...Capability Statement Firstly and what I consider most importantly I am fiercely competitive, I consider this highly important as competitiveness in relation to design can bring across and push outward many different positive aspects and methods of thinking that stem from this personality traits. A streak of competitiveness will always make you push personal and group boundaries, it makes you strive towards not only being good but being great. It gives you the ability to put in the work and spend the time to get a good result as personal pride becomes a strong player. By this I mean once given a project and taken aspects on board I always have the drive to do better, to consider others and guide lines and push them as far as possible. I think this is vital, especially in university and further more the work field, as some times you are given a project, a studio or an elective that once started you do not click with or genuinely like. When inspiration, or interest for a project go out the window, it is important to be competitive enough to still want to do great work. I find even with projects I do not like I have the personal pride that gets my work finished and across the line. I feel this is evident in a previous studio for example my studio 3 which was ‘Live House’. The balloting plug was extremely different to what they actually ended up wanting to do in the class, but although very disheartening I found I ended up doing something you would rather not have to do, through competitiveness and personal pride I still did not do the work to just pass but I worked hard to do well. Even every week by week presentation, as much as I may have despised the work I still put in the hard yards to submit work I was proud of. This brings me straight into my next trait that I think is beneficial for design. I am very hard working. Weather it be something small or something large I work as hard as I possibly can to make sure the task is thoroughly completed. I work part time which some times makes school work hard to fit in, but with my hard working nature I always find the time and plenty of it to make sure I can do the best of my ability. Whether this means working long nights, early mornings or giving up other things I will always sacrifice what needs be to make sure I can do the work I need too. The next two things I strongly believe are a big part of who I am and two parts that I am proud of. Number one I am very strong minded person when it comes to what I believe in and secondly I am openly loud and clear and speak my mind. By this I mean I am always expressing what ever it is that I want. And I think this plays a very important thing in what I believe as a huge part of being a good designer is all about. This is balanced by another trait, and that is that I am not afraid to be wrong. For a general example of this I would like to express that I am always very vocal in class, I think this is great as many are not and what I benefit from this is that whether it be that I am right or a I am wrong I will always get the answers I need or the feedback I want, to better my ideas thoughts and knowledge. From being relaxed about speaking and not being afraid that what ever I say may be wrong I progress my self a lot further than if I was to remain quiet. Another interpretation of the word strong points to the fact that I I will always commit my self to
...Capability Statement the project I am doing 100 percent which means being strong in the way you stand up for your ideas and even push your ideas. From being strong minded and openly loud branches out passion. I am here talking about an aspect not commonly viewed as a positive, but I will more often than not enjoy a very good argument about my design or others. I feel being involved in arguments really gets my emotions going and from fighting and fighting for your idea or fighting that some ones else’s idea is wrong you get a real sense of achievement at the end regardless if it be that you realize you were wrong or right. You always seem to get so much more out of an argument fueled by passion. For this point case I would like to take an example from my studies in China where we were given a brief and another student and I else took it in very different directions and of course we both thought we were in the right. After a very hefty and long argument (as I do always like to make people believe I am right) we both concluded we were in fact both wrong and ended up meeting in the middle, which meant the greater aspects of his idea combined with the greater aspects of my idea made up for an altogether fantastic interpretation of the brief. And with out being passionately involved with this argument neither of us would have bothered to talk to each other hence we would not have come up with a better result. Which leads me to say I am a confident collaborator on ideas, I am open and think fluidly. I am thoughtful and flexible in a sense that I can take a problem and stretch it out in so many directions. I solve it in as many ways as possible which again is another of saying that I am a problem solver. This is a highly important skill as a designer and I think I cover it from most angles. I think problems can be solved from head on but I much more enjoy solving them from every angle hence finding problems with in the initial problem that maybe we at first didn’t know existed and sometimes end up being the crux of the issue. For this I again take example from a China studio I took on designing public furniture. Our problem was set to make sturdy and elementary public seating as there was not enough seating available in public spaces considering the size of the population. As every one set about mass producing different variations of bench seats. I took this on board and manipulated the public seating problem into private seating, I thought that as China had such a dense population and that vandalism is such a high problem why not making public seating private so I set about designing portable seating that everyone was issued with and that adapted to the outside environment. This way every one owned their own ‘public seat’ which eliminated vandalism (as people do not purposely wreck there own belongings) and met the demand of the population. So as you can see from a simple problem set out there are often many underlying problems and from being flexible and thoughtful I am able to overcome and solve this other problems in the process. As a design student I am willing and anxious to be involved emotionally with the world around me. Which is why in the past two years the majority of my work has been somewhat involved with sustainability. I think the awareness I have is important because even when not dealing directly with the world around us no matter what you are designing it will affect the global environment Whether it be consumer commodities or a way in which we might change others think. Design plays a huge part in society and peoples’ conceptions. Whether we are reinstating prejudice or changing people’s beliefs we are in fact shaping society including the political process. So from me being aware of my designs and ideas I am emotional engaging myself with the problems of the world and society at hand.
...Capability Statement I am curious and knowledge hungry. The more I learn about something the more I want to know. I am always seeking new things to explore and trying as many different things as I possible can. I read as many books as I can get my hands on including those on design. I crave knowledge and get delight out of discovering something new. I think a clear and simple example of this is that I read on average two novels a week. I am very ambitious. Lastly I enjoy beauty and desire an appealing environment to surround myself with. Although this can come across as shallow I think the need for this drives design as we all seek comfort and beauty around us. We live in a consumer driven world. To be involved in the process of producing goods that are not only purposeful and make our lives easier but are also aesthetically pleasing and beautiful to the eye is rewarding. I think this is evident in many tool kit classes we took when dealing with things like sand casting that can be somewhat heavy and bulky it was still important to make what can be some of the ugliest materials seem beautiful. I worked with the material choice and came up with something that was indeed what I consider beautiful and furthermore most likely desirable. So why am I a good designer? I courageously give everything at least one shot broadening my usual preconceptions. I work furiously and mostly productively. I implement ideas and not just talk about them, I get excited with new challenges and love the unknown. I am a designer that pulls together all the bits and pieces to create a whole.