Critical Debates in Design | Task 8.2: 10 Things that I've learned

As the Critical Debates in Design Module is getting to an end we are required to describe and visualise ten things that we have learned while doing this module. During this time I have been able to define and fully understand important things for my starting career as a designer that I expose next, however they are not all the things that I've learned and the learning process is not stopping here.

The importance of scheduling

I‘ve never been good at organizing my time. I do organize my time in my mind but I don’t write it down so I don’t follow a strict schedule. Now I realize that it is important to write that down from the beginning of a project as it will give me a better idea of the time I have for every stage of the project.

The devil is in the detail

Caring for the smallest detail is what differentiates a good professional designer from a mediocre one.

Time for erring

It is part of the design process to make mistakes or investigate options with a dead end. Assume it, remember to include extra time on your schedule for that and don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get in the first or second attempt.

Show confidence

To do good design is no longer enough to success in the designer packed field. I have to control my subject and be able to speak about it with other designers, clients and general public. However I can’t forget that it is necessary to change my speech in order to adequate it to the target audience.

Have principles

Designing a new product or campaign can have a huge impact in society and the environment so honesty and responsibility in practice will avoid to produce more unnecessary crap and misleading graphic material.

Be loyal to your principles

Don’t let money or commodity ruin what you can get doing meaningful projects.

Cultural awareness

Design it is not a subject on its own. Any project is mostly about something else not related to design so it is crucial to investigate that other subject too. A general idea of what is going on in the world gives me useful knowledge to understand the social, geographical, economic or political context of a new project. It also makes new research quicker and smoother.

Show your ideas

Sometimes I am so focus in my project that I may risk to do it from my only point of view. Talking about my ideas to friends, family, possible target audience and fellow designers will help me to have a broader perspective of the problem and potential solutions and ensure that my ideas are understood.

You are not alone

As designers we can put our brains to work in many different subjects so may need to collaborate closely with other kind of designers or professionals like web developers, engineers, etc. I think is important to know how to work in a team as it will allow us to work on projects that we couldn't work on otherwise. It will also generate richer solutions.

The designer’s role

What is the role of a designer is as undefined as it was at the beginning of the course, but I now learned to be comfortable with it. To design is for many a concept most associated to draw but I believe it is most similar to think. Although, drawing is a very powerful tool to easily and universally communicate what has been thought. The designer’s tasks and roles within a project are several and the areas of action countless. I certainly love that about design.

What I want my role as a designer to be is a role that helps society to progress in a more sustainable and less selfish way. I believe that if many designers adopt this role we will truly be able to get it.

Design Authorship | More ideas for the format of my book

The format of this book is very original and gave me a good idea for the binding of my own book. 

I decided that concertina folding would be the best as it allows you to see content little by little or everything at once if you unfold it completely.

Design Authorship | Giving format to my book

Here are some dummy books that I've made to find the best format for my book.

It is important to me to express with this book the concept of continuity as everything that happened before has consequences now and everything that happens now will have consequences in the future. That is why I though of using French folding or concertina, because that way the paper is continuous.

Regarding paper, I just need something that will support and show the photos in the best way. I am studying the possibility of using tissue paper between the pages to imitate old photo albums and to print some comments on.

Photo albums are a strong reference for this book as that is basically what this book is. I want a layout that let the pictures be the main stars. For the binding and cover I thought of something simple, neutral, timeless and elegant as it is holding a precious document to me that ranges from 1920 to the present.

Design Authorship | Getting pictures for my book

Here are some of the family pictures I've got after an initial research.

These pictures are at my family home in Spain so I've got them through my mum who looked for the photos I told her plus some she thought would be interesting, scan and sent them to me.

It is quite difficult to get pictures of the oldest generation for several reasons:

The access to a photo camera at that time was something more rare and the photographed moments were less, more special and prepared.

That material is now distributed among all my uncles and aunts and is very difficult to get track of them or get them to collaborate with me by searching for photos, scanning and emailing them when many of them are not computer literate.

In order to put them in my book I will need to retouch them but only to improve their quality not to change them. I will like to order them chronologically but the exact date is not known for many of them just a sense of sequence. It seems necessary to add a timeline to make the reader understand the sequence most of all when showing the historical photos.

Design Authorship | Searching for ideas for my book

We were asked to select a subject we are passionate about and create an editorial design concept for a magazine, book, e-book or zine.

Here there are two pages of my sketchbook showing my search for a subject. 

 

I found this book by James Mollison which I think is very interesting and eye-opening.

 

After seeing this my idea developed to do something similar with the life of different generations in Spain. 

Sources:

http://www.jamesmollison.com/

Where Children Sleep by James Mollison on Amazon

Where Children Sleep on The Telegraph

Critical Debates in Design | Task 8.1: Sustainable Design

Sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.

The intention of sustainable design is to eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design. I, as a designer, want to make my practice as sustainable as possible because it seems to me that is the only sensible way to operate due the current world state.

Sustainable design is mostly a general reaction to global environmental crises, the rapid growth of economic activity and human population, depletion of natural resources, damage to ecosystems, and loss of biodiversity.

Green design, as it is also known, currently seems to be a trend that brands use to “green wash” their image. Beware of that as many claim to have made their products eco-friendly when they just have made their packaging look like it using recycled cardboard and green ink. Sustainable design doesn't have to look rough or as if collected from the trash. Sustainability doesn't have to be obvious. I think the final aim is to create sustainable products without making a fuzz of it as it had to be the norm. In the meantime there is a long, hard way to go informing and persuading clients, general public and fellow designers. It is important that any designer maker or any kind of producer gets involve to try to make thinks more sustainable without being frivolous about it.

Humanity has messed up with the resources and natural systems of the world now the least we can do is to slow down and switch our economic global hyper fast system to something more local and bespoken. Nowadays, people seem obsessed with having more and more new stuff that they happily dispose of before it is even broken, worn out or finished. It doesn't make us happier and we are wasting and mistreating nature. We put money on top priority and don't realize that we cannot survive without nature but nature can survive without us. Human being is suppose to be an intelligent animal so lets behave like it.

Critical Debates in Design | Task 7: Advertising

After reading Ken Garland's manifesto (1984 and 2000 versions) I couldn't agree more. It is interesting to see how the manifesto got more serious and urgent with time meaning that designers haven’t done much about it. The text is urging them to put their talent and skills into more important matters than selling unnecessary products or services. Consumerism is getting faster and faster and bigger and bigger causing a lot of environmental and social side effects. There are also many serious, global cultural political or economic issues that require designers' attention and problem-solving skills. I believe designers in any sector have enough power to make a significant change for good in our society. It is foolish to think that designers can do it all by themselves but it is a good start. Designers working in advertising or communication can make a big impact by influencing masses of people's behaviour.

Knowing that we have to recognize that it is extremely important to regulate what is advertised but at the same time be cautious about who and how does that. I have known of this campaign advertising ghd hair-styling equipment that used part of the Lord's Prayer alongside  “eroticised” female imagery that have been judged as offensive to Christian and therefore forbidden from being screened on Tv again. In my opinion, though regulation is needed, we are at risk of being over-sensitive and consequently fall into censorship, very limited freedom of expression and alienation that it is not an easy task to draw the boundaries and impossible to keep everybody happy. 

 
Sources:

Ken Garland's manifesto