also said about sustainable design. Environmental friendly material becomes designer’s love, such as a new material: Greensulate, organic insulation material made of Mycelium, this can instead of polystyrene. As an industrial designer, we need to think about sustainable product, like the project upcycling we did in Studio 1. We need to use paper to create a lamp. Design can be a tiny thing around our life, however, the process of designing a good product is a long way, and we need to learn, look, ask and try.

Peer Comments

1.Oskar Carabez


http://ocarabezides1031.blogspot.com/2011/09/project-1.html#comments

2. Jan Gerardino


http://janraymondgerardino.blogspot.com/2011/09/experience-enrichment-pen-with.html#comments

3.Ginny Virginia Kwok 


http://ginnykwok.blogspot.com/2011/09/project-one-experience-enrichment.html#comments

4.Levina, Felicia

http://feliciaides1122.blogspot.com/2011/09/project-1-experience-enrichment.html


5.Dominic See


http://dominicsee.blogspot.com/2011/09/habu-kitchen-knife.html?showComment=1315911855104#c2367228624252597787

Project One: Experience Enrichment

  Rationale

  Orange peeler is a stainless steel hand tool designed to peel the orange skin easily.

  The design is easy, simple and pleasure to use. The shape and size of the handle is easy to grip and comfortable to hold whilst cutting and peeling. Besides, the size is fitting people’s hand, which including the children. The shape of the top is designed for people can cut and peel off the orange skin at same time; do not need people’s hands to peel it off anymore. This will save problems for some ladies who have beautiful nail.

  This orange peeler targets females aged between 20-45 years, who enjoy entertaining. For the independent woman who enjoy to dressed up, and love to buy the delicate stuffs.

  Referring back to the brief, the orange peeler product design highlights a pleasurable living relationship with the user, as it makes the experience of peeling orange easier. The size and shape is simple and delicate which make user feel gratification when they use it. Through the use of stainless steel as the material, this provides a modern feeling. Stainless steel is used which increasing the product’s texture to a higher level. The users will also feel pleasurable when they are just looking at it, because the nice appearance of this product. The shape of the handle is large and strong to grip, making the process experience comfortable, where the hand is not stressed by the action.

Video reflection : The story of stuff

After reading the video “The story of stuff”, I strongly realize as a designer we are not designing a product for the market, we also should think about the environmental and social issues. As shown from the video “There is only one planet.”


In the video, Annie Leonard mentioned the stuff moves to a system, from extraction to production to distribution to consumption and disposal, all together calls material economy. Beside, she also says there are a lot missing from this explanation. For example: People, people are working through the system. Firstly, Annie Leonard introduced the extraction. The earth has limited resources; however people use too many stuff in this world. One-third natural resources in the planet has been consumed, we are using the stuff so fast. As a designer, we should think about the way we design the products, in order to satisfy the environmental sustainability. Secondly, Annie Leonard said the problem of production. In the production process, the natural resources turn to the toxic chemicals. There are 100,000 synthetic chemicals is using today. How horrible the number is, all this chemicals are impacts our health and the environment. People should stop buying the toxic product, and designer should stop putting toxic stuff into our industrial production. Annie Leonard used human breast milk to emphasize the toxic stuff’s danger. Mother’s breast milk used to be the secret and safe, but now it is becoming the most toxic food. The third process which is distribution, it means selling all toxic drugs as soon as possible. They keep the price down, and attract people to buy it. This calls externalized costs. Next step consumption, which is the heart of the system. After World War II, the government and cooperation focus on how to increase the economy, a retailer got a solution which is: “Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction. In consumption, we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” We are paying tax to the government; their job is to protect us. However, in order to increase the economy, they are producing many toxic drugs, destroying the environment in their own country and the third country, hiring cheap labour force from India, China which aims to decrease the price of toxic products. For people, we don not have high sustainability lifestyle and all the drugs damage our body. The government and cooperation use planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence to encourage consumer buy all these useless products. Planned obsolescence which means design for the dump, they design the product which is useless and finish as quickly as possible. This causes consumer to buy a new one. Besides, advertisement is playing an important role in the perceived obsolescence. It makes people feel embarrassed if they don’t have new and technique stuff. People can not stop shopping, therefore this into the next stage of the system, disposal. When the stuff is full in your house, you will put it in the rubbish bin. In the United States, people make 4.5 Lbs/day, it twice to the twenty years age. Moreover, all these rubbish make a huge pollution in the planet. For us, we must recycle the garbage and stop buying the useless stuff.

Presently, the environment sustainability becomes a significant topic in the world. We should pay more attention about the products’ material.

Product Sketching

Modern feeling of a garbage receptacle

Simple shape with straightforward design

The colour and shape is nice and clean

Lightweight , folding balance for children

Use of lace to create a teapot, which is delicate

My Design Career

Industrial design as one of the most popular course in 21st century, which is a specialization inside Architecture, and it creates the design solutions toward problem of form, engineering, marketing, and sales.

Due to I have strong interests in creation of my own product; I have chosen to study industrial design at UNSW. Besides, I feel proud to study all these professional skills during my university study, even though there will be lots of obstacles. Moreover, I think industrial design as my future career since I started this year of university. The reason is that I had a sense of satisfaction when I finished my project, and I found out there are plenty of excellent products, which I almost worshipped the ground the designer trod on. Therefore, I have strong passion to be part of them. In addition, I had influenced by my family. My mother was studying for textile design in Japan before she got married. She used to think about become a designer and open her own shop. However, she chose the marriage instead her own career. My mother’s experiences stimulated me to consider my own career as a designer. This family value only can be a part of the reason that I want to become a designer; the major reason is I desire to become a designer for myself.

In fact, as a developing country, China’s economy and global influences have improved a lot. All these developments lead China has paid more attentions to focus on the build of environment and the high standards of people’s lifestyle. Industrial design in China has just begun, and it is becoming a popular topic in these recent years. Accordingly, there will be a huge need of industrial designer in the future. For me as a Chinese, I am glad to contribute to my home country. Presently, I am studying this course in a Western country that is in order to have a better understand of the difference between West and East value. In my opinion, I think have a sense of multiculturalism help us to create a range of innovative products. For my future, at first I am going to work in a design company that aims to gather more working experiences and understand the operation system. Later on, I would like to try to operate my own lab despite it will be competitive and difficult. The certain principle is that I insist industrial design is my future career.

Design Confusion