Design Indaba Day 1, part 2

Continuation from the dancing sperm :P

Okay so now we get onto the student works and these are mostly award winning, internationally recognized thesis's and student projects, i didnt take many notes on them they were mostly products so i'll try attach the links for you to check them out.

The first guys name was Joshua Brunn from Switzerland and he likes human-centered products and i honestly cant remember what his thesis was based on, but he's focusing on designing a Rocket Bean bag which can be used as a couch and then can stand up straight too.. he says "my friend said it could be a possible space saving benefit that the couch will stand, but I just think it's cool to have a rocket in your living room" .. Interesting character. I couldnt find an image of the rocket but its pretty literal. He also designed this light called Lampe Petit Central (bellow), that small black bar turns and you can face the light wherever you want, it was inspired by a concrete drill.

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next was Howard Chambers and another guy i didnt get his name (sorry dude) but they designed a product called Softwalks. This is a system of seating, counters, planters and other street furniture which fits onto scaffolding. It was inspired by the scaffolding in New York which is said to create a dead area where people don't want to be, so they created this and now there are multiple uses for the scaffolding and it helps enhance the city. Check out their website http://citysoftwalks.com/ heres a visual below of the seat. 

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Next was Michael Grigoriev, and i'm genuine when i say no one understood what he presented. We had a tea break right after he spoke and this one guy walking infront of me asked his friend what that was about and he was also unsure.. He was strange though, he seemed like more of a market annalist than anything else. He spoke about his belief in how collective intelligence and a group based solution is more successful. So 2 heads are better than 1, in other words. And then he spoke about some project in Canada about how the aboriginal people in Canada are talking their issues into their own hands.... this is honestly all i understood.

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but after this not so great presentation came a totally weird presentation. Marguerite Humeau (click her name to go to her website). This girl is very um.. unique, and shes been working on this trilogy for her thesis based on prehistoric sounds. So she looked at 3 extinct animals and tried to develop models of their larynx and simulate what they might have sounded like. But her process and how she went about all this was incredible, she found fossils and looked at decedents of these creatures trying to figure it out.. oh and if that wasnt strange enough she leaves us with the next project shes working on which is some communication device that will speak to aliens and extraterritorial life.. my mouth was probably open the entire time she spoke... BIG "wat the..." expression. best is to check her website

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Next is Pieter-Jan Pieters (his parents like the name Pieter), he based his thesis on music and instruments that work with natural kinetics and body movements that occur when we listen to music, so like finger and foot tapping, waving etc, and he designed 5 instruments that connect or feed off of these movements to make the sound. The instruments are named WOB (which is the wave movement), Finger (finger tapping), kick (pretend kick drum), hart (tracks your heartbeat) and lastly draw(where you draw dots or lines and you scan that to pick up sound)... watch the video after the pics :)

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Then there was Wael Morcos and he focused on more graphics again and typography. He was from Lebonon and he says there are so many Arabic handwritings and symbols that look similar you can give someone a word and someone else the same word and they'll both read different things but they'll both be right depending on their dialect.. I was tired at this point and couldnt grasp this too much, Arabic font is not really my interest at 4pm.

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Then there was Leanie van der Vyver, who entitled her thesis 'scary beautiful' which is a play on how fashion can so easily brainwash people. She used the example of heels and how they have benefits for woman like correcting posture and create a sensualness to the body. She then investigates and questions our ideals of beauty and how this changes our view of our bodies. In her better words 

"The conclusion of my thesis investigation was that people are not satisfied with what they look like and that perfection according to beauty and fashion standards has reached a climax. Humans are playing God by physically and metaphorically perfecting themselves. Beauty is currently at an all time climax, allowing this project to explore what lies beyond perfection. Scary Beautiful challenges current beauty ideals by inflicting unexpected new beauty standards."

“Just being human is not good enough anymore nor has it ever been. What is very clear is that people are not satisfied with what they were naturally born with. Neither the prehistoric cave dweller nor modern man has ever considered the human body aesthetically satisfactory."

watch the vid below, she explains much better! But she makes an impact, i know Lady Gaga used these in one of her music videos, very cool

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Ok so the student thesis works are done :) I'm glad our lecturers dont push us into these hectic ways in our thesis year :) dont get any ideas..

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Oscar Diaz was the is a kief product designer. 

He is best known for designing the ink calender where over time the ink absorbs into the calender to tell you what day of the month it is.

But just in general a really cool guy that believes small changes to existing products can make an improvement to the product and the user of the product. no matter how small the improvement is its always better. check his webiste http://www.oscar-diaz.net/ and his simple products.

He did a challenge where he redesigned or 'fixed' 10 objects in 10 days.. so he went into 1pound shops to look for these products and fix them, things like an orange juicer, torch and door lock and rubbish bin were taken to look at. 

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Then lastly for day one they had a really important and inspirational guy named John Maeda. He knows his stuff, but in a nutshell his whole talk was about leadership and the difference between creative leaders and ordinary leaders (obviously creative leaders were better) and in and out this lecture he used really cool examples and theories. 

He said Design and Data is important, without data, design would simply be art. 

His one theory was based on glue where creative people are spray glue (quick and new and can solve temporarily for the latest problem but not long lasting) and ordinary people are wood glue (which is slow and painful and frustrating but hard to pull apart) so basically both have good and bad. Spray glue peels which is a representation of our ability to solve problems easily but it isnt going to work forever because we solve the problem with the data given to us now. Ordinary people look at the long term and take a really long time to make decisions and act on those decisions. Creative people are better tho because the world and its problems will always be developing with whats happening in the now..

Another good example he used was the Octopus Concept. The octopus obviously has a brain but what many people dont know is that an octopuses tenticles or 8 legs have an ability to think or act upon their own choices but these choices generally benefit the octopus as a whole. So imagine we have a creative leader as the brain and the tenticles would act as the different parts that make up a group of leaders and are always helping the unit as a whole. He says this is the ideal democratic situation. It doesnt always work out though unfortunately as we all know. But ja there was much more to his talk its just difficult to explain it, best is to google him and his books :) He's been around for a while so could be hectic :)

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Anyways Thanks for reading :)

I'll post day 2 and day 3 tomorrow after day 3 is complete

Design Indaba day 1, part 1

This is my take on the Design Indaba and its highly opinionated, summarized and very much from my point of view. I'll describe the people in order and I really tried to write or take note of as much as possible to try explain it, but i obviously cant do it the same justice... Please read my explanations (sorry if they're a bit long) before you visit the links or watch the videos. I'm sorry for the long sentences, i really just typed how i thought it and am not gona edit, pfft! OH! and the cool stuff is always near the end.
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Paula Scher
shes a graphic designer that focuses on environmental graphics (that's signage for us normal people) and she uses this as a way to mold behavior and this behavior becomes an identity of a project.
Her best example would probably be her public signage for train-stops, they're cool, but i couldn't find an example which i was bummed about, i think its still in concept development phase.

and she also helped collaborate on the new Windows 8 Interface, the new flat sort of perspective view Windows 8 icon. and seen how that's transformed into all the office programs and advertisements.
check the link bellow on her story of the logo..
Story of the widows8 logo

             



and she does a lot of public school transformations. She is inspired very much from rebelliousness expressions, so she always questions why something is considered 'normal', she then channels this into a sort of expression. So she rebelled against normal cream coloured schools and challenged it with a sort of supportive graffiti and typography which is also a rebellious act but now has become the norm. performing arts school new facade




another transformation she did which was similar to the school typography all over, she redeveloped the look for the Public Theatre in New York. A very cool product i thought was clever was the chandelier in the lobby of the theatre that is all these blades with LEDs on them and basically they flash the words of shakespeares plays. Just something simple which could possiby be used as a marketing tool and a large-scale multimedia sculpture. There are other pieces shes done within the theatre all sorts of typography of words from well recognized shows and movies.
The Shakespeare Machine



I just thought it was cool how she transforms the heritage of a building with a few words. Everything she does is designed after a strong understanding of the past, and past mistakes, and context and each design may just be words repeated all over but the words are easy to relate to the identity of the project, or simply to the user of the space...
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Then Seymour Chwast spoke about his graphic stuff which wasnt that exciting. His main topics are God, Sex and War and basically he gets commisioned to draw up his ideas of these topics often.

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Then Ben Terret who spoke about the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) and how the development of the website helps the people in the UK and all the graphics and design and user interface that went into that. I think it was important that him and his team sort of went through the government website and made sure it was as clear as possible and he kept repeating that "the government should only do what the government is able to do". A good example he used was on the old government website where there was a page teaching the public about bee-keeping and there was even one that taught people about waves (like at the beach) the heading was seriously "how to identify a wave"... seriously don't people notice that they are designing a webpage for something totally ridiculous?!
Check the new website bellow
www.gov.uk

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Alex Chen

Oh my word this guy is reeeeeally amazing!
He works at Google (every designers dream) and he draws inspiration from music, but more specifically the science and calculations behind music. He designed that awesome Les Paul Google Doodle (<--- click to play) from 2011.


He focuses very much on creating a visual representation of music but with no musical value, like instead of how we typically see reading music and giving it names and value on a scale, he does it with lines and the longer the line the deeper the note played, its hard to explain it like he does.

He also took this concept and designed something (cant find a name) but if you check out this link Musical Subway Map you will see its a representation of the NY subway and when the trains run over each other it makes a noise. Quite sweet and peaceful to just watch for a while.

 He developed this video which best describes the line and music concept. It plays a bach song with the lines. 

One of his coolest collaborations is on the Google "project glass" where Google people have designed these glasses like specticals that use this built in interface we see that link us to our phones and all social networks and information.. i cant explain the awesomeness, seriously just watch the video! And check out the websites google.com/glass and https://plus.google.com/+projectglass/posts to see the trial runs and concepts

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Next awesome asian guy was Masasashi Kawamura

and he says he focuses on "designing new ways to design" and his opening slide said "By making things differently, you'll get something different (no dub)" and i think his best example of this was his music video set he designed and helped shoot. It was for the song Bright Sirens by Androp (japanese band) where he used 250 cameras and developed the software and the system for these cameras to act or behave like strobes, the cameras like made shapes and patterns and even text that he programmed into them. I'm going to post the music vid and then the making of the music vid, watch the actual music video first.

The passion and 'difficult' way he chooses to use the camera is what he means from "by making something differently, you'll get something different", so instead of using normal LEDs for strobes he made a successful video and advert campaign for Canon.

Another example of also an asian music video was for the song Hibi No Neiro by Sour. He said he got the brief for this and literally NO BUDGET like no money for this project, and he was high school friends with the band members, so he couldn't exactly say no to the job. Apparently the song is about bringing people closer and being near (i'm guessing thats what Neiro means). 

Since he had no budget he told his friends online about the project and they became the actors. He then wanted to use a very strange filming method which is absolutely free, something we all use to be NEARER to our loved ones when they are far away. check out the video.

So this quite literal transformation of using skype as the camera and having different people act out the scenes wasnt as easy as it seems. He describes the process of him having to act it out by himself and work out all the choreography and then sending it to his friends and telling them what block they are, nevertheless it worked out pretty successfully. Another good example of making things differently..

He also did a very funny project called Sperm Visualizer... and this is a little app or online game thingy where they designed these little dancing sperms and you can make them dance to any music. He explained the process and it was initially for some advery campaign that failed unfortunately. He said the process of recording and studying the sperm cells - of his own colleagues i might add - wouldve been too much of a waste if they didnt carry on developing it. So here's the link to the DANCING SPERM (<---) haha you can even search on the side for any music and the sperm dances to it but i suggest you watch his demo song first, very funny! 

I'm going to carry on with the rest of day 1,part 2 now now just need a break quickly..

Yes it is lots of reading...

This is my intro and problem statement to my years thesis :) comments are welcome!

I still havent thought of a name or identity for the school yet.. still getting there!

Introduction

“I believe arts education in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface.”  ~ Richard W. Riley

A stage performance transports an audience into a new story, each scene diving deeper and deeper into the subconscious of your imagination, imprinting upon ones dreams and maybe even influencing future visions.  

Besides being a form of entertainment the performing arts are about the reflection of experience. Being able to connect experiences is being able to create new capabilities. Instead of having a simple linear solution, a broad insight can be used to solve any problem from understanding gained through experience.

(name of school) is an institute for students who wish to develop knowledge and skills in the field of performing arts, namely drama, musical theatre and dance. The school will transform existing Pagdens Court into a collection of teaching studios and rehearsal rooms, ‘recording prac pods’, theory classrooms, small dining hall and media centre. The school will also host a costume rental wardrobe for student productions and the public. 

Problem Statement

The eminence of arts and cultural in Nelson Mandela Bay is slowly growing and more people are becoming involved with reviving the arts, culture and heritage of the city.

According to Van Mazijk (2012:7) the Athenaeum Club and PEMADS Little Theatre has recently undergone a 5.1 million rand revamp. The Mandela Bay Development Agency funded this development as well as the earlier improvements in Parliament Street and on the Donkin Reserve. The intension of the revamp is to cater for a new breed of audience. In future developments Belmont Terrace, Bird Street and the surrounds are to be targeted for arts and culture enhancements.  The area is said to become a ‘creative collective’ of Nelson Mandela Bay (Van Mazijk 2012:7)

In support of this article, the location and context of Pagdens Court allows for the building to house a performing arts school to better contribute to the arts, culture and heritage enhancements in the area.

Vogel ([s.a]: 3) states “In a world where art and music is becoming increasingly devalued in many schools, creativity is still one of the most sought-after 21st century skills for the job market.” Thus people developing the built environment must prepare for such a future by designing facilities that support and nurture creative spirit. (Vogel [s.a]: 3)

The institute will educate students on a tertiary level. If correct facilities are provided more talent can be shaped, driving more shows and performances to take place in Nelson Mandela Bay, resulting in a growth of income for the arts in general. The students will have an opportunity to become qualified in teaching dance and acting or even delve into backstage and technical theater jobs. 

PEMADS    MBDA    Pagdens   Performing Arts

Fondue for 2 ?

so we made a fondue tonight .. melted chocolate is the best form of chocolate there is :)

Esther and I got tickets for Design Indaba today! lets get inspired!
The best news of all is i got the best plans ever from Sally at Pagdens today! CAN START WOOOORK :)
more news next week .. on everything .. enjoy the weekend!

OH MY EF!

The greatest news all year so far!!

I almost cried :)
Esther and I buying tickets tomorrow morning !

From the great theories of Varsha Ramlall "my thesis has replaced my heartbeats"

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Bit of light reading..

Saw an example of ex-btech documents today.. very mixed feelings about this year now. On the plus side i'm writing a book..

Okay so here goes..

I've been somewhat shoved into the direction of documenting this year of madness ahead of me. Personally I think it's a way for our lecturers to keep track of us, making sure we don't go over the edge. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to show you what i actually do with my life and time this year, thus the name "a speck of btech". This will be my unedited, behind the scenes, gag real space.

 So the years off to a hectic-ish start with brief hand outs flying at us all possible directions. Right now we are resolving what our treatises topics are and what building we are using. 

For my treatise, so far the plan is to do a Tertiary Performing Arts school focusing on Drama, Musical Theatre and Dance, and the various subdivisions each requires.. for lack of better example imagine the school in the Step Up movies.

My building, which i fell in love with from the get go, is the Pagdens Court Building. 18 Castle Hill. Check it out bellow.

Older image taken in 1906 from http://www.artefacts.co.za/main/Buildings/bldgframes.php?bldgid=10090

and a more recent image from google earth bellow

It's slightly intimidating to be working with a 97 year old building, because of all the heritage regulations, but it is a cool building and its right next to the PEMADS Little Theater which has recently undergone a renovation. 

Anyways, in later days i'll be posting more work related topics or just ranting on about all the work we have to do. Feel free to comment or give feed back of any kind.

Toodles

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PS: this blog layout and template may change very often until i find something i like, so don't think you're on the wrong blog if it looks totally different from the one you saw yesterday.

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