Week 11 - Finding Design

Part B of the cartoon from week 1.

Since the lecturer was sick last week, last weeks lecture will be discussed this week. Although all group projects have now finished, I will still make some brief mention of this weeks tutorial session, since I still engaged with others.

This week's title picture follows on from the cartoon that I drew in week one. I knew back then that I would draw this picture for the final lecture. After all, designing isn't just about thinking of the present, it's about designing for the future too :D

Lecture 10

This is the last lecture for the "Introducing Design" unit/subject. Much of the lecture was revision, which there is no need to repeat, since this entire blog/journal serves as that, as well as being reflective. I did investigate a couple of links mentioned.

• Nigel Cross, Designerly Ways of Knowing (http://design.open.ac.uk/cross/documents/DesignerlyWaysofKnowing.pdf) - I have to say that I don't really agree that Design is a 'Third Culture' (The other two being, Science and Arts/Humanities). Back in week 7, the lecturer implied that Design was the over-arching profession. While I would be hesitant to claim that other than in the most general of ways, I have come to think of 'Art' as being a subset of 'Design'. Artists are designers within their medium, and designers can be artists. In another unit, I recently did an essay on "Games as Art", which I have submitted for assessment. In reflection, I feel that my arguments would have been strengthened by simply suggesting that games are designed, and designs can be art. Traditional art is just a subset, and we need to broaden our thinking. Art can simply be seen as ideal concepts made real; design without purpose, even though art usually does have some underlying purpose, even if personal. Yet designs of other kinds should be equally recognised in the same way, within whatever domain they fall into.
• Bill Gaver & Heather Martin, Alternatives (http://www.gold.ac.uk/media/23gaver-martin.alternatives.chi00.pdf) - These were many design examples that provide food for thought. Once again, when designers design for no other sake than the act of designing, we can see what at times can be art. The main point however, was that explorative design should be encouraged, as it may lead to the discovery of needs unconsidered that open up new areas for development.

Wicked Problems. In the auditory podcast of the lecture, another thing that stood out to me was 'Wicked Problems'. I had not really heard that term before, but it is one that I will remember. While it may represent the lack of clarity that can exist in design problems; the word 'wicked', with so much more meaning, forms mental images that already diverge thinking for problem solving.

Solution Based Design. I recall back when I was in Grade 12 at school, we were presented with an extremely difficult mathematical problem. I was the only one who solved it, since I was the only one who started with the provided end result, and worked backwards. Sometimes in order to start a confusing/difficult journey, you need to begin with the clear destination, if that destination is known.

The remainder of the lecture was just a little direction about our blogs/journals.

As I was writing this blog/journal, channel 2 had a program about the designing of the Denver airport in the USA. I found it quite interesting. They made the buildings look reminiscent of indian teepee's. Last week, the program series was looking at the designing of the Osaka Airport in Japan. I like the synergy writing a journal entry on design while watching programs on design.

Tutorial Session Week 11 - No More Group Projects

Without any more group work, this session was just about looking at our blogs/journals. The tutor mentioned that our blogs needed to have visual representations of the works of other groups. I think few, if any, of us did. It was suggested that the best way to do this was to ask other groups for pictures/images. So I asked other group members for email addresses for this purpose. Of course, this means that everyone is going to have the same images of other groups as each other. It may be a severe lack of diversity, but it meets the criteria.