Katerina Kampari

The Uncomfortable Project

The goal of this project was to re-design useful objects making them uncomfortable yet remain usable. The original item would maintain many of its original aspects yet one simple change makes the object a design failure and frustrating to use.

Most of this woman's work is done using CAD models yet it is simple to grasp her intentions. I personally would like to see these exist as an exhibition and see how users interact with these objects. 

The oreo; a tasty, accidentally vegan biscuit that you would believe has some sort of cult following based on how people react when you bring out a packet. Yet this inversion of the biscuit and filling would make it a disaster to eat, that is if you could get one out of the packet successfully...

 A concrete umbrella, yea... I won't insult your intelligence by explaining why this one is a bad idea...

Now this wine glass, a simple change to the size and orientation of the hole at the top can only lead to you looking prematurely drunk as you attempt to drink from this bad design.

And finally - a spoon... that you have no chance of using to scoop anything up, but that's alright - it's not like you could eat from it anyway...

These seem ridiculous but there are many real example of designs where simple things have been overlooked so that beautiful lemon squeezer you just bought - turns out the pips go everywhere and you barely get any juice... Oh well...

Ross Lovegrove

Whilst idly flicking through some pictures on my phone, I came across this one from a trip to London.

Taken outside the Design Museum, I really just liked how vivid and stylized this concept was, I felt it was time to find out more. 

This is an all electric, carbon fibre design with many small details that aren't evident in this picture, so you should check out the gallery: 

http://rosslovegrove.com/renault/ 

I love many elements of this quirky little car, particularly the subtle lines and little details that make it seem so organic yet you could be forgiven for never recognising the basic outline. This design is a collaboration between Renault and Ross Lovegrove. Before, I had no idea who this man was, turns out is quite well known... he even helped design Sony Walkmans and Apple computers.

’Swarovski crystal aerospace’ – solar powered car, 2006

I really like this piece, it’s strong visually and the futuristic aesthetic defines the type of design I thought I would love to create. Like every well-known designer, he seems to have had a go at chair design too.

Supernatural – chair.’ for Moroso, 2005

“I’m an evolutionary biologist, more than a designer,” The organic flowing pieces he creates definitely have a natural influence, or perhaps even Biomimicry. This investigation has led to Lovegrove fast being one of my favourite designers, I just really enjoy his creations. Particularly those pictured left.

“Highly experimental and with a commitment to transcending the boundaries between science, technology, design and architecture” This quote really resonated with me as I believe there should not be these boundaries, not in an age where creative synthesis is so profound.

There is an emphasis on reducing wastefulness and is a huge advocate for ‘Green’ design. As for how he designs, he said, ‘My design language is a product of conceptual thinking not a product of the design process,’ Can we define this man as an example of good design? I would say yes.

Tom Inns - GSA Director

The new director of GSA came down to visit us this week. A brief introduction of his experiences was very insightful especially relating to the impact of the designer on innovation in small businesses. It was unusual to think of how the skills and abilities we have as designers can have such an impact in other fields. The ability to look to the future and play with things that do not currently exist is a skill I think most designers will see as commonplace.

 Tom Inns at GSA 

Realising the impact these transferable skills can have in various environments led me to see how unrestricted designers are in the work they can do. There was a self-reflection session in an attempt to understand the meaning of various corporate terms and what they really represented.

Strategies of various brands were analysed. Alessi, a very well-known design company seems to have one of the most interesting – creating random and crazy plastic shapes which are really highly finished and fulfil simple functions. These products sell as high end quality product but as essentially made from plastic, a relatively cheap material. They make so much money simply because people like owning them and they are fun. Working for Alessi would be ideal as their products can become iconic and they are the essence of playful design.

These quirky bottle tops and egg cup are a small selection of typical Alessi products. Personally, I really like the simplicity and character of them.

These brand strategies are key in how the business operates – but does it have any impact on how good the designs produced are? It probably has a negative impact due to the tendency for businesses to want to maximise profit margins. With many measurements of success resting on whether a product delivers financially, risk management may also play a role in why some great products are never brought to the general market. 

Biomimicry

Biomimicry is a method where essentially designers attempt to copy elements of the natural world and bring them into our everyday lives in a useful way Bio-mimicry surrounds us; our turbines are based on the fins and tails of sea creatures and we can thank bees for the honeycomb structures in new composite materials.  Nature is full of good design, it is still a mystery to us how bees can fly despite their weight.

Seems like bees are pretty clever!

I believe nature and design are highly linked: compare evolution to the development process. They are both a logical progression that is done for the good of a species, maybe our ability to innovate stems from our need to thrive and adapt.

Biomimicry has applications in many areas of design; it emulates functions and is a big challenge for robotics. Many programmers have attempted to give robots seemingly natural movements by mimicking those of plants or animals.

This approach to design is one I am keen to investigate as I feel it would be challenging and I believe most of the work we do already has hints of this as we cannot help but be influenced by the world that surrounds us.  

Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971) 

Arne Jacobsen was a Danish designer, famed for the Egg and Swan chairs as shown below. These were designed in conjunction with Fritzhansen, a Danish furniture design company, for the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. The look of these designs was very modern for 1958 and this was a major contribution to the Scandinavian design movement. 

Despite the fact Jacobsen was first and foremost an architect, he is most famous for the products he created for these buildings. A firm believer in architectural functionalism, Jacobsen's buildings are unobtrusive and many are still in use today. 

Jacobsen is famed for his sense of proportion and this stems from his architecture background. His products include cutlery ranges, lighting and furniture. He even created a cocktail kit for his son-in-laws company Stelton. Jacobsen envisioned the entire experience of the buildings he created as he believed the design of every element was equally important. 

I would classify Jacobsen's work as a good design method due to how well rounded the final designs are and how everything has been considered down to the smallest details.

Jacobsen's work can be found in some interesting places, for example his cutlery designs are used in Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. The provocative image of Christine Keeler on a copy of his No.7 chair became famous in exposing a political scandal.

An interesting (and difficult to pronounce) word I discovered during my research was : Gesamtkunstwerk  

It translates as ‘universal art,’  total work of art’ and in architecture, is the idea of the architecture encompassing more than just the building. It tends to include the shell, accessories, furniture and even the landscape.

Nissan!

So they may not be the most glamorous car manufacturer but our visit to the Nissan factory was certainly insightful. The factory in Sunderland builds and assembles four models of Nissan's fleet; the Note, Quashqai, Juke and the electric Leaf.

(Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures...)

"LEAF" as a backronym for "Leading, Environmentally friendly, Affordable, Family car" This is the first time I have heard of a 'backronym' and honestly I feel the term is just embarrassing... I liked it better when I thought they were just trying to emphasise their 'green credentials'.

One aspect of the factory I thought would be especially interesting would be the paint shop, after previously having been to the JCB factory and missing out on seeing their's... Sadly I still haven't seen what mysteries the paint shop has to offer...

Our guide did describe the process in depth, especially detailing how much cleaning is required to ensure the paint finish is perfect as it leaves the factory. One interesting thing we heard about was how Ostrich feathers are used to to siphon the dust from the  bare metal car body.

The sheer amount of parts and processes involved was surprising, and a lot of this was done onsite.
It is amazing to see how the thin rectangles of sheet metal can become a robust family car.

Robotics were used for about 80% of the production line. There were hundreds of machines all programmed and operated to do specific jobs; which were surprisingly, and sometimes unnervingly, quick. I now have a real appreciation for all the work that goes into not just designing the car but all of the processes and machines that help build them, knowing that these all have to be designed too!

Checks were carried out on vehicles randomly but very often, it was difficult to see where problems could arise - and at a cost of £3,000 per minute for a major issue, its understandable why there was so much emphasis on this.

Juke Nizmo - This model was released the day before we arrived so we got a good look at it fresh from the production line!

On a seemingly unrelated note, we visited an unusual museum on the way out...

Interesting Thing I Found.

“The first traceable concepts of environmental designs focused primarily on solar heating, which began in Ancient Greece around 500 BCE. At the time, most of Greece had exhausted its supply of wood for fuel, leading architects to design houses that would capture the solar energy of the sun. The Greeks understood that the position of the sun varies throughout the year. For a latitude of 40 degrees in summer the sun is high in the south, at an angle of 70 degrees at the zenith, while in winter, the sun travels a lower trajectory, with a zenith of 26 degrees. Greek houses were built with south-facing façades which received little to no sun in the summer but would receive full sun in the winter, warming the house.”

This fascinated me; we tend to think of environmental design as a new ideal, one which relates to stopping global warming and saving pandas by avoiding bamboo. It also led me to consider how innovative the human race has been and we see ourselves as having progressed since then, the technologies we have may be drastically different but perhaps we have not changed much, only our exposure. Could this be detrimental to us? I mean yes we can adapt new things but do we almost neglect the world around us in this strive for new? Should we almost seek to emulate the way of life of our ancestors and see how our perception of what is important changes?

I believe we find ways to design around our world rather than to embrace it, we try to use materials that are eco-friendly but should we actually do more to live with our world. What do you think?