Annie Leonard - Storyofstuff Project

After watching the video I realized that I usually do not give much attention to the product I use. I never really check the material or ingredients of a product and I believe most of us never really think about it either. I found this whole series of videos very interesting because Annie Leonard presented some facts that never been out there before and pointed some ideas that probably never come across our mind.

These videos are good reminder for us both as a customer and a designer. As a customer we have to pay much more attention to the product we use, whether it’s a good or bad, honest or dishonest product. What’s the point of buying a cosmetic product when at the same time it harms our body or buying a more expensive bottled water when actually there’s no difference with the cheap one. We have to be smart in choosing what we would to wear or use because at the first place, we spend our money to buy products that will bring us a better life, not to endanger us.

It is really hard indeed to find a honest, good product because for the purpose of marketing, any producer or manufacturer certainly will try to ‘hide’ the ugly sides of their product or even deceive us customers by stating false facts like material, etc. Therefore we have to put more effort to find out the truth ourselves if we want to guarantee that the product we are using is totally safe. But then, in this era when technology is much more advance, we can get the facts online easier or we can share our knowledge to others as well, just like what Annie Leonard did.

As a designer we are also reminded to not design something that could harm people and the environment. It’s really good that nowadays more and more designers start to put environment to consideration when designing something. 3R; reduce, reuse, and recycle is now often practiced by designers and it doesn’t mean that they sacrifice their design because in fact, so many eco-friendly products out there are pretty amazing. In short, less material and eco-friendly doesn’t mean ugly.

Glasses

More works from Tomas Kral,
enjoy :)

Twist

Molecule

ciao!

Sydney Design 2011 Festival

Some sketches of my favourite product design from 5 exhibitions in Sydney Design 2011.
Feedback is welcome, enjoy :)

ciao!

My Design Career

I want to be a designer because I want to make things that will improve people’s lives. As a designer, I think our job is not just to make something that is aesthetically pleasing. Designers find solutions to address problems, designers innovate, designers inspire and vice versa, got inspired. From my learning experience, I know that our tasks as a designer is not just to meet diverse customer needs but we also have to consider human emotions as well as the experience resulted from using the design objects. Therefore, the challenge of being a designer is to create something that get its function, beauty, and at the same time gives users a fun filled experience.

I have learned design officially for only several months. Before I got myself enrolled to Industrial Design at UNSW, I graduated from Uniprep UNSW Foundation in my home country, Indonesia. I went there for 6 months to learn the basic foundation of design. That’s actually the first time I got the chance to get the idea of what design is like because unlike most high schools in foreign countries that have Design class in their school, most high schools in my country do not offer design as one of the subjects. In the short 6 months of foundation I learned mostly about the elements and principles of design. Some of the projects were about topography, space, wearable design and light design. I found design really interesting and love it ever since.

While deciding which design I’ll take in uni, I managed to get to know to industrial design. It is not a ‘favourite’ major in my country even most people I talked to didn’t know what industrial design is. They are much more familiar with product design which is actually pretty much the same thing. When I browsed through Internet and found out what industrial design is, I was quite impressed that actually industrial design is everywhere around us. After getting a better understanding of what industrial design is about, I decided to choose industrial design as my bachelor degree.

To be honest I’m not that confident for what lies in the future but certainly I hope my design career will goes well and have a positive progress.

Clown Nose

'Clown Nose' container designed by Tomas Kral.

Credits : TOMAS KRAL, photos by Federico Berardi.

Materials : ceramics and cork

The cork covers connected with coloured elastic

Inspired by the red clown nose

ciao!

Fragile

'Fragile' salt and pepper shaker set designed by mey kahn + boaz kahn.

When was the last time you emphatically broke something? The ceramic salt & pepper shaker offers you the opportunity to do it! The product comes in one piece and by breaking it, you make it useful. Breaking is an experience of impulsive outburst but this time is an act that builds rather than destroys. In a world of products whose shape is completely dictated by the designer, we enable the user to complete the design himself. The event of the breaking leaves its mark on the shaker and gives it its final, unique, one of a kind appearance.

- Studio Khan

The moulding process

Check out the whole 'fragile' series here (there's fragile necklace and candlehanger as well!)

ciao!

Design Confusion

Fuksas Mocha Cups

Set of two cups with saucers in bone china

"Folding gives strength to matter," says Massimiliano Fuksas of his designs for Alessi, composed as patterns in an endless interplay of material, dimension and color. Featured here are his designs that imbibe this simple yet sensual formal approach to product design.

- Massimiliano Fuksas architetto

ciao!

Human-Centered Design

David Kelley on human-centered design | Video on TED.com

In this video David Kelley mainly talks about how product design has become much less about the hardware and more about the user experience. In the last 18 years people started to focus more and more on human approach to design. Back then designer used to make 3d models or 3d renderings to communicate their ideas but nowadays they got those objects that they're designing and get them emotion showing how it will be used by making interactive prototypes that show man-machine relationship.

To demonstrate the idea of human centred design David give some examples and i think the most interesting one is the interactive system and data infrastructure designed by him for Prada New York store. So how it works is that every products displayed has a RF tags and if we see something we interested in , the staff can scan their tags and they can be displayed altogether at any screen at the store. In the dressing room there are also scanner and touch screen where we can get access to detailed information about the merchandise we are trying on. Another feature is the liquid crystal glass in the changing room that becomes opaque if we step on the button and it switches easily to transparent glass on another button so other people outside able to review the products while we try them on without we leaving the dressing room. Lastly there are also magic mirror which operates in 3 seconds delay so when we are trying cloths we can turn around and see how it looks like on the back when we turn around on the magic mirror. The design includes data infrastructure that allows all staff to develop better understanding of future costumer needs. This whole design use technological advances in order to make an interactive atmosphere between buyer and the store so the customers are having an enjoyable shopping experience.

This video reminds me that we often put too much focus on the product and pay less attention to the user itself. The idea of design is to make human life become more enjoyable and better. When we focus too much on the products, certainly technological objects, it can be say that we forget the idea of designing. It's really good nowadays human behaviour and personality has been considered more in the process of designing products. It's important for designers being reminded not to carried away with technology and make products so high tech just to make it more fancy instead of really consider human behaviour and personality as the users.

Design Excellence - Wilkhahn Chassis

Click the image to get better resolution

I think what makes this product so different is that because it's made with automotive progress, which has never been done before. It 's so light weight due to the minimal use of material. This design is really smart, it can be seen that all the design process had been thought really carefully and really into detail. They considered everything from the manufacturing process to the principle and elements of the product itself.

Invisible

Matteo Thun has designed the new 'invisible' bathroom - che non 'è - for Rapsel with a washing basin, shower and water closet which 'hide away', which disappear and become geometric modules. the bathroom is made from larch wood which creates a warm holistic feel within the space. all technical and sanitary facilities are hidden with necessary functions turned into shelves and storage that are convertible. 

-Designboom (All images courtesy of Matteo Thun)

All of the technical and sanitary facilities are hidden by convertible larch wood constructions - shelves and storage

The camouflaged sink

ciao!