Electives - Week 4

We had our last presentation for Electives last Friday.
The presentation was just a synoptic view on what we had looked at and we begun to look at examples that answered our question. (How does design change our society's perception of needs?)

Our examples were:

• Apple's 'Think Different' campaign

• Volkswagen - The Fun Theory - in particular the Piano Staircase.

We also looked into the trends for the future in our fields, but we decided to keep our presentation short and sweet since we had to present last. 
I felt it was well received and people enjoyed the videos.

Next step the essay ...............

Before & After

A month ago, I took this photo of the forever changing wall on Church Street, Brighton. 
( It's kind of bad that I don't actually know what the shop is called.)

One month later and it looks more colourful and dynamic.

Naughty but nice.

Last week I was approached by my friend, Amy to help her take some Christmas photos.
So on Monday, we rearranged her flat to make it look festive and raided her wardrobe for some naughty, but nice outfits.
Here are some of my favourite pics from the shoot.

Dior Illustrated - Rene Gruau & The Line of Beauty

This week i went to Dior Illustrated at Somerset House. 
The imagery was so beautiful and vibrant with colour.
Here are some bits that i liked:


This was on the ground floor before you go up the stairs. (I probably wasn't meant to take a photo of this.)


Miss Dior, Circa 1960
"A striking, modern composition that perfectly captures the spirit if the age"


Dioressence - 1979
Watercolour, gouache and ink
"The image of an elegant woman reclining in a hammock conveys perfectly the exotic Haute Couture spirit of the scent."



Diorling - 1963
Watercolour, gouache and ink
"A young woman with loose dark hair nibbling a jasmine blossom."

Electives - Week 3

The feedback from last week's presentation was that our question was too broad.
We needed to refine it by defining who the individual is and what about society we decided needed to change/ who society is.

Therefore we began this week refining our question. 
(Society can change individuals. Can individuals change society?) 

We decided the individuals are designers since we are all designers. As well as we had to consider the design implications of the question this week. We also decided the thing about society we wanted to change is people needs because we looked at what influenced people

and how have they influenced people. One example we dicussed were mobile phones because at first it was a luxury/want. Now we consider them needs because we can't live without them.

Therefore we decided to change our question to:

How does design change our society's perception of needs?

We each looked at examples of how wants now have turned into needs, this included aeroplanes, cars, hygiene, mobile phone and packaging.

I looked into packaging:

• People didn't really need packaging - because they hunted and cooked their kill. If they wanted to preserve their food, they used leaves, woven baskets and animal skins.
• During the industrial revolution, packaging really took off and a range of different food became available to people. 
• As well as the invention of cardboard boxes meant transporting food became easier.
• Tin cans meant people could preserve food for longer.
• Now people hardly hunt because of the convenience of buying food at supermarkets.

The positive points about packaging is it helps protect your food from being damaged or contaminated. However it does make you question where does your food come from and how was it treated.

Electives - Week 2

We began the week being put into groups of 6. These groups depended on the keywords, we tagged our blogs with. My group's keyword is "Change". 

We spoke about which topics we found interesting from the Lectures and then came up with a series of questions. This was then later categorized into Education, Economics/ Globalization,Influences, Engagement/ Self-Awareness/ Human Nature, People and Society/ Politics and Risks/ Social Interaction. Each of these issues, where then divided up between the group, so we each had an area to research.

We also created an overall question, which we have to present to the entire seminar group:

"Society can change individuals, 
   Can individuals change society?"

For the presentation, we have created a slide show. Each person will have a few slides on their research area. I looked into Engagement/ Self-Awareness/ Human Nature.
My research showed:

• Humans are influenced by many things including themselves. 
• When evaluating themselves, they compare their current behavior to their own standards & values.
• People are more aware when their is an audience, mirrors or if they are being recorded. 
• People are social beings with a maximum of 150 friends, whom they participate in face to face communication. (Dunbar's number)