Assignment 5B

Relating back to semester one furniture project!


In this task i was asked to write a bit about how i would change a recent studio project by adding skills from semesters one and two if had the chance to it again.As this year we have mainly focused on group briefs i was unsure which to write about but i think i shall go with the furniture project of semester one.
For this project we were put into groups of three and asked to design a piece of furniture. After awhile we came up with a concept for creating a chair. we researched different kind of chair designs and loved designs by droog so decided to incorporate the idea of mobility with a seat. Our main idea was based around the idea of sitting next to someone. We designed 3 stools which can be connected together or become totally isolated. this was our main idea behind it. The idea was that if you wanted to sit next to a friend you could connect to them. if you didn't want to sit next to someone you could take the stool away and connect to someone else. We were also asked to incorporate colour and show what that colour represented and what mood we were trying to portray.
Observation skills were used a lot during this process so i would be lying if i said that we should observe people to see if the sit next to strangers willingly... On a bus for example people try to find a seat by themselves, they don't want to be sat next to.
Using the pictures could work from assignment two as we could ask people what emotions different chairs bring or different colours make you feel... there could be a series of photos and we could ask them to write their own imaginative story based around them.
Maybe we could have done more research into how people sit and want to sit for example we designed our stools to be based in a shopping center, ideally they would be tagged and let loose almost to see where in say the overgate they would end up. We found this really interesting how people can move their seats in public. its a fun game. As they are on wheels its very simple to move them.
We might have been a lot more aware about the design of the product for the public through what we have learnt from design studies. Perhaps we could have thought more about the durability of the product, oak is a good, strong material to use but is very expensive also, would this be possible in a cheaper form? will it still look good? do the job its made to do? We might have designed different sizes, different styles, different personalities for our chairs i think. I personally would have liked to see a "family" of them. Taller stools, shorter stools, thinner stools, longer stools... the possibilities are endless.
I think the main thing Design Studies has shown me, (without sucking up too much!) is that blogging is what we need to do today to get ourselves seen and heard by the world. The world is too huge and without blogging how will anyone hear of your work? blogs are brilliant! i have found different blogs i am really interested and am loving! For example Ric O'barry's 'save japan dolphins' blog is really inspiring and i really look up to his conservation efforts. I think the blogging process makes you more laid back about writing also. Its not as formal as an essay, its almost like your notepad its somewhere for you to connect with your friends in the world of design/ the world! Get yourself heard!!