Week One // " The meaning of things"

Week One: We looked at a few designers with the perspective of looking at "the meaning of things". The way things are designed can have a message and be representational of something. It is important as a graphic designer to have an open mind and be looking deeper into designs to see if there is more meaning to it than what meets the eye. This is why we looked at 2 designers who specialize in this area. Their names are Kenya Hara and Hella Jongerius. Everything that they create has been thought out to produce thoughtful design.

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kenya hara.

Designer Profile: Kenya Hara

Area of Design: Graphic Designer & Curator

Job: Art Director at Muji

Known for: Publishing "Designing Design" in which he explains his view on the importance of "emptiness" in both visual and philosophical traditions in japan and how it applies to design.

Design Beliefs: He believes in looking at the purity of form and the meaning of it. He also likes to take something known and re-create it to make it unknown. This makes people re-evaluate the object and in turn creates intrigue to people who view it.

"design, is basically not self-expression. instead, it originates in society. the essence of design lies in the process of discovering a problem shared by many people and trying to solve it. because the root of the problem is within society, everyone can understand plans for solutions and process for solving the problem, in addition to being able to see the problem from the designer's perspective. design is appealing because the process creates inspiration that is engendered by this empathy among human beings in our common values and spirituality.' - kenya hara (p. 24)"

We looked at images and analyzed the product that Kenya has designed. Looking at this image (above) we can see that the packaging is made from a material that looks like a banana and it also would have the texture of the skin of a banana. From many of his design we can see that he likes to use tactility. This is called Haptic technology. It's an interesting concept and design and I would think that it would be attractive to consumers (especially food products) as it would get your senses going and persuade you to buy the product.

Looking at this image (above) which shows Kenya Hara's redesign of a remote control which is floppy, we can see that this could be representational of a "couch potato" and laziness which comes when watching TV.

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hella jongerius.

Designer Profile: Hella Jongerius

Area of Design: Industrial Design

Job: Her own company "JongeriusLab"

Known for: She is known for making highly unique pieces of art through homewares.

Design Beliefs: Her design belief consists of combining new technology and handmade historic objects.

"I'm trying to make products that can be loved and that people want to own their whole lives to then pass them on to the family."

  I quite like Hella's work mostly because of the fact that her style is a mixture of old and new and that's what I love. I also love her use of colour and her use of simple forms and shapes.

 

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lidewij edelkoort

Designer Profile: Lidewij Edelkoort

Area of Design: Art director and Co-publisher

Job: She is one of the worlds most renowned trendforcasters

Known for: Predicting new trends in fashion and for her photo-magazine Bloom which charts the changing trends in flowers and the way their images are used.

Design Beliefs: She likes to observe and interpret peoples’ behavior and moods and note down what she sees.

"I'm never afraid because I believe that the human kind can solve problems,what we just need is first to have a problem, then we work on it, we are not mastering the idea to prevent it."  

 

View on Colour investigates colour trends and explains how they will influence different areas of the market such as fashion, textiles and yarns, design, cosmetics, automobiles, art, cuisine, and many more.

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objectified trailer

This movie is about objects, how we view them and what we think about them. 

"It's looking towards the future" 

 

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Objects that mean something to me.

 

IPOD MINI: This piece of old technology has meaning to me as I won it when I was around 12 in a competition through the Australian government about Innovation. It got presented to me by the MP Joe Hockey and I guess the reason I keep it is because it reminds me of the excitement of winning something and also its a piece of history, it was one of the first iPod's and its amazing to look at the technology in this and look how far we have come.

 

DIARY: I went traveling with my family around the world when I was 11 and one of the things we do when we travel is take a diary to write and draw about our adventures. On this trip I took 1 diary and filled it up half way through the trip so I ended up buying this in Italy. My writing skills weren't that great, I mostly wrote about the food we ate and complained about how much we walked but it contains snippets of memories that help me reminisce on the funny and great times we had. 

GLASSES: These glasses were my Dad's. He passed away due to cancer when I was six so when I was thinking about things that mean something to me, most of the stuff I thought of were things that were his or things that reminded me of him. I don't remember him that well so having some of his possessions helps me to keep the memories of who he was and what he loved alive.

 

CAMERA: This object is important to me as what it produces is something that makes my life so much more enjoyable. To be able to capture a moment to keep is precious to me and to be able to look at the beauty of this world and record that to show others is amazing to me. This makes it possible for me to do that!