Designers and design

Design Triangle of Aesthetics

Category 1

To me, this shelf fits the closest into the centre as it is functional – it fills the spaces and it is big enough to hold things, aesthetically pleasing – it emphasises the corners of a place that usually goes by unnoticed and it also factors in human factors – you can change the height of this shelf as you please, perhaps according to an individual’s height.

Catergory 2

This shelf fits into category 2 as it plays a huge role in factoring in emotions, not designed for functionality – this shelf brings across emotions such as anger through its harsh lines and instability through the angles of the wood. However, in terms of functionality and human factor, it is not that permissible as it cannot hold much items and could only be placed on the floor.

Category 3

Category 3 is probably the easiest to recognise, it does not have anything aesthetically pleasing on based on any human factors. It is designed just to be used with full functionality – for storage purposes only.

Category 4

Lastly, in category 4, we have this set of shelves that includes heavily on human factors – it is based on what we need in order to save space. It is also lean towards the functional side as it serves two purposes – set of stairs and shelves. But it doesn’t really bring many emotions as it is just shelf like.

Field Trip to Harvey Norman

Why Harvey Norman?

Actually, by going to Harvey Norman, it is possible to see why our field trip was held there.

I managed to take note of the new trends in household product these days~

Colours

The first thing that attracts people is the colour – its vibrance. It draws you to them and it helps to add life into the object. It also helps as a theme – for instance SMEG, by having the same set of colours in a series makes one want to purchase a line of their products – from toasters, to kettles to refrigerators.

2. Convenience/Shape

Some products are shaped with sleeks and curves that are really interesting – such as the cake mixer that looks like a rocket. Also, these days, designers also pays attention to the finest details of the consumer’s needs. Such as having a fridge space fit for an entire cake.

But somehow, for example, the fridge has too many features – it makes me think if the consumer will really use everything? or will these new extra features make the product too complicated and become a complete turn-off!

3. New Technology

Never in my life would I expect to have a transparent iron – or at least the part where it is to be heated transparent. It is quite cool (and expensive) to marvel at – but i find myself asking would i pay for new technology when i can get something of almost the same result for half the price?

I think new inventions and technology is cool but unless it makes a really huge difference, it won’t market as well.

But of course, new innovations is still necessary and who knows it might become a hit product in the future?

Yves Behar & Karim Rashid

Yves Behar

Inspired by the power of collaboration, the Public Office Landscape reinvents office furniture as a space for interaction and dialogue.

Tasked with creating a remote health-care diagnostic device, Behar’s fuseprojects created Kernel, a palm-sized amulet that can read blood, saliva, urine, and breath and transmit data back to a medical center.

Behar’s design of the SodaStream Play simplified the original design.

The rugged, economic, and aesthetically friendly XO laptop was designed to be distributed as a low-cost educational tool for children across the world. More than 2 million have been produced.

Introduced in 2010, the deceptively simple Jawbone Jambox launched the wireless speaker market.

Created from non-woven polyester and cardboard, the Clever Little Bag is easily recyclable. Manufacturing of the Clever Little Bag, as opposed to traditional packaging, reduced water and energy consumption by more than 60 percent yearly.

Yves is a design entrepreneur who believes that product, digital and brand design are cornerstones of any business. He is the founder of fuseproject, the San Francisco and New York based design and branding firm he established in 1999. He is also Chief Creative Officer at Jawbone, where for the last 11 years his products, brand and communications work has helped the company become a leader in wearable and audio consumer electronics. Behar is also the Creative Co-Founder of OUYA, an open sourced gaming platform, and is Co-founder of start-up August, a next generation home entry system.

(https://fuseproject.com/)

I too inspire to be a designer-entrepreneur because I believe that business and marketing is also essential to product designing. I believe that entrepreneurship helps to raise funds giving us the ability to have the resources to do even more for the designing community as well as being able to promote it well. Yves Behar’s research into constructing eco-friendly products as well as helping out in improving the lives of people from third world countries in their own way makes me look up to him – and also inspire to be like him.

Karim Rashid

Today poetic design is based on a plethora of complex criteria: human experience, social behaviors, global, economic and political issues, physical and mental interaction, form, vision, and a rigorous understanding and desire for contemporary culture. Manufacturing is based on another collective group of criteria: capital investment, market share, production ease, dissemination, growth, distribution, maintenance, service, performance, quality, ecological issues and sustainability. The combination of these factors shape our objects, inform our forms, our physical space, visual culture and our contemporary human experience. These quantitative constructs shape business, identity, brand and value. This is the business of beauty. Every business should be completely concerned with beauty – it is after all a collective human need….

(http://karimrashid.com/)

Not only am I attracted to Karim Rahid’s designs due to his use of strong vibrant colours – but also the way all his designs reflects his personality and signature style. The way he manages to translate his personality into his works is something that I hope to achieve in the future. Also, I resonate greatly to his manifesto as seen in the quote above. That basis of what design revolves around along with manufacturing, in other words, Entrepreneurship, as mentioned earlier, is something that I strongly believe in and hope to achieve one day.