Critical Selfie Stage One

My original idea was to go with one of the critical statements that was presented to us during the first project. The statements to choose from are the following:

- Design should be sexy
- Design should be environmental sustainable
- Design should serve as a symbol for consumer identity
- Design should speak to craft and the human hand
- Design should reflect innovation
- Design is just an excuse for making more junk
- Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way
- Design should connect people

So for the first stage, I went with "Design should be sexy" since it was the statement that I had worked with in the first project. To start off with this project, I walked through the more populated streets of Wellington and tried to think about the "sexy" that captures my attention. One thing I realised were the amount of advertising everywhere. I veered towards the women's advertising at this point since it was what I found sexy, and compared the different shops that advertised using women and their idea of "sexy".

Here the photos from the first stage:

CCDN 331 Rap 3: Photography

In this week's lecture, we were greeted by a special guest speaker Leon. He mainly spoke to us about photography, which for most things I knew about. He explained to us the important things when taking a photograph such as framing, and lighting which I do quite a lot of when it comes to my own work. He also spoke to us about our photo essays and mentioned how photographs create meanings and narratives to some extent. I agreed with this and related it back to my own work.. however am currently finding this current assignment hard to properly start because of the lack of ideas and inspiration.

CCDN 331 Rap 2: Mirroring + Mapping: "The Flaneur"

In this week's lecture, the flaneur was introdcued to us. We were asked, why would the approach for the flaneur be appropriate to common design practice? I hadn't had a clue to be honest, nor did I ever hear the word "flaneur" before this lecture. But I then realised that this was crucial to our next project, which was shortly after introduced to us. It got me thinking about ideas, how to truly express my thoughts and ways of thinking. I thougth about passive observation as well. The ability to observe the world from a design point of view. Taking the observational context into play, but yet still being a bystander. Being able to pressure, and provide insight as a designer. The ability to look at the bigger picture. To be able to see he truth of what's really going on in the working world. 

Project 1 Write-up + Video

The phrase ‘Design should be sexy’ gives us the idea of expensive, appealing and high-end quality design. Its con is the cost of and expenses of creating ‘sexy’ design. Design can be time consuming and as Benjamin Frankly phrased it “time is money.” Talent and labor both cost money and which therefore drives up the final cost of the product. Companies spend millions of dollars advertising high end products that will hopefully be perceived as appealing and desirable.

We state that design should be sexy but at what cost are we producing appealing design? Things such as materials are one of the things to consider while it can affect our environment. The video challenges the phrase design should be sexy by showing how the product has been crafted taking time and effort in order to make the product look appealing. Creating such high end products use more costly resources and tools to make. The video shows the wood being altered to make it look appealing and making it look newer than the original. The more time it takes to make something look “sexy” the more money it will cost to produce and the more expensive and costly the product will be. Cost and things such as materials affecting out environment to make something look sexy has a negative impact on design.

CCDN 331 Rap 1: Theory + Application

Soo..the first week back huh.. I'll admit I wasn't so sure on what to expect coming to the first lecture. But a couple of things sparked my attention. First off nice group photos, at least you all have a sense of hunour. Secondly, I hadn't had lunch yet and the picture of the Burger King advertisement made me hungrier. It also made me think about the countless false advertising that fast food franchises do when they take photos of these "real" burgers but are actually little rubber models of them just to make it look appealing. And then when it comes back to us, the consumer, we're presented with a "McFilth". Mmm real appetizing. Stay Hungry. I am looking forward to the rest of the trimester to hopefully learn more in Design Live Theory, and to apply it to the depths of my design mind. I will find my voice as a designer.

GFDA: My Pledge