Brainstorm

The Stickiness Factor and Interior & Environmental Design.

I found brainstorming as a group an interesting process, it was beneficial to hear from others their ideas about the chapter and how this relates to Interior and Environmental Design. Something that kept re-occurring through the brainstorming session and also through my personal discussions with others was that interior design can often be stereotyped into design something pretty or extravagant. This, however, is not always the case sometimes Interiors can be designed in such a way as to improve the quality of people's life.

Group Session- The Stickiness Factor & IED

Through group discussions I found particular interests in the idea of Desiging for education. It was whilst thinking of different ways of educating that I started to think about designing for those who maybe need particular help or benefit from being in a certain situation. This led me to research into designing for people living with Autism and I found a presentation by The Scottish Society for Autism. This presentation helped me to understand that Interior design is exceptionally important to people with Autism. Everything from the amount of space or colours used in a classroom is carefully designed so as to help concentration and also provide safe ans comfortable surroundings.

Individual Research- Design, Advertise and Educate

Bus STOP!

This is not a rant this is an observation of bad design.

It's a cold Autumn/Winter morning, you are waiting on the bus, you are tired and it's dark and it's wet. You would think a short sit down at the bus stop would offer a place of solace, somewhere you can feel comfortable, sheltered and protected.

However this is most certainly not what you get. The painful feeling of such cold steel coming into contact with your body almost feels like it burns your skin to your clothes. Surely this is a bad idea? I would have thought having seating in the bus stop would imply that they would like you to sit? After all sitting can prevent anxiety it can also calm people down and I am sure most people are aware of how uncomfortable it can be when ten people are all crammed into the one stop but no one is sitting.

So two good things would happen if simple design issues were resolved.

Issue 1. Comfort. In slightly heating the seating during colder months this would encourage people to sit and would also prevent the horrible sharp shooting pain. I understand that this would have to be regulated as we would not want some complaints of burning and over heating of the derriere! The heating mechanism could be similar to that of a heated towel rail and could work with environmentally friendly solar panels or wind powered.

Issue 2. Social. Through heating the seats this would encourage more people to sit and in turn communicate with each other. In turn this could strengthen community spirit and solve social problems.

I understand that all this is perhaps far fetched but I feel that the designers of these bus stops just think about "sexy" design they do not think of how their design can have a negative or positive effect on peoples days.

The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell

At first on reading The Tipping Point, I was unsure as to what I was actually going to gain from the Book. Gladwell at times can almost become quite tedious in his way of repeating a point over and over again. I guess this is just his way of making these points stick.

Throughout the book there are interesting examples of various factors which add to or make a Tipping Point. In particular interesting parts for me include, Kitty Genovese and the 0/38 coming to her rescue, Mark Alpert the honest and knowledgeable Mavern, the rule of 150 and the failure and success of Sesame Street/Blue's Clues.

Taking the chapter: The Stickiness Factor- Sesame Street, Blue's Clues and the Educational Virus, I expanded the various themes into a detailed Mind Map. It is interesting to know that television programmes such as Sesame Street and Blue's Clues are not simply thrown together in a random way but are carefully thought and tested before airing. Through testing these programmes on children, researchers can understand which areas of the programme children enjoy find too confusing or keep them engaged. There is not simply one designer/scriptwriter/director for these programmes, but there are in fact many multiples of designers/scriptwriters/directors. These are the children that the test the programmes on. There appears to be a lot more going on behind the scenes than a man dressed as a yellow bird or a host who has a tendency to take long pauses. Each and every aspect of these programmes has been designed to look, sound and come across in a specific way.

A successful way to make something Stick is to EMPHASISE certain parts or to repeat, repeat, repeat. A successful way to make something Stick is to EMPHASISE certain parts or to repeat, repeat, repeat. A successful way to make something Stick is to EMPHASISE certain parts or to repeat, repeat, repeat.

Emphasis and repetition can both work well in Children’s educational programmes, the same episode of Blue’s Clues was repeated every day for 5 days, but they are equally as important in advertising. From Wunderman’s use of the Gold Box to the unsuccessful Olympic sponsorship of Coca Cola advertising is ever important in our life. I find it fascinating that the average American see around 25 4 different commercial daily, imagine how many times they see the same advert in a day. That is a lot of repetition.

Overall my opinion of the book has changed from how I felt at the start, I now realise how important small changes are or how they in turn can make a big change. I also now understand how much research and thought goes into various things like Sesame Street or cleaning up the Subway. Through Mind Mapping my understanding of the book developed and I am positive that my knowledge will continue to develop as I re-read the book.

The Stickiness Factor- Sesame Street, Blue's clues and the Educational Virus

Design For Life

Episodes 1&2

Design For Life, the current BBC programme is like America's Next

Top Model meets Project Runway. Phillipe Starck, the world renowned designer in the UK who is going to raise the bar in British design. The Prize? Six months industry experience with one of the "top" designers in the last century.

The larger than life designer is surrounded by a group of designers who seem to be solving issues which everyone, including non-designers, is aware of. Things such as why single use batteries are bad for the environment and are not ecological, why homes built on the sea would mean more land space for crop growth and why using a bicycle for short journeys helps the environment. Why did Starck not get rid of the majority of the people sitting around his table? The idea of this programme and the chance to win a placement with Starck, is to find a designer who thinks outside of the box and can develop ideas that are not so glaringly obvious?

The programme continues this preconceived idea of designers to be quite full of there own importance and also that things need to be sleek, sexy and cool to be a good piece of design. Evidence of this is when Starck says "to understand you should not think only feel" in his heavy over-emphasising French accent. The image of people like Zombies not thinking only feeling crossed my mind as I watched this. There does, however appear to be a couple of contestants who genuinely want to learn and who are truly passionate about design.

I agree with Starck when he said that "too many pointless products are being made." an example of this is evident in a piece of his own works, the spaceship looking lemon juicer (Salif Juicer for Alessi). This impractical piece of design (reputedly it squirts juice everywhere) is now a part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art.

The military truck = simplicity- This according to Starck is the "only vehicle with the elegance of intelligence, driven by function not marketing" This is a rather interesting concept as it undermines designers ability almost giving the idea that designers do not design they are simply dictated to by what will or will not sell.

Overall the programme is maybe not entirely informative or full of decent "design thinking", but, I can't help but feel I will become addicted to watching it to follow the progress of the group but more so to try and understand why Starck is such a major influence in the design world.

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=1825 Museum of Modern Art
http://www.starck.com/ Phillipe Starck