The 10-principles of good industrial design

Dieter Rams: "make a product useful and be innovative, aesthetically pleasing, easy to understand, honest, unobtrusive, long-lived, consistent in every detail and environmentally friendly, and good design is as little design as possible."

Task 1c > Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff

After viewing Annie Leonard’s video, I think that people living in wealthier countries maybe happier because they can afford luxury, e.g. HD-TV, mp3, vehicles, etc. Whilst, populations in the third world and developing countries that cannot afford the luxury are working in factories established by local and foreign companies in these people’s home-country. These workers suffer the brunt of mass production, as mentioned in the video, the presence of toxic gas, wastes and materials can affect the people’s health who are surrounding these processes because they needed to earn for their ‘butter and bread’. 

A. Leonard goes on about this system is unequally distributed and procedures taken to produce products is unhealthy. I am agreeing to this as well as to say another reason why I think western companies re-locate and establish in developing nations, is because wastes-maintenance is well-enforced in their western country and are also expensive to dispose the wastes. After a video I watched in Past, Present & Future [lecture] in semester-1, where there is a display of an immense collection of wastes in a dump site area in Kenya. Disposed computers, plastics, metals and electronics from U.K. are left in a location to rot and the toxic from these materials are affecting the land and the civilians living near the dump site.

I think because environmental and waste management policies are not well enforced and regulated in countries like Kenya, and in addition to low labour costs, and so perhaps it is extremely inexpensive for massive [western] companies to dispose of their wastes and just leave the dump in areas of developing countries. Whilst, western countries such as Australia have effective regulations in enforcing and promoting waste management because heavy legal penalties are given for inappropriate waste managing.

Annie Leonard had noted significant facts and considerations about sustainable designs to maintain and preserve the integrity and respect of culture and people, and the natural environment. After hearing these I realise as a design student I am encouraged to process and design ways to promote sustainability in designs. Keeping a safe world is a happy world. A noteworthy awareness for designer to look after our earth and leave behind benefits for the future generation to come.

Annie Leonard speaks of products that are designed to have short-life and are disposed by the user as wastes, and so user will move on to buy another. Her implication is that this system contributes to more wastes to be produced and resources consumed to create the product are wasted. I want to think that using the short-life system and thinking of sustainable design, because our today's world are influenced by many things, and our tastes and preferences will change and we buy something, then throw away, and buy another [new one], then throw away, and so on. 

Because people’s taste change and so designer expect their products will not last forever in homes and will be thrown into the trash-can (because people will want new things), it is only sensible (I think) to make designs that are short-life, and also should be sustainable and recyclable, in way to help take off the load of harm we did to our world.

I have an unoriginal idea which I will ask, why not design or not make anything at all. Just don't make and don't produce anything. If no products are made, then no harmful gas and wastes are produced, so no materials will be used, no leading to contribution of waste-dump, and so no resource extraction from the natural environment will happen. Would this not maintain the survivability of the planet?
Because every designers design for their own different reasons and goals. Design to help and promote national economy; design to solve daily problems; design to save and keep lives; design to earn income; design to maintain the organisation; and daresay design for the better for humankind and earth. We also have things because we all want things for the better and enrichment for our life.

What is optimistic about this message from the video, is we are aware and there are those who will care and are interested in being realistic about a system that doesn't "waste energy, sustainability, equity..." [quote from the video].

It would be nice that industrial designers take note of the message delivered by this video clip. Designers are to understand that planet resources is finite and so create better understanding of sustainability and equity that may preserve all livelihoods of Earth.

Task 4: Design Career

I want to become a Toy designer for children. Would like to work at a firm that specialise in children-related products and the idea of working at the Lego Company has appealed to me. I want to design toys that are (if possible) indiscriminate, worthwhile to have, safe and serve happiness to children and others around them.  I also wanted to design products that are socially-encouraged (social-orientated), something like the family members can also spend good time with their children/younger brother or sister while play.

 

Another interest I have is in humanitarian areas where I can place skills in designing things to help others. The idea of working in humanitarian has triggered my interest I think it’s because I grew up in a developing country and my exposure to humanitarian needs and the ceaseless reminder of the importance of human welfare.

I have searched online to see what are the requirements and qualifications to become a toy designer. The searching process had led me to Industrial Design at UNSW. To my current knowledge the degree is the highest qualification I can attain to become a designer. An opportunity I cannot forgo. I hope to learn, acquire skills and knowledge that can help me achieve goals in design.

In addition to learning about the elements of designing physical products, the degree also offers other subjects that I have interest in, such as commercial marketing; human behaviour and psychology with design product; people and design interactions within different environment.

I do not know what the future will be like for me in design. It is still quite early for me to be sure about my future. This is only my second semester, and the learning curve in this degree is exponential. Things that designer should know and understand is all very new to me, because I have no previous experience with studies of design and technology (previously have been more on the studies of biology and economics). But I think after learning and understanding from this design course I will always feel responsible in designing products for people with important consideration of their welfare with the use of the product and designing eco-friendly items.

5 Sketches of Favourite Designs at Sydney Exhibitions

Designer: Tokujin Yoshioka
Product: ToFu Lamp
Exhibit: Japanese Design Today 100
*I prefer this open and honest design, this lamp entails simplicity and straightforwardness in design. The lamp is not the significance of this design, but the element of light; how it is captured and used.

Company: GWA Bathrooms and Kitchens
Product: Caroma Flow Shower Head
Exhibit: Australian Design International Award
*The concept, process and thinking necessary to create this technological design to be sustainable and promote eco-friendly aims (e.g. reduce carbon emission), has become my favourite product design, due its advance mechanism that helps save water, energy and energy cost. Its element of efficiency had made this shower head the number one product award.
*The design company claims this product can save energy up to 28 per cent compared to an equivalent 3-star shower.

Product: Stool
Exhibit: Au.thentic
*I cannot find any information of this stool. This design is made of purely-white colour plastic-like material; stackable on another similar stool; very broad composition in the legs and seating; bulky appearance but looks extremely light.
*What capture my attention is its 'fat' legs and the curves that goes along the leg from the seat; they look so natural and human-like in body form and the combination of plastic and whiteness had made it so aesthetically pleasing to look at.

Designer: Jennifer Edmund
Product: C-10 Chair
Exhibit: Workshopped 11
*This design is considered my favourite because it needs no glue, no PVC, no nails, no screws, no whatsoever to assemble this C-10. The structure relies on the properties of strength, flexibility, physical tension, all provided by the natural materials of plywood and American walnut; processed materials of fibreglass and polycaprolacton; and the chair is stabilised by numbers of nylon cord to provide seating. This design understands the physics of natural forces and natural elements.












Designer: Anne Mondro
Design: Detroit's Shadow
Exhibit: Love Lace
*I find a liking to this design because of the exceptional details applied here to tell history and create stories of design, the era, and people. This design appealed to me with enjoyable wonderment.

Design Confusion with Tefal's Delfini Toaster

At home using this particular toaster I could not locate the cancel/stop/ or eject function on this product. The search for the stop button was not easy.

Noticing three key functions on this toaster, one on the left-top of the toaster, and two on the right side. I've test them to see if any will help me succeed in receiving my two pieces of toasts unburnt. However, these functions only employ the toast-warmer stand; the lever for pressing the bread down; and the heat timer. This became really confusing knowing that there is no stop button to eject the toasts.

The poster have a close up view of the actual location of the eject function. A stop/eject label was unseen and hidden underneath the turning-knob timer. Low visibility of the label did not help the finding of the eject button. The eject function is actually married with the timer function together under the turning-switch function. User will have to turn the switch with their fingers, in an anti-clockwise direction to reach the eject.

The redesign was to increase the visibility of the ejection sign, by locating the turn-switch to the front of the toaster, and rearrange the position of the numbers and the eject sign. The red shape is the eject sign. This way the switch is easier to find without any confusion to the user.

Design Excellence: Arras Bench Solution

I feel this award-winning product have a very pleasant appearance, and pleasing aesthetic for viewer's eyes to witness the well balance and simple harmonious lines that make up the stable structural forms. It is the plentiful spacious above and below the bench that I like about it. Certainly giving the idea of freedom of moving and uses on the work-bench. The bench offers preference to work here or there; take a rest or stay focus on task; so a design bench that provide choices and freedom. An genuinely environmental-friendly materials are employed in this design, such as the use of bamboo and strawboard worksurfaces.

What I have learned from this process of product, are the use of combination of visual elements (line, texture, colour, shape, pattern) to be essential and considered in designs. Also to note about designs to have principles of balance, scale, proportions, harmony and rhythm. A designer will ponder upon the relationships between details of elements and principles, how they will affect the design and product, and how the designs will be essential and necessary to the world.