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Tuesday 22 February 2011

ASSIGNMENT 3- TIME TO OBSERVE!

For the next part in my assignment I have really been taken out of my comfort zone! I must observe how people behave in places which I would feel uncomfortable in. I have chosen to go to a football match Dundee United vs St Johnstone. My first thought were PANIC! Do I order tickets? Do I just go and buy tickets there? It's tonight so if I order tickets how do I get them?? What do I wear? How should I act? As you can tell I'm a bit of a worrier! Although I'm going with my boyfriend who is a huge Dundee United fan (and has been to hundreds of football games) he isn't allowed to help me find my way around so that I will observe more.

For my second place to observe I have decided to view people in a bus station. As I go from Perth to Dundee and back everyday to get to university I've never observed the people so this will probably be quite eye opening for me as I'm not used to observing anyone, I'm usually listening to music and waiting for time to go by!

 Although I'm panicking a bit this could be quite an interesting assignment. Snooping on people...watching what their habits are.....seeing how I feel in certain situations. Might be quite fun!

ASSIGNMENT 3B- ETHNOGRAPHY

After reading the passage The Ethnography Primer I got a better grasp with what ethnography is all about. Ethnography is a research tool which is used for designers to get a greater understanding of who they are designing for and what the main requirements are by immersing themselves in other peoples environments and observing their habits, relationships with the space/product and patterns in behaviour. Observing reality is better than interviewing someone about what they do in certain situations as they probably don't think about certain things which could be key to your research. Therefore observing people when they are oblivious is the key to getting the best results.

This technique is used so that designers can design great design that connects with the audience and it's function is used to its full potential.

ASSIGNMENT 3A- SERVICE DESIGN

For this assignment I firstly took a look into service design and how this could relate to my past projects. Many of the service design tools could be used for my discipline as interior design is about designing certain spaces for a service or function. Here are a couple of examples which could or have helped me during past projects:
  •  STORYBOARD TOOL- It is simply described as showing "the manifestation of every touchpoint and the relationships between them and the user in the creation of the experience".
 I used this service tool in my furniture project. As I designed a multi functional furniture unit for my presentation I sketched different ways in which the unit could be used so therefore the viewer will be able to understand the different ways in which the furniture could be situated. Also an instruction manual was made by another member of the team which explained how the flat pack furniture was to be assembled in a story board senario so that the user has step by step instructions to follow.

  • GROUP SKETCHING- " It is used during the co-design sessions in order to share the insights inside the team.."
I feel that this could have been used in my juteopolis project to help plan out what my group wanted in our exhibition space. It probably would have got design ideas flowing more and resulting in a better understanding of what others thoughts were and bouncing off of each others ideas.

The trainride tool explains that by writing down certain touch points to a specific journey or experience that this gives a better visual observation to what happens at certain points. This tool could have helped with my rehabilitation unit that I designed in first year. As part of it I visiting the brain injury rehabilitation centre as I was to observe the space in which the patients lived in and how they interacted with it. I feel that if I used this tool I could have got a more effective outlook into how the space is used therefore coming up with a more user friendly atmosphere and documenting my findings in a more effective and quicker way.

Monday 21 February 2011

ASSIGNMENT 2: WHAT IMAGES MEAN

ASSIGNMENT 2A

In this assignment we were asked to firstly read The Image by Roland Barthes. As stated by Jonathan this was quite hard to understand so I found it easier to understand with the notes which were provided. Polysemy is basically something which has multiple meanings, such as images- they can mean different things to different people and in different situations. Say text was added to an image- you would probably have a different more focused meaning to the image therefore having a better understanding of what the image was trying to say in it. In The Image by Roland Barthes he suggests that there are three types of messages: the linguistic message, the coded message and the non-encoded message.


  • Linguistic message- An image with text which gives a greater understanding of what the image is trying to tell the viewer by using text.
  • The coded message- Symbolic meaning which is only understood to those who have certain cultural knowledge.
  • The non-encoded message- everyone can understand just by viewing an image.
In this assignment I will get a greater understanding of what this theory is about and put it into action to see if it really works.

Firstly I got into a group with 3 other individuals to discuss the chapter which we read and like most others in my group we found this hard to understand but discussing it helped a great deal. We also discussed how this theory could work within our discipline- interior design. I feel that as we are creating different environments to cater for different individuals needs that interior designers have to incorporate this into the work to succeed in designing a relevant space.

 ASSIGNMENT 2B

For my groups experiment we firstly selected 3 images:





ASSIGNMENT 2C

We then asked a selection of people what there thoughts were towards the images. Many just described what they thought was going on in the images such as the fire image which could be a camp fire whilst others had a more symbolic approach to the images- seeing the fire as a sign of danger. After they had analysed all the images they were then to make up a story which links all the images together, they were allowed to put the images in their own sequence. Quite a few of the volunteers came up with a similar story- looking at the hotness and coldness of the images and describing it to the weather. After we got around 7 peoples stories we then selected one story which to take forward into our next stage of the experiment. This was the one which was chosen-
 
"flames being the summer months, tunnel showing timeline between the summer to the picture of the winter pond ie. winter months".

ASSIGNMENT 2D

We then had to pick a fourth image to add to our others and the trick was trying to get people to make up similar or the same stories as the one above.


This task ended up being quite challenging and although many people were thinking about the seasons, many were getting confused when shown the spiral walkway image as they were unsure of what it was, so their stories ended up being quite different to what we were hoping for.

ASSIGNMENT 2E

Next we were to add text to one of the images. For this we decided to add the words "the cycle" to the spiral walkway image to see if the volunteers would understand this image better. This seemed to work very well and the majority of people got very similar stories such as this one:

"This reminds me of how the seasons are just a continuous cycle ranging from the very warm to the very cold. From the heat of the summer to the cold frost in winter time."

I feel that our experiment has agreed with Barthes as many people were coming up with different stories before the text was put in. Once the text was put in place this helped people coming up with similar if not the same stories. I feel that my understanding of polysemy has improved by doing this experiment as I now understand how we are very influenced by text when it is added to an image to explain something in the right context and also how different people have different opinions when looking at an image it is only when you add more meaning such as text that the meaning is "fixed" to one particular purpose.

Thursday 3 February 2011

ASSIGNMENT 1 SEMESTER 2- WHAT YOUR STUFF SAYS ABOUT YOU!

For my design studies assignment I was asked to firstly read Snoop by Sam Gosling and then over the Christmas holidays collect photographs of either myself as a child growing up, which are non posed or photographs of my flat.Once back at university I had to swap photos with someone who I didn't know and evaluate there photographs and consider topics such as taste, influences, possessions and environment. After I would meet up with this individual to discuss our findings and to see how accurate they were.

Over the festive period I took photographs of my flat as getting childhood photographs would be harder as these are in my mothers possession, stored at the bottom of a dusty box somewhere! I took many photographs and included ones from inside my wardrobe and close ups of my bookshelf. I was then teamed up with Rebecca who is a graphic design student. We then swapped our photographs over email and the snooping begun!

This part of the assignment felt very strange, just from looking at photographs of the other person, I was having to make judgements on someone who I didn't know. It just didn't feel right to do that but I found it fun at the same time trying to decode what they are really like. Also someone else looking at my belongings and flat and trying to analyse what sort of a person I am? What if they uncover something completely wrong or are scarily right about who I am? Are they going to be able to find out what my personality is like just by looking at my possessions?

 I used 6 of the best photographs to look further into:

In this photograph I was able to work out that:
  • She was a risk taker and not afraid of heights
  • Free spirit
  • energetic
  • follows the crowd
  • family person
  • she's not dressed for swimming- maybe unprepared or just living for the moment
After meeting I found out that she is actually scared of heights, and that she didn't really think about being fully clothed at this point she just lived for the moment and wasn't worrying, so I was partly wrong with this one!


In this photograph I was able to work out that:
  • She is out going
  • fun
  • enjoys partying, drinking and dancing
  • sociable
  • keeps up with the fashion trends- belt at the waist, patterned clothing.
These predictions were right but I think it's quite obvious when look at this photograph!


In this photograph I was able to work out that:
  • She was away to her end of year prom
  • Shes a girly girl- curled hair, dress, make up
  • Likes bright colours
  • Likes to stand out in a crowd
  • Recent photograph aged 18ish
All this was right!



 In this photograph I was able to work out that:

  • Her friends are holding H&M bags so enjoys shopping
  • Chair leading holiday so maybe away to a competition or rehearsals
  • All dressed the same so enjoys being part of a group
  • Appearance- hair and make up same as friends- natural
  • Athletic
  • Chair leading so isn't afraid of challenges
  • Likes to fit in
These predictions where right, she was away on holiday with the chair leaders, just gone out after practice.


In this photograph I was able to work out that:
  • She is the life and soul of the party
  • Enjoys attention
  • Funny/ has a humorous side
  • creative
These were all right.


In this photograph I was able to work out that:
  • She was more of a tomboy when she was younger
  • Punk? maybe into the music or fashion at that time?
  • Middle class house/ family
She was more of a tomboy when younger and when she grew up she became more girly and her top was just a fashion top she wasn't interested in punk music.

Overall my predictions were right apart from not being interested in punk music, and not being afraid of heights.For her predictions she got most of them right such as that I am close to my sister, enjoy travelling, enjoy partying and relaxing and that all my possessions have a place. Although she thought I was married and knew how to drive which isn't true, but I have been with my boyfriend for nearly 4 years and live together with him and also thinking about learning to drive soon so her predictions were nearly spot on! I feel that I learnt that I like more neutral colours in the flat with bursts of colour which I never really thought I did but thinking about it more it's quite true- the way my flat is decorated. I feel that this could be applied to researching a design situation as  sometimes going with your instincts and obvious things in an environment that you are able to find out more about somethings.

After looking at the Johari Window I have a clearer understanding of how I arrange certain parts of my house and life according to what aspects of my life I want to show others such as room one which is what we see and what other people are able to see such as photographs on display, books, Cd's, etc. Room two aspects that others see but I don't see such as that I have a candle and cuddly toy that both have best sister on them- I wouldn't have guessed that you would be able to figure out from snooping in my flat that I am close to my sister. Room 3 which is both the subconscious and unconscious part which neither ourselves or others know about and then room 4 which is a private room which I know but keep from others such as stuff in my wardrobes- old diaries, personal memories, etc.
Personally I felt that this was quite a fun assignment and learnt a lot about how I perceive certain individuals just by what they are wearing, how they are acting, possessions and what environment they are in.




Wednesday 2 February 2011

CREATIVE CONNECTIONS

Recently I have started my new project which is to design an office space for SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency). The space which we are using is an existing warehouse which is situated on Tannidice Street in Dundee. I must include an entrance, reception area, waiting room, meeting rooms, library, storage, cafeteria, toilets, research labs, managers offices and office space for 24 staff.



This first week I have started into researching different contemporary offices, SEPA- what there main aims and goals are and into sustainable materials. This is the biggest space which I have had to design for but so far  I feel that this is going to be a very interesting and challenging brief. I am interested in the organic aspect of the natural environment and feel that this should reflect in my design.


Here are some images which I have researched into:

                                            Macquarie Group Ltd, Sydney

Brandbase  temporary office space, hundreds of pallets make up the interior space including desks and stairs- very impressive!

Chelpipe office/factory/control room

Modern house design by J. Mayer H. Architects