G PI Y E A R
O N E
Louise Steyaert
Thank you to Silvia and Jamie for this great year in GPI! Louise Steyaert
01 DESIGN LET’S MAKE A BRIDGE! 02 PRINCIPLES 3D TYPE 03 ALTER EGO 04 BOXING LONDON 05 VISUAL GRAMMAR 06 GRIDS 07 TAXONOMY 08 END USERS 09 WAY-FINDING 10 SENSORS
THE DESIGNER’S TOOLBOX
11 PROTOTYPING BROAD OAK FARM 12 PROJECTIONS 13 THE HANDOVER GIFT 14 THE WAY WE EAT
PPD / VCT 15 SYSTEMATIC FAILURE 16 100 OBJECTS
THE DESIGNER ’S TOOLBOX 01
THE DESIGN PROCESS
DESIGN TOOLBOX
On our first day of term we were asked to think about the design process: What are all the stages that a designer must go through to get from the brief to the final product? At first, without truly thinking about it, we all gave an order to the typical steps we take to resolve a brief: First you brainstorm, then you research, then you document, next you experiment....until the final presentation of the design. However as weeks have gone by, we have learned more and more about the design process, tackling each individual obstacle ourselves. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that there is no universal ‘design proces’ appropriate to everyone. each designer works in his own way. Some will prefer to follow a consistent order while others will skip some steps out and go straight from brainstorming to creating a prototype. Others will sway back and forth, eperimenting, making mistakes, adding to research, etc. In these spreads I have presented three projects undertaken during the last term. First of all, a visual summing up a certain design process: Unhierarchic and inconstant. The following two are stages of the design process: “design development & idea visualisation” and “creating a protoype”.
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT & IDEA VISUALISATION
ORAL HEALTH This stage of the Design Process focuses on the development of an idea. We all tend to think that a good idea will solve our problem, but this exercise showed us how much is dependant on what happens after the ‘stoke of genius’. We were given a brief and an idea which solves it. It was then up to us to develop that idea into a finished prototype. It was really interesting to see how each group came up with very different outcomes, all starting from the same idea. The initial idea was a Dental Pack that patients can have access to before a dentit’s appointment, designed to encourage patients to keep their appointment and calm their nerves in the waiting room. We came up with a DIY dental pack that the patient receives by email after booking his/her appointment. The email contains an attachment with three pages to print off at home. Our dental pack is accessible to everyone but our main target audience are children. Our objective is for children to enjoy creating their paper tools and look forward to the dentist’s appointment to be able to use them.
This is the big Tooth Box which encompasses everyhting. The template for this box can only be cut out of an A3 sized sheet of paper which makes it very tricky to print at home. Thus, we decided that the dentist would give it to the child as a reward if he/she came to the appointment.
The stress ball, mini toothbox and oblivious glasses. These are purpousfully uncoloured to allow the child to use his imagination and decorate them how he pleases.
CREATING A PROTOTYPE
“URBAN GARDEN” Lauren, Tom and me paired up for the final stage of the Design Toolbox. Each of us being from the countryside, we came up with the idea of a toolbox filled with seeds, soil and gardening tools . You may think that this has no link whatsoever with a Design Toolbox, but we believe that nothing is more inspiring than taking a breath of fresh air or a stroll in the garden. Our toolbox is created for designers living in the city who do not have the possibility to undertake these refreshing activities. We felt terribly sorry for them and thought how hard it must be for them to think properly in a dusty cloud of chaos and noise. This is why we came up with the “Urban Garden” - a DIY gardening kit which makes it possible to grow plants wherever you are, and allow your ideas to blossom simultaneously. Included in the Urban Garden are: - Two pots that act as your starting point for your design work. - One pack of soil, which is the base of the plant and is intergral to keeping everything together, like brainstorming for a brief. It nourishes your ideas. - Two sachets of seeds which are like the key words from your brief which you choose to use to help with your designs. They provide a fundamental basis to your train of thought. - One peg & roll fo string. In order for your plants to grow tall and strong, they will need to be supported throughout their growth. The same applies for your designs.
-The scissors allow you to prune and refine your designs as they grow into their final form, leaving you with a well rounded product. - Many gardeners record how their plants our growing and use this information to reflect on how they could improve in the future. We have provided writting materials and a camera in order for you to also record your thoughts and observations at each point.
Part of our concept was to make everything out of recycled materials. Eco friendly thinking influenced our whole product creation - from the materials we found, recycled and reused to the development of minimal packaging. Nothing used to construct this toolbox was bought, everything was found or made using existing materials. If this project was to be made into a real marketed product, we would make sure that our cardboard
was made from sustainable forests and that all packaging be recyclable and biodegradable. Nowadays it is so important for businesses to be more sustainable and reduce the impact on the environment.
LET’S MAKE A BRIDGE!
WITH STRAWS, STRING & PINS
02
First challenge of the year: Construct a bridge using only straws, string and pins. The bridge must be suspended between two tables standing one metre apart and be able to carry a full 33cl can of coke. This was an obvious call to our sense of logic and structure. What kind of construction will ensure the stregnth of such ordinary and weak materials?
After many unrealistic sketches and broken straws, Freddie and I finally built a fantastic bridge which did exactly what it was supposed to do: hold the can and not collapse.
3 D TYPO GRAPHY 03
Objective: turning two-dimensional type into three-dimentional type. We had to choose a saying, quote or lyric and turn it into a 3D peice of work. No computers allowed.
I opted for a very minimalistic use of medium: paper and sunlight.
The expression ‘Cut it out’ is most pften used when one is angry, frustrated or annoyed. This photograph evoques these angry feelings by the way the paper is crumpled and thrown onto the ground, the stray letters scattered around it.
ALTER EGO
04
Clark Kent and Superman, Beyoncé and Sasha Fierce, Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde...What type of transformation occurs when a person takes on an alter ego? Does their physique change or is it their personality? Are their abilities the same? Do they have special powers? My chosen object is a clear plastic cup. Disposable and easily squashable, the plastic cup is often used once then thrown away. It generally has no significant value to the user. Usually filled with unrefined liquids such as juices, sodas or beer. The wine glass on the other hand is finely made, fragile and cherished. It is made to hold wine, which is refined and prestigious. What’s more, the wine glass is held by the user with delicacy and elegance, so as not to shatter it.
The alter ego of the shabby Plastic Cup is the refined Wine Glass, except that the bowl of the wine glass still holds the cup’s chqracteristics. It has changed it’s status and the way others perceive it, but has kept its easy-going, relaxed personality.
BOXING LONDON
05
BEDALE SREET In pairs, we were given a road around Borough High Street to discover, observe and research. Our job was then to encapsulate erything about that place into a 30 by 30 centimeter container. It was too easy to simply collect found objects and place them inside a box, the container itself needed to be hand made and thought about carefully because it too, had to personify the given street. Fabienne and me were allocated Bedale
Street, the street that runs through the centre of bustling Borough Market. Bedale street is situated right in the middle of Borough Market, and as a consequence, splits the market into two parts. You can observe a great variety of people walking down this street, from business men on their lunch break to students, to tramps looking for leftovers to yelling salesmen. Bedale street is filled with a lively, bustling market atmosphere,
filled with the smells of fresh fruit and steaming pies. Inevitably, there is the occasional littler on the floor, but it is often handcrafted, 100% biodegradable packaging destinctive to the market’s eco-friendly ethics. But what we noticed the most were the unique sounds of Bedale Street: the rattling of crates on a chariot, the sizzling of giant woks, snippets of conversation in French, Italian or Polish, and the occasional cries of vendors boasting the
quality of their merchandise. It is this hubbub which best expresses Bedale Street’s personality, so we decided to encapulate that sound into our box.
First of all, we decided to make crates just like those found in borough market. Stacked, they would be our 30 by 30 cenimeter ‘container’. Considering neither of us had ever built wooden crates before, the job was done fairly quickly
and it was great to use the workshop and learn how to use all the different tools. However themost important part of the installation was of course the sounds. I rented out a recording device from the media block and
went to Borough Market hoping to capture the atmospheric sounds. Typically, the machine ran out of battery as soon as I arrived so a second trip was needed, this time in great haste! I managed to record only one minute of sound
but it contained everything I had hoped for: chatting, the passing train, sellers calling out to customers, etc.
We built three crates just like the ones used to store food in at the market. inside the top crate and on the sides you can see flyers and other objects found in Bedale Street: used organic tea bags, wooden knives and forks, paper packaging and napkins... In the middle crate we placed the recording machine and inside the bottom crate lie the speakers, emmitting the bustling sounds of Bedale Street.
VISUAL GRAMMAR
06
Visual Grammar is the communication of a visual language. In order to communicate this language properly, it is necessary to understand what it’s components are and their relation to each other. Through basic excercises using shapes and colour, we learned to recognise harmonious compositions and became aware of the importance of structure in layouts. By the end of the course, our visual senses were awake and all of our creations were much more pleasing to the eye.
Playing around with layouts: which create a contrast? Which seem to merge into one? Colours and shapes can play tricks on the eye...
Type scapes
Design
Friday 4 December 2009
Typography in Spatial Environments Gallery presentations: Nikki Bell Morag Myerscough Andy Altman Ruedi Bauer Design Mueum Shad Themes, London SE1 2YD 020 7403 6933 info@designmuseum.org
GRIDS
07
TAXONOMY
08
Amok Borzoi Cower Diktat Ennui Flitch Gaffe Ha-ha Imp Jilt Kitsch Lynch Mahout Necromancy Onus Paragon Quire Regent Seraph Telekinesis Umbra Verbose Wholly Xenon Yeoman Zygote
Ha-ha Gaffe Imp Amok Jilt Umbra Flitch Lynch Ennui Cower Diktat Seraph Regent Onus Quire Kitsch Xenon Paragon Yeoman Mahout Borzoi Verbose Wholly Zygote Necromancy Telekinesis
I LIKE CANDY
Taxonomy is the science of organising information. It is one of the most powerful factors influencing how people think about and react with a design. During our lessons on taxonomy we were first asked to classify words. The previous spreads illustrate the relationship between 26 words arranged in alphabetical order, and the ascending order of how much each word adds up to if a=1, b=2, c=3... Our next task was to classified sweets. They came in all shapes, sizes and colours so there were dozens of interesting ways to organise them. I decided to classify them by order of sinkability.
The next page communicates how quickly each sweet sinks in water. Finally, my personal taxonomy consists of a series of dips and sauces found in a fridge. I decides to align them in order of their sell-by date, from oldest to newest. I didn’t want to use photography for this collection so instead traced the outline of the jars. Although extremely minimalistic, the graphic representation of this assortment is quite beautiful.
TIME TO SINK IN MILLISECONDS 110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
BEST BEFORE
OCT 08
MAY 09
JULY 09
JULY 09
AUG 09
26 SEP 09
NOV 09
NOV 09
01.12
2.09
FEB2010
MARCH 10
28 JUNE 10
JULY2010
JULY 10
SEP 10
NOV 10
31.01.2011
02/02/11
12/02/11
SEP 2011
11.11
31.01.12
WAY FINDING
09
Initially, our plan was to construct our giant arrow out of large sheets of paper stuck together. We though this would be the lightest medium we could lay our hands on. We chose the lightest paper possible from the college shop and Roland, David and Jenai spent one afternoon putting the arrow together. It was only once they had finished that they realised it was much too heavy to be lifted into the air by helium baloons. We needed a different medium, lighter and stronger than paper but that could guanantee take off.
Then we had a stroke of genius: bubble wrap! It was the perfect substitute to paper because of its very light weight and facility to cut and stick. What’s more, plastic doesn’t rip like paper does. Once again we constructed the giand 3D arrow. Success! It was easy to see how much better this structure was to the preceding: les fragile and a great deal lighter.
The last step of the construction was choosing a colour. We chose orange because it is most contrasted to the sky. We invested in over 100 sheets of orange tissue paper and 3 spray-mount cans. Working well as a team, the job was done quickly and efficiently.
We thought about all the existing signs in Elephant & Castle that no one pays any attention to, wihch gave birth to the idea of giant signalisation in the sky. Big and beautiful, you can’t miss them! This was our vision.
This is what actually happened: Due to an unexpeced lack of helium, our arrow never took off from the ground. We even had to leave the stem behind and just use the triangle with the hope that it alone would be light enough to fly. It was a complete failure.
SENSORS
10
THE WAY WE EAT
11
PROTOTYPING
MIND YOUR MANNERS
This project wanted us to explore the creation of prototypes and their development throughout the design process. The brief was called “The Way We Eat�.
I started off by observing various dining traditions in different parts of the world and different social groups. I also tried an experiment on our class: Ask each individual to set the table the way they would for a casual family diner. The responses were so varied and intersting, mainly due to cultural differences. This got me thinking about etiquette. Clearly, table manners are not the same all around the world, so how do you know how to behave is a foreign country? One gesture may seem very polite in the UK, while it will be seen as disgraceful in another country.
Here is my solution: Rather than just having on-board security cards to read while travelling by plane, why not make the journey more fun and interesting by teaching the passengers how to mind their manners in the country of their destination. I have created three prototypes of on-board cards which have the same aspect as the typical safety instruction guides you often find in the seat pocket in front of you. However these cards show pictogramms of dining scenes and situations you may find yourself in in a foreign country, and tips on how to act, as well as how not to act!
BROAD OAK FARM 12
Broad Oak Farm is a small family owned business who specialise in making sausages. They are based in Essex and have been producing sausages for over 80 years. Although their pork is of a rare premium quality and deserves the highest praise, their branding and marketing campains have been weak in the past thus they have struggled to make themselves known. This is why we, first year GPI’s come in. Our task is to re-brand, re-design, re-invent Broad Oak Farm and turn it into an appealing, attractive product. Their current packaging is well designed and relatively modern but not eye catching at all, and made from cheap looking materials. My group’s task was to look into new packaging techniques that would help Broad Oak Farm promote themselves.
PACKAGING
RESEARCH
Broad Oak Farm’s current packaging looks like a bag of crisps and is apparently not very popular with the public. Their graphics are not bad at all, but the overall look of the packaging needs pimping up to stand out from the sausage crowd. The new packaging must be: - Eco-friendly - stable/strong - pracical - modern twist - tape glued - ’premium quality’ look - ttention grabbing - appealing to the customer
In class we established that sausages are most appealing when: - presented on black or dark packaging - the sausages themselves can be seen - packed into rectangular trays with plastic film cover - Authentic, warm colours: brown, burgandy, beige, black However, here are a few examples of very attractive packaging which do not follow all fo these rules: AIdells sausages are vacuum-packed, something we found deeply unnatractive and cheap looking on most products, but
here works very well. PLUS it’s much more eco-friendly, especially as vacuum film can now be made from corn starch which is biodegradable. In spite of the vacuuming, Aidells managed to make their sausages look appealing thanks to the warm colours, authentic feel and dark backdrop to the sausages, which makes them look expensive rather than cheap. Mr. Singh’s Bangras are completely enveloped in a cardboard sleeve which contradicts the idea that meat must be see to look attractive. We believe this packaging is a success because the photograph of the sausage on the front is so perfectly cooked
and steaming that it make the customer’s mouth water just by looking at it. What’smore, the main colour is black which once again evokes chic and quality. The Vilt saucisson sec is beautifully presented, using minimal packaging, only a net and tags. The combination of burgandy, black and gold witht the design of a wax stamp recalls royalty and high class.
PACKAGING
FINAL CONCEPT
We did a bit of research and found out that the most sought after sausage packing was one that had two separate containers, which could be both frozen and refrigerated. Surprisingly this kind of packaging is not around and split containers are only limited to separating fruit from yogurts or cereal from milk. I know from
experience that trying to chisel off two sausages from a frozen packet of twelve is a pretty difficult job, but why should it be? The container we’re prototyping would be a breakable plastic tray. This would mean a house hold of two or maybe just a very hungry individual could eat the first pack and freeze the second quite
easily with no chiseling accidents. The sausages would also be available in two sets of six or for larger families.
PROJECT IONS
13
The Tate Modern is one of London’s most famous landmarks. Its vast flat surfaces allow endless projection oportunities. This model I made is 60cm wide by 20cm high, with a 60cm tall chimney.
I looked into London museums that are open till late at night and the ways in which they can promote their evening events. I came up with the idea that once every fortnight, the Tate Modern would be open all night to visitors. Their information campain would be based on this projection: a bright blue sky with floating clouds, allowing the Tate building to stand out luminously amongst the rest of the dark, nocturnal city.
THE HANDOVER GIFT 14
SYSTEMATIC FAILURE 15
The 21st Century is a technological age, a metropolis where people are constantly connected. This has resulted in the red phone box, although convenient in the past, to become outdated and seen more as an attraction, a photo opportunity for tourists than a way of communication. In the 1980’s, this system of communication was prevalent with only a small proportion of the country owning mobile phones. But in recent years the system has dwindled considerably and has ultimately resulted in failure. As a group we decided this would be an interesting and relevant system to tackle. We placed prints of empty phone boxes around LCC and asked the question: “What other purpose could the red box be used for?� This book is an archive of the ideas we collected. Thank you to all the anonymous participants.
100 OBJECTS
16